Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
When the Flames first came to town, regular-season home games were not televised unless they were on HNIC, and regular-season road games were sometimes televised and sometimes not. Usually there were something like 25 to 30 games on TV, plus playoffs.
This changed with the rise of cable sports channels, and with the belated realization by owners that putting the games on TV actually increased demand for tickets.
|
That's not true at all. I watched plenty of home games on 2&7 as a kid. They may have done fewer games in the Corral because it was a crappy building to broadcast out of, but once they moved into the Dome, they did a lot of games.
Without digging out my old Shoppers Drug Mart calendars, I suspect we got more home telecasts than road because it was cheaper to produce the home games because they didn't have to pay for travel.
Speaking of the old calendars, here's one on eBay from 1986-87:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/233368532809. You can see the November schedule. They had 14 games (11 home, 3 road) and 6 were televised (5 home, 1 road).
Also, ticket sales didn't play a factor in which games were televised because every home game the Flames played was a sellout well into the 90s.