Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
Yeah it's tough to use 2013-2016 attendance because the team made the playoffs in 14-15 and was probably the most excited a lot of fans had been about the Flames in 5-7 years at that time.
The big thing though is that it's not like attendance dipped to 12k or something even in the 90s when the team was bad for 7 straight years.
Even in the peak of the Young Guns era they averaged around 16k, last year they were around 18k. That's not a huge difference.
You could argue that by rebuilding, and not spending to the cap, you'd be saving $10-$15M in player salary, and that probably covers pretty close to that 2k difference in attendance anyways.
(41 games x $150 average ticket x 2k = $12.3M)
You could argue the worst outcome for the owners pocket book is what happened last season - spend to the cap and miss the playoffs. No playoff revenue, and no player salary savings.
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Something harder to factor is how ticket prices were affected...in those dark years they may have only maintained attendance by keeping prices the same or even lowering them slightly, whereas in competitive years price increases probably outpace inflation.
I'm also not sure how much faith we should have in reported attendance figures. Also gotta factor other things like suites below capacity or lower rates for sponsorship/advertising when the product is not 'hot'.