Enthusiasm Cools for Hockey’s Foray Into the South

[Jwo 7]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/sports/hockey/10puck.html

Almost 20 years ago, the N.H.L. embarked on a master plan to expand into the Sun Belt. The idea was to add teams in nontraditional hockey markets and, in the jargon of the day, increase the N.H.L.’s television footprint and make it popular across the United States.

But today many of the league’s Sun Belt teams are enduring attendance problems, plummeting local television ratings and talk of franchise shifts. With N.H.L. clubs thriving in Canada and in traditional hockey cities in the northern United States, the league’s longstanding Southern strategy may have run its course.

“It was a noble experiment,” said Drew Dorweiler of the Montreal valuation and accounting firm Wise, Blackman. “But five years from now, I can see quite a few Sun Belt teams relocating. At the least, the league will be short a couple.”

Evidence that Southern teams are struggling abounds. Local TV viewership for the Atlanta Thrashers in the first half of the season was down 50 percent from last year and in Dallas, Tampa Bay and Phoenix it has dropped by 29 to 35 percent. (It rose by 50 to 114 percent in Detroit, St. Louis and Minnesota.)

The Nashville Predators came close to leaving town recently after missing several attendance benchmarks associated with their arena lease. And according to Forbes magazine, four of the league’s five least valuable franchises are in southerly locales: Nashville, Washington, Phoenix and Atlanta.

“There have been problems with a lot of teams in nontraditional markets since the late ’90s,” Dorweiler said. “Except for brief periods when a Florida or a Carolina has a Stanley Cup run, there just isn’t enough interest in the sport to make it work. There comes a point when the losses become too much, and teams are put on the block.”

The Dallas Stars are the only warm-weather team estimated by Forbes to be in the N.H.L.’s top quarter in terms of value.

“The Stars have done a great job of attracting people, largely because of the experience at the arena,” said Michael Rapkoch, president of Sports Value Consulting, a Dallas company that advises professional franchises. “They’ve found the right niche for hockey in Dallas. Other teams in nontraditional hockey markets have to find what fits their particular market.”

Paul Kelly, president of the N.H.L. Players’ Association, said the players want all the clubs to be financially healthy, but “if a franchise is not doing all it can do to maximize revenue, that obviously affects the players.”

“My own belief,” he said, “is that if a team from a nontraditional market has to relocate, it should go to one of the Canadian cities, like Winnipeg, where it would have the fan support and the revenue streams to do well.”

With the N.H.L. turning increasingly to a receptive audience in Northern Europe, what happens with its efforts to “grow the sport” in America’s southern latitudes remains to be seen.

“We missed the boat 20 years, 25 years ago,” the N.H.L. great Marcel Dionne said last week, speaking on the Toronto radio station Fan 590 of the league’s efforts to sell hockey in the South. “Keep on trying all you want,” he added. “It ain’t happening.”

[auxlepli 17]

I'd like to know what the viewership is like in California too.

[jim3033 1]

Good article. Here are the attendance records over the last several years.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance?year=2008

I'm tired of the NHL lagging behind for these southern teams too. Why don't they put a hockey team in Hawaii or Anaheim... oh yeah.

[DaKineMaui 8]

Why don't they put a hockey team in Hawaii

From your mouth to God's ears......

Here's a little something I found funny/remarkable:

(Bare in mind I voted twice.)

aloha

[lfd250 1]

Duh! There isn't enough Michigan transplants to keep PHX alive. Thanks for putting up the article.

[haroldsnepsts 4,826]

The sad part is when the Ducks won the Cup last year, it was about as big a news as if an indoor lacrosse team won the championship. Most people might have heard of the team and saw on the news that they won something, but that's about it.

Then less than 12 hours after they won it, any publicity was trumped by Paris Hilton going to jail.

Phoenix has terrible numbers, but they're also a terrible team. There's so many northern transplants, I would think that if they ever put a respectable team on the ice, the fans would come.

Off topic: Great sig DaKine!

Edited February 12, 2008 by haroldsnepsts

[2probert4 8]

The sad part is when the Ducks won the Cup last year, it was about as big a news as if an indoor lacrosse team won the championship. Most people might have heard of the team and saw on the news that they won something, but that's about it.

Then less than 12 hours after they won it, any publicity was trumped by Paris Hilton going to jail.

Phoenix has terrible numbers, but they're also a terrible team. There's so many northern transplants, I would think that if they ever put a respectable team on the ice, the fans would come.

Off topic: Great sig DaKine!

what was the number of fans who showed up to celebrate the cup? I heard it was in the 20,000 range including the bandwagoners.

[lfd250 1]

what was the number of fans who showed up to celebrate the cup? I heard it was in the 20,000 range including the bandwagoners.

Something like that, but I think 10,000 was people just caught in the traffic jam.

[Guest octopusdank]

Duh! There isn't enough Michigan transplants to keep PHX alive. Thanks for putting up the article.

hey you an AZ wings fan too??

[Hank 0]

what was the number of fans who showed up to celebrate the cup? I heard it was in the 20,000 range including the bandwagoners.

It was a whopping 15,000. Imagine being a kid that grew up dreaming of the day winning a Stanley Cup and then realizing nobody in your city cared?

Long live expanding to cities that couldn't care less about hockey!

I don't see MLB or the NFL expanding to Moose Jaw Saskatchewan or Nunavit!

[jim3033 1]

From your mouth to God's ears......

Here's a little something I found funny/remarkable:

(Bare in mind I voted twice.)

aloha

Awesome. I call that a mandate. It would be like Cool Runnings. Make it happen Bettman.

[SweWings 45]

Well big surprise. In Sweden some of the most thriving markets aren't the biggest ones in terms of population - it's often a matter of interest. The Southern adventure was fun I suppose but it's time to move on...

[QuackAttack 0]

Good article. Here are the attendance records over the last several years.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance?year=2008

I'm tired of the NHL lagging behind for these southern teams too. Why don't they put a hockey team in Hawaii or Anaheim... oh yeah.

To be fair, this year The Pond is at 103%. Disney tried to grow a sports team using synergy with its other entertainment outlets. That brought people to the arena but didn't keep them there. Burke is growing interest by putting a good product on the ice. The difference is before many people who came to the games just wanted to be entertained, now they want to be passionate about what's happening on the ice.