Looks like the Thrashers move to Winnipeg is a done deal.
As of the morning paper, the NHL, TSN, ESPN and the group in Winnipeg say no, it isn’t a done deal. From tsn.ca just now:
Apparently that didn’t stop partying in the streets in the Peg.
As far as where they would put the Winnipeg Thrashers, does geography really matter? When Vancouver entered the NHL in 1970, they were put in the East. Why I’m not sure. The other two Canadian teams, Toronto and Montreal, were in the East so that makes sense. But at the time the two conferences had a balanced schedule. Baseball for 30+ years had the Atlanta Braves in the West and St Louis in the East.
As far as the idea that Canada could support six more teams, perhaps under the current economic conditions. But a decade ago the Canadian dollar was much weaker, their teams were hurt and there was even speculation that Montreal Canadiens could even move someday. Quebec and Winnipeg didn’t lose teams because a money grubbing troll like Bettman hated them, they were losing money and couldn’t compete. Perhaps these financial conditions will stay the same. But suppose the Canadian dollar weakens in the future versus the US dollar and the cycle repeats?
I don’t know if Atlanta could have supported a good hockey team. The baseball Braves didn’t really draw well in the glory era of 14 (?) straight division titles. But few markets would draw with the inept team and ownership that they had. That is what the NHL should concentrate on when they put teams in markets: select good owners and work with them on building in the community.
It matters. Rivalries are huge generators of interest and it’s tough to create and sustain a rivalry across great distances, especially when those teams have existing rivalries in place. Baseball is also a poor analogy because they play 3 and 4 game series and often 7-10 game homestands and travel once a week. Hockey and Hoops may travel cross country 4 times in a week. Leagues have gotten much smarter about optimizing regional interest and logical alignment is a key part of that strategy. There’s a good reason why the hottest Blackhawks tickets tend to be Red Wings and Blues games, regardless of record.
The economic cycle may repeat, but the climate is wildly different. There’s a hard cap, which there wasn’t a decade ago, and there’s going to be very little league pressure to expand to large southern markets. They tried that and failed, teams won’t leave Canada again for southern tier cities unless those franchises are bankrupt. Winnipeg and Quebec weren’t losing money, but they were operating at a disadvantage. That disadvantage wasn’t solely because of the weak Canadian dollar, it was because they were in substandard stadiums with poor lease arrangements and the big market teams were able to spend unlimited money. The Canadian teams also had weaker local TV deals than the American markets did. The Canadian dollar
certainly didn’t help matters, but it wasn’t the primary issue. Most of this has changed and the national TV contracts are shared more evenly between teams making the local deals less critical. Considering that American and Canadian economies are more linked than ever it’s also unlikely that another broad disparity in the strength of the dollars will arise.
There’s a lot of different ways to skin a cat, having good ownership is important but in some cities it simply doesn’t matter. The Panthers had good owners and tried to engage the community and it simply didn’t work, same with the Coyotes. The NHL needs for focus on markets that are hungry for hockey. Those can either be traditional hockey towns, aka Canadian towns, or they can be under-served sports cities. San Jose has no hockey tradition but they were a large market with nearly no major sports. They’d have latched onto any professional sports that came to town. Sacramento, Portland and Salt Lake City have little basketball tradition but have supported NBA teams well because they were under-served markets even if they are on the small side. I suspect that Winnipeg and any other future Canadian markets will react similarly.
Then Winnipeg’s in trouble.
It’s not a coincidence that the two Canadian cities that lost their teams were the two smallest ones. Winnipeg is not just smaller than the other Canadian franchise cities, it’s a LOT smaller; it has, liberally guessing, 700,000 people in the entire metro area. Edmonton, Calgary and Alberta all have a bit more than a million, and while they do well, they don’t exactly pile of money during lean times and Edmonton and Ottawa have both had their issues. You can’t tell me that 30% difference in population isn’t going to matter.
The Jets certainly seemed to think they were losing money. Moving the Thrashers to Winnipeg is half smart - they’re sending a team back to Canada, but not actually where a lot of Canadians can get to it.
However, you make an excellent point about finding appropriately underserved markets.
Another example in baseball would be the AAA Colorado Springs Sky Sox, which were there a few years before the Rockies were started in Denver.
Raleigh, Nashville, Columbus, St. Pete … are they more attractive markets for hockey?
It doesn’t matter how many people live in your metro area, what matters is if you can put 15,000 butts in seats every night. Winnipeg can do that–easily.
Well, that’s not all that matters. It also matters how much your team can put butts in seats in opponents’ arenas, and how much extra TV revenue you bring to the league. Winnipeg isn’t a huge draw in those regards, though I’m not sure its any worse than Atlanta.
The ability to pay your players also matters.
If/when the value of the US Dollar starts to shift back toward the way it was 10 years ago in relation to the Canadian Dollar, it’ll be the Jets all over again.
That’s not really the only issue, no.
First of all, it ain’t just how many seast you sell, it’s how much bread the customers are forking over on their way in. Winnipeg has a much smaller arena than the other six Canadian teams and so will have to command higher ticket prices to equal them in revenue. This season the lowest average attendance by a Canadian team was Ed monton’s 16,839 - that is Rexall Place’s capacity, btw. If MTS only holds 15,000 (or 15,500) then the ticket prices have to be correspondingly higher to match Edmonton’s revenue, or Calgary’s, or Ottawa’s.
It’s also worth noting that pro sports teams depend a lot not just on normal ticket sales but on corporate sponsorship and luxury boxes; will that revenue be there?
And WILL Winnipeg draw 15,000 a night? They didn’t when they had the Jets - indeed, they quite frequently failed to sell out playoff games. They never averaged more than 13,500 in a season (the arena held 15,500.)
I hope they’re a success, and initially they will be, with the strong Canadian dollar and the huge rush of enthusiasm this will create, but a few years down the line when the loonies back to 80 cents US I hope the team’s winning or else the fans might start getting sick of them.
Winnipeg has a new arena, which will help with attendance. Plus, there’s the “what you’ve been missing” factor, which will cause a lot of people to buy tickets who maybe did not when the Jets were still in town.
But the main factor which will keep the Jets in town is that the entire salary structure of hockey is different than 15 years ago. Player income is tied to league revenue, so there’s no way for costs to spiral out of control. I suppose there’s a potential situation where the team was drawing 5,000 a night and couldn’t support their payroll, since the revenue sharing from the league is inconsequential, but I doubt that is going to happen. The team will draw well enough.
Well, yes, but it was a horrible, horrible, horrible building to watch a hockey game in.
Well, unless they’ve remodeled it since I was there last…:eek: And is “The Key” really in NHL shape as is?
Hard to envision an NBA unworthy arena being deemed NHL worthy.
The study I linked to earlier says the situation is drastically changed. The authors admit that Winnipeg is marginal, however, they indicate that there is room in the Canadian market for six more teams, which they suggest should be placed in the greater Toronto area, liberally defined (two more teams), Montreal, Vancouver, and probably Quebec and Winnipeg, which they indicate are better than other choices.
To elaborate on what **markdash **says: The authors indicate that the more teams in Canada, the less of a problem a weak Canadian dollar poses, since the CBA ties the salary cap to annual league revenue in US dollars. A collapse in the Canadian dollar will cause league revenue to drop for this reason. The more Canadian teams, the more it will drop.
When the Jets left town, the salary cap was still almost 10 years in the future. The league economy is more conducive to smaller Canadian markets at this point.
Wow. Color me unsurprised that a cold-weather sport tends not to do well in places where they only see ice in soft drinks. You’re not going to watch it, live or on TV, if it’s something you didn’t grow up with or are already familiar with, IMO. Kids in Phoenix just don’t play hockey.
If you don’t grow up skating and playing hockey, you are unlikely to understand the game. You would have trouble telling a good team from a bad and figuring out why things happen during play.
Southern hockey is like soccer in America. it is trying to get people who don’t play and understand the game to become fans. It is a hard sell. Especially at the price of tickets nowadays.
Apparently the owners aren’t sold on the name “Jets” 
There’s already another thread on this, but I wanted to add here that I think going back to the old-school team names would be an awesome way to say “fuck you” to Gary Bettman. As in, “your ‘Southern Strategy’ was a complete and total failure, we’re going to erase all evidence that these teams ever existed, and go back to the way things were before.”