Legionnaire11

oh now, i don't think it's the perfect time to start this. so I agree with you that something should have been done sooner. But leipold and the sales team did try, I don't know how they tried, but they supposedly spent the most marketing money in the entire league. So either they had the most expensive and ineffective marketing plan ever, or the business community of Nashville just didn't want to deal with Leipold. Now they're dealing with their peers in the business world, so hopefully there are real results this time around. i took the "day late and dollar short" as saying that the effort wasn't enough to keep the franchise here. I was just pointing out that even if a lot of these businesses are signing up for a one time shot, you've got to think that enough of them, even something so small as 10% will renew in subsequent seasons and become hooked. It would at least be enough to ensure 14k each season.

not exactly. We were 200 shy of making the 14k mark last season. as has been stated, and proven to be true. Get people to games and they'll be hooked. If the Our Team efforts and ticket-rally add another 2,000 season tickets for this coming season, that obviously takes care of the 14k thing. if there's even a 50% retention rate from those tickets next season, we're still doing well. It also buys time to allow the natural growth to continue. attendance in nashville has gone up each of the last 3 seasons, even though ticket prices also went up. If that's not a sign of growth, then what is? But it's not like we're going to go from 14k to 17k over night. as long as they average 14k, then it doesn't matter if the rest of the entire world population doesn't think that Nashville doesn't deserve a team because they can't move no matter what. In fact, the 14k clause is the only reason that there's all this talk anyway. If there wasn't the chance for the team to move, then Balsillie and Del Biaggio wouldn't ever have been interested in the first place. It's the reason they went after the Pens, and then the Preds. It's the reason they don't go after other teams in worse situations like the Panthers, because they have a stronger lease. In fact, if this whole sale situation had never come up, people would be saying "Hey, things aren't great in Nashville, but they're getting better, look at how their attendance went up the last few seasons" instead of the doom and gloom stuff about how we're the worst market in the history of hockey ------------------------ another note. there's talk about how the figure is actually 16k. not true. it's still 14k. the 16k number was thrown out by the local group bidding for the team, they said that if they bought the team, then there would need to be 16k for them to ice more than a cap minimum team. 14k is still and always will be, the number for the lease. and truthfully, the team can make a profit at 14k this season anyway. as for ticket prices. last season they were $3 below the NHL average. the lease states that the 14k clause can NOT be envoked if the average ticket price is above the NHL average. So there really isn't any way for a new owner to raise ticket prices in order to lower attendance and break the lease.

not "race" technically. But people from Canada have a bias against americans. and notherners have a bias against southerners. Instead of having the best interest of the game (growing the sport in new markets), "traditional" fans would rather rip apart the new fans and wish that hockey were only in canada and a select few norhern american markets. They fail to see that the game doesn't grow that way, and only becomes more obscure.

they actually look more like the original Dallas Stars jerseys

don't have a link, but that's the number that has been tossed out by everyone around the league, even Preds detractors. I think Buffalo has the second lowest ratio, which is why a move to Hamilton would kill them, they'd lose a large portion of the canadians who trek down to see them every game.

"Fire On Ice" has so much potential. before I clicked the link, I was already thinking about what a cool marketing slogan it could be for the entire NHL. and then I opened the thread and saw the graphic... eeek. sorry wings fans!

Well, in years past you've got a bunch of kids fresh out of college in sales and marketing, being led by Leipold from Racine, Wisconsin, and Steve Violetta who I believe came to us from Ottawa. The big difference is that they're not pushing tickets this year. This time around it's "Our Team Nashville" which is a group of successful Nashville businessmen. They know how to get their foot in the door and rally the corporate community for a local cause in ways that Leipold never could. Just wait and see. Friday morning we should have an updated season ticket number. It will surprise a lot of people.

at first I looked at that list and said "dang, that's more than I thought it would be"... then I pasted it into excell and it turned out to be 780. And that's not just corporate sponsors, it includes any business that owns season tickets. At 1,800 corporate season tickets, that's about 2.5 per company. How does it compare to other teams? Well, consider that most teams enjoy 65% corporate ticket holders and 35% individual ticket holders. And then look at Nashville where we had something like 9,000 season tickets last season and 1,800 of them were corporations. That's only 20% corporate ticket holders. Now lets take an average building. 17,500. and give them 95% capacity (about average for the top 2/3 of the league). That's about 16,600 fans at every game. 65% corporate tickets to those games is 10,790. Far, far greater than 1,800 in Nashville. Take our 7,200 individual ticket holders from last season (13,815 paid average), and add in the 1,800 corporate tickets, puts us at the 9,000 level (you can also see how awesome our walk up crowd is, over 4,000 walk ups per game). Give us the 3,000 extra corporate tickets that Our Team Nashville is trying to sell, and you can see how easily we would sell out every night. (I don't think they need to get to 3,000 since individual tickets are also up as well). So, you can see how foolish people look for just laughing off the Preds and Nashville. It's plain as day to see how easy it is for the ship to be righted as soon as the corporate support gets on board. But they choose to ignore the facts, these are probably the same people who think Nashville is full of barefoot, toothless, overall wearing rednecks who would rather bang their sister than brush their 3 remaining teeth. It's pretty much a hopeless cause to convince them otherwise, but still I continually bang my head on the wall with my constant efforts.

yuk it up, I hope you can laugh so much next summer while you're trying to choke down a mouth full of crow.

it'll probably be about 2 hours of hockey and 22 hours of paid programming.

Nashville is a colossal failure? Then explain why, with only 1,800 corporate season tickets last season, we still managed 13,800 paid attendance? that's 12,000 average joe fans paying to go to every game, and you can be sure that's that highest number in the entire league. Now, if you look at where we started in season 1, we had 4,000 corporate season tickets. If we added back those 2,200 that have dropped off, we'd average 16,000 paid. And that's precisely the goal of "Our Team Nashville". If you don't know anything about this group, let me explain. "Our Team Nashville" is a group of area business men, movers and shakers, who know that losing the Preds would mean huge losses for downtown businesses. They saw how poor the Preds marketing has been, and how area businesses were turned off by Leipolds cold, northern, business approach to them. I can tell you first hand, it's true, the south works differently. You have to be from here to get stuff done around here. there's just a different way of doing business in the south. So this group is taking it upon themselves to do the Preds work for them. They're building up the business relationships with the preds again. Opening doors and selling tickets in ways that Leipold could never do. Not only do they want to build back the 2,200 that have been lost, their goal is to add 3,000 new tickets, and even though half season, partial season and single game tickets haven't gone on sale yet, reports are that they're half way to that goal. Adding 3,000 new season tickets to the 13,800 we had last season would sell the place out every night. Thursday is our rally and ticket-thon. wait until you see that! all of the ticket plans will be available and the host (104.5 fm) has set a goal of selling 500 new season tickets there. So, basically, even if all of these groups end up only making 50% of their goals, you can see that our Attendance is going to shoot way up next season. if Our Team can keep the corporate support number up year after year, then we clearly have no problems with attendance in town. sit there and talk all you want about fan support in Nashville, but we can match any other NHl city, it's just a matter of getting corporate Nashville back on board. as for the expansion issue. it's a no brainer. the burnside article already shows that the league would get $500M from it, that's basically a free $16.67M for each team. Plus if the teams are profitable (and they should be at least in the first few years) then there's more teams paying into the revenue sharing pot. it's a win-win situation all around.

Edmonton and Phoenix will battle for worst. Sabres will probably take the biggest fall this season though. Flyers will take the biggest leap. as for the preds. they won't score as many goals, probably 30 less. But defensively, we'll be amazing. Added Bonk, Ortmeyer and de Vries. Bigger, grittier. Got rid of a couple of small cutesy guys (kariya and timonen). Plus one more trade/signing to get up to the cap floor which you can bet will be a big defensive guy. They won't challenge for the president's with 110 points next season. But still a playoff team.

Probably the Penguins. everyone has already listed them. Young and super talented, they'll be awesome for many years. But you might want to check out the Flyers too. They've made some great moves since the deadline last season. Added a bunch of great young defensemen (Kukkonen, Coburn, Parent) traded for a couple of veteran d-men (Timonen and Smith). Up front they brought in youth (Upshall, Hartnell) and star power (Briere). Plus they upgraded in Net with Biron. ultimately, the best choice is to get the Center Ice package. When the Preds aren't playing I can watch center ice to keep up with rivals (Wings, Blues, Jackets, Hawks) and check out what other teams in the league are doing. Usually I just root for a good game and watch with more of an objective eye, kind of scouting the league. It's entertainment and I don't have to get emotionally attached to another team.

I'd hate to see Lindros in Detroit, I'm hoping the Preds can sign him up for the third line. The guy is still a really good player. His ppg are still high, you just have to get him to play a lot of games.

it they're truly serious about making this competitive, then it will take time. sure, at first the NHL teams would mop up with them, and it would probably feel more like an exhibition. But as more guys stay in europe, and the playing field between europe and NA levels out, the Victoria cup would become the be all, end all of hockey. That would be good for the NHL as a whole, because even though the talent level would drop off without as many euro's here, interest among casual fans would go way up for a truly world championship series. One thing that would greatly help this whole thing is if the European teams all got together in one big league over there. so yeah, it'll be silly at first. But if it's run the right way and given enough time, it could end up being really cool.

sounds too cool!!! but the location should move every year.

Rafalski >>>>> Souray I hope a lot of you get a chance to meet him too, he's a really nice guy. Several years ago at the Predators games, you used to be allowed to go down to a basement area outside of the locker rooms after games and one or two players would come out and sign autographs (they don't do it anymore because too many people know about it now and it got too crowded). Anyway, one game against the Devils I was down there getting autographs from Jason York and Greg Johnson i think, and Rafalski happened to be escourted in from one door and his family from another door. No one really recognized him except a few of us who kept up with the rest of the league, and when someone said "hey is that Brian Rafalski?" he looked up, smiled and winked. Then after a few seconds with his family, he actually went around and signed a bunch of autographs for Preds fans. I thought that was really cool for a guy to do in an opposing building with his family waiting there to talk to him.

Surprised that he hasn't ever really stuck in the NHL, he always seems to be the odd man out wherever he goes. It would be a shame if he ends up a career AHLer because I think he could be useful on the right roster. If the league ever makes the next planned expansion, Hartigan could be a nice 3rd or 4th center for one of those teams.

good one. Our tickets are only $3 below league average. They've gone up a lot in the last 2 years, next year they might even be above average. And then you talk about the fans not going. Maybe you should research a little first. It's basically ONLY fans that go to games in Nashville. We're barely getting any corporate support. In fact last season there were only 1,800 season tickets sold to corporations, yet we still averaged 13,800 in paid attendance. That means that 12,000 average joe fans were paying for tickets to every game. We started out the franchise with 4,000 corporate tickets. If we had that extra 2,200 tickets that have dropped off since then, we would have averaged 16,000 paid last season. If you click the picture in my signature, it will take you to "Our Team Nashville". This is a group that is trying to rally corporate support again, their goal for this summer is to sell an additional 3,000 season tickets to Nashville businesses. From what i've heard, they're somewhere around halway to that goal. And the best part is that the half season and partial season packages haven't even gone on sale yet. They should be out next week and then you'll see the numbers really jump up. In fact the rally is planned for next thursday, and i'm sure that we'll get an update on season ticket numbers next friday morning, so in one week i'll be back here to let you know how it went. Don't be surprised when we blow away the 14k paid mark next season. Oh yeah, there's also talk that Todd Wagner might be joining the local group in their bid to buy the Preds. There's also some guy who used to play for the Colts and now has a successful business and owns an arena 2 team who wants in. This is along with filthy rich Nashvillians from the medical sector who are heading the group. The best news is that they said they aren't looking for any more investors to join their group meaning that they feel like their offer is good enough to buy the team. Don't be surprised when the Predators are sold to the local group and everyone's dreams of moving this team are shot down.

Nashville sold out 14 games last season. I don't know of any other teams that did that

ssshhhhh!

what's all this original 6 stuff? I don't know who drove it first, but Mark Martin was definitely the best driver ever in the #6 car. ...hardly see what that has to do with boston though.

I thought the red sox have had really good attendance. They're 10 games up on the yankees. haven't heard about nashville moving, when did this happen? there's supposed to be a big fan rally here next week, but i haven't heard anything the team undergoing changes. Oh well, as long as we've got Forsberg and Vokoun, we'll be okay.

no offense taken, but did I miss something, what situation?

7 sellouts? they don't deserve a team. I hear Hamilton sold a bunch of deposits to their arena, maybe the bruins should move to a city where they would get real fan support