Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
I was a season ticket holder in the 90s ... the place was empty.
I get having a fear of that as an outcome.
Personally I wouldn't operate that way. I'd make the moves I had to make to make the pain period as short as possible and accept the fact that we may have a revenue hit for two years.
|
This is a very curious situation in my mind.
They are rebuilding without ever announcing a rebuild. If the Flames do end up bottoming-out this season, they can announce a rebuild then, and a large portion of the fanbase will decide that this is where the rebuild starts. If they don't announce it, they can just trot-out the 'unexpected' and 'disappointing season', but then inject a top-end talent onto the roster (plus Wolf - Parekh - Gridin) and sell that to the ticket-buying fan base.
I don't really like the fact that they have come out and stated that this season is 'unexpected' - it seems like a greasy 'used car salesman' move in a way. There are never any promises at the start of a season (none that I have seen anyway), so I guess it is somewhat moot (but feels greasy).
I doubt at this point hat they ever announce a rebuild, regardless if they finish last or not. They are sowing a lot of confusion within the fan base (as we can see even on these boards, where a certain percentage are convinced a rebuild has been underway, and a certain percentage don't seem to be convinced still).
Definitely an interesting way to go about a rebuild. I wonder how the ticket sales have been going so far this season as compared to the last few. I wonder how much of a boost they get next season. From an entertainment and/or winning standpoint, this is the hardest season to stomach really - losing and not being entertaining. Next season should be more entertaining at least, and I assume ticket sales will reflect that. Would be interesting to compare ticket sales in this period vs the ticket sales over the last time the Flames rebuilt.