Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowperson
When you're sitting in the middle of five million people, the odds are in your favour that you can regularly draw 18,000.
Even the Flames probably have only about 3,500 to 4,000 season ticket accounts.
Dallas has been a great model of how to do things. They spent 20 years building communitty rinks, advancing minor hockey programs and generally ingratiating a hockey culture into a place where it really didn't exist before. And now the first high quality NHL draft picks are starting to come out of places like Texas and California. If the culture exists, you can survive the inevitable poor years and prosper when times are good.
A problem in Phoenix is they haven't spent their time there as wisely as Dallas did. Its been an incompetently managed franchise on the business side for a long time. They can still get that right in the future but they have to put the time, effort and resources into community development and stop relying on calls to my office in Calgary looking to sell playoff tickets.
I was down to Phoenix for a game last November and the location of the arena is a problem. Nice place but I seem to remember a roughly 115 block drive down Camelback!!!
Cowperson
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I agree that the Coyotes have not been managed properly in the past. I think some past owners wrongly assumed they could set up a team in Phoenix and turn a quick buck. Instead, you really need to continue to push for a hockey culture in the area.
That means supporting local hockey initiatives, getting as many Coyotes games in TV as possible, etc. And, the most important thing they can do is deliver a winning product.
Of course, I also suspect that having a stable ownership group again will seriously improve things. Why would anyone in Phoenix that doesn't know hockey want to invest in the team, buy jerseys, learn about players, etc. just for the team to potentially pack up and leave next year?
Also... 115 blocks down Camelback? I'm assuming you started in Scottsdale. Why not just take the 101 around? That's got to be much quicker.