[News] Update: NHL green lights season-ticket drive for Las Vegas

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by troutman

I'll bite. How many avid NHL fans do you think there are in the Quebec City Area? Or Southwestern Ontario? And how many in Las Vegas?

Maybe it grows the game, but there are hundreds of thousands of people hoping for a team elsewhere.

Are any of the fans in either of those locations new fans who don't already follow the NHL? I don't know how many of the Las Vegas ticket drive members are new fans either, but I would suspect there's more opportunity for adding new fans in Las Vegas.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Are any of the fans in either of those locations new fans who don't already follow the NHL? I don't know how many of the Las Vegas ticket drive members are new fans either, but I would suspect there's more opportunity for adding new fans in Las Vegas.

For ticket revenue? Much more potential for new ticket revenue in places with traditional hockey ties. They might be getting their TV viewership already, but the potential amount of people and prices that can be charged for attending the actual games is much higher.

I have no problem with them trying Vegas personally, as long as current fail franchises (PHX, FLA) are looked at with objectivity and potential expansion or relocation to the mentioned places (and Seattle) are given the right due-diligence and consideration.

My personal best-case scenario is PHX to Seattle, FLA to Quebec and expansion in GTA and Vegas.

Pacific:
EDM
CGY
VAN
SEA
LAK
ANA
SJS
LV

Central:
COL
WIN
MIN
CHI
STL
DAL
NSH
CBJ (Sorry Columbus, Detroit has more pull to stay East)

Atlantic:
MTL
TB
DET
QC
TOR
GTA
BUF
OTT

Metropolitan:
NYR
NYI
PIT
PHI
CAR
BOS
WAS
NJD

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Are any of the fans in either of those locations new fans who don't already follow the NHL? I don't know how many of the Las Vegas ticket drive members are new fans either, but I would suspect there's more opportunity for adding new fans in Las Vegas.

I think the potential for more fans in LV exists than for QC. QC has a 750k metro area, whereas LV has a 2million metro area population, plus the obvious unique nature of visiting fans basically 24/7.

You obviously aren't going to have 2 million fans, but the potential exists that you might end up with more fans in LV and QC.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Finger Cookin

Are any of the fans in either of those locations new fans who don't already follow the NHL? I don't know how many of the Las Vegas ticket drive members are new fans either, but I would suspect there's more opportunity for adding new fans in Las Vegas.

New fan base is how the argument will get packaged up, but that's not really what's important. What's important is increased revenue creation.

Quebec City likely is full of NHL fans, that spend on the sport. A team there won't create new NHL fans, but it will like create a huge increase in spend from this fan group, as they will likely consume way more product with a local presence, and pay for way more tickets with a local team versus what they do now, likely trecking down to Montreal for the odd game. And Montreal's losses in this matter are likely easily replaced by folks just waiting to buy more tickets.

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by MattyC

For ticket revenue?

No, that's not what I was asking about.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I think the potential for more fans in LV exists than for QC. QC has a 750k metro area, whereas LV has a 2million metro area population, plus the obvious unique nature of visiting fans basically 24/7.

You obviously aren't going to have 2 million fans, but the potential exists that you might end up with more fans in LV and QC.

No, and it would never be close. There was a study that calculated the number of avid hockey fans in various markets (I will look for it). The number of avid fans in markets like Dallas, SJ, FLA etc remains relatively low despite being around for a long time. Can't come close to a Canadian market.

If you look at regional TV ratings, the comparison is even more telling.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/h...nt-make-sense/

According to our estimates, Quebec City, the former home of the Nordiques, has about 530,000 NHL fans. So, a good comparison for Quebec City would be Winnipeg — another Canadian market that lost an NHL franchise in the 1990s, only to see the league return in recent years. Winnipeg has roughly 560,000 NHL fans, and despite the area’s relatively minuscule population, the franchise has turned a profit in each of the past two years (per Forbes’s data).

We estimated that Seattle contains about 240,000 NHL fans — fewer than that of Phoenix and Florida’s Tampa Bay, home to two franchises that have struggled to turn a profit for many years. And if Seattle is an enigmatic choice by this metric, Las Vegas would be a disaster. According to our estimates, there are only 91,000 hockey fans in the Vegas media market, which is nearly 40 percent fewer than even Nashville, Tennessee, the least-avid current NHL city, has.

[troutman]

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by troutman

No, and it would never be close. There was a study that calculated the number of avid hockey fans in various markets (I will look for it). The number of avid fans in markets like Dallas, SJ, FLA etc remains relatively low despite being around for a long time. Can't come close to a Canadian market.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/h...nt-make-sense/

According to our estimates, Quebec City, the former home of the Nordiques, has about 530,000 NHL fans. So, a good comparison for Quebec City would be Winnipeg — another Canadian market that lost an NHL franchise in the 1990s, only to see the league return in recent years. Winnipeg has roughly 560,000 NHL fans, and despite the area’s relatively minuscule population, the franchise has turned a profit in each of the past two years (per Forbes’s data).

We estimated that Seattle contains about 240,000 NHL fans — fewer than that of Phoenix and Florida’s Tampa Bay, home to two franchises that have struggled to turn a profit for many years. And if Seattle is an enigmatic choice by this metric, Las Vegas would be a disaster. According to our estimates, there are only 91,000 hockey fans in the Vegas media market, which is nearly 40 percent fewer than even Nashville, Tennessee, the least-avid current NHL city, has.

To be honest, I want a Las Vegas team for selfish reasons. If there are already teams losing money, what's one more?

[Bandwagon In Flames]

I didn't know Edmonton now has a higher population than Calgary. Every sweat pants owner within a 1000 miles must of moved there in the past 5 years.

Calling BS on Calgary having 67% of the population as avid NHL fans.

And of course a City who has never had an NHL team will have a low percentage of NHL fans. Don't need a survey to tell me that. It's the live exposure of the NHL that creates more avid hockey fans. And let's face it, this is the patriotic USA we're talking about. People will back a team that represents their city.

[CroFlames]

I would assume that chart includes all of southern Alberta, and I bet 90% of country folk are hockey fans. So I'd buy that chart.

[Finger Cookin]

Since those media market tables were published in May of 2013, the Las Vegas media market has grown by about 125K. The Quebec media market has grown by about 15K. This is as of Fall 14/Winter 15.

Everything else being equal, this means there are about another 7500 NHL fans in Quebec city, and another 2500 NHL fans in Las Vegas. Growing interest in Las Vegas from 5% to 8% would add over 550K new NHL fans, which would make it about the same size as Quebec City.

Originally Posted by Bandwagon In Flames

I didn't know Edmonton now has a higher population than Calgary.

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I would assume that chart includes all of southern Alberta, and I bet 90% of country folk are hockey fans. So I'd buy that chart.

These figures are media market sizes based on Nielsen(USA) and Numeris(Canada) figures. They are not populations for cities, metro areas, or census areas.

[polak]

Obviously people in Las Vegas aren't hockey fans yet. The point is capitalizing on a city with no pro sports team to latch on to.

There's very little competition for the Las Vegas locals entertainment dollars. It's perfect for the NHL.

Get in early and try to build a committed fanbase before competition enters the market.

[troutman]

"Avidity" was determined by Google Search Traffic.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...e-stanley-cup/

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Bandwagon In Flames

Calling BS on Calgary having 67% of the population as avid NHL fans.

Not commenting on whether or not this might be BS, but I think your idea of "avid" is likely to be relative to average Canadian. A casual fan in one place can easily pass as an avid fan in another place.

It's the live exposure of the NHL that creates more avid hockey fans.

Agreed.

People will back a team that represents their city.

This is very much a chicken and egg problem. A popular team will be seen as representing the city, but a team that has few fans will be seen as a marginal past time. (Unless they win a championship.)

[MissTeeks]

Anyone want to submit jersey designs to ESPN?

http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/i...weater-designs

As you might have heard, the NHL is considering having an expansion team in Las Vegas. But what would such a team be called, and what would it look like?
That's where you come in.
We're challenging Uni Watch readers to submit their best designs for a Vegas-based NHL franchise. As we've done in the past, we'll feature the best entries here on ESPN.com.

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by MissTeeks

Anyone want to submit jersey designs to ESPN?

http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/i...weater-designs

I cant design for crap but lets just name them the
Las Vegas Lights or Las Vegas Nights

[Resolute 14]

Vegas surpasses 10,000 tickets. Now reaching out to larger corporations and casinos. The group thinks it could start with over 13,000 season ticket holders once suites and the like sell.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/12...s-corporations

[jayswin]

I gotta say, this is kind of impressive. I initially figured maybe 6-7k before they'd be looking to the casinos and corps to make it respectable.

A solid base of 10-11K actual fans, plus another 3-4K of corporate/casino, would likely have them close to guaranteed nightly sellout territory. That'd be a nice start for a much mocked/doubted franchise in Las Vegas.

I'd bet the NFL and NBA are watching this and already going "Hmmm, interesting".

[Hemi-Cuda]

So if the NHL actually does expand to Vegas (and one would think a Quebec City team would enter the league the same year) how many players are the Flames allowed to protect from the expansion draft? Obviously our core pieces like Monahan, Gaudreau, Bennett, Giordano, and Brodie wouldn't be going anywhere, but could we end up losing some promising B-level prospects like Granlund, Ferland, or Wortherspoon?

[Phanuthier]

I'm impressed as well... I was very skeptical to begin with, but this could be a big win for the NHL. Full kudos to Bettman for sticking this through.