Quote:
Originally Posted by Joborule
You know, I don't think that really is much of a concern for the NHL. The points of the season where the NHL and NFL would be occuring at the same time would be from October-December, and perhaps January if Vegas has a couple playoff football games. So that means there would be approximately 6-8 home games a season that the NFL team would have. Now, games are only played once a week, so the amount of times that the NHL team would be directly competing for tickets and viewership against the NFL team would be very limited; to the extent that the schedule could avoid same day matchups altogether.
I know the argument would be ticket sales for the NFL team would take away from the NHL team, but there's such a limited amount of NFL games that it shouldn't be an issue for the NHL team. When there isn't an NFL game on, people will still want to be entertained, and if they got disposable income, why not go to the NHL game like they are now? And even if it were to occur that for whatever reason the team can't sell tickets as much while the NFL is going on, the season would be done at January/February, and that's the time that the NHL starts to make more noise in the media since the NFL season is done and sports fans are drawing more of their interests to other leagues now. (Hence why NHL on NBC coverage doesn't start until Sunday Night Football is done)
I feel this would be issue if it were an NBA team coming instead, since their seasons are aligned and frequency of games is the same. You can go to multiple games per week. Would it be hockey or basketball? That's more of a threat since NHL needs to establish itself as a strong interest whereas the NBA has the foundational support throughout the country that it should be successful off the bat.
|
On a game per game basis I agree but I'm talking more about season ticket sales as the market goes from households never having to budget or set aside $$$ for season tickets to all of a sudden two teams in the market vying for a big financial commitment for season tickets. For both teams I feel there will always be a healthy walk-up attendance due to the amount of tourists but it's going to be interesting to see how the city transitions to having two new professional sports teams in a relatively short amount of time. Some households may be forced to choose one or the other.