Sorry Quebec; Panthers get $86 million bailout from Broward County

[TheAlpineOracle]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I won't argue the idea that there are many activities to compete for leisure time, but it doesn't preclude a team from drawing well. There's just so few long standing franchises in the Florida area to build a culture of sports around. Other markets have had their teams for 60-70 years.


Look at the year these franchises were established:
Miami Dolphins: 1966
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 1976
Miami Heat: 1987
Orlando Magic: 1989
Tampa Bay Lightning: 1992
Florida/Miami Marlins: 1993
Florida Panthers: 1993
Jacksonville Jaguars: 1995
Tampa Bay Devil Rays: 1998

Cripes, most of those are barely 20 years old. People just aren't used to having sports teams in Florida. The history just isn't there to build a culture around. That's not even considering the extreme lack of success most of these franchises have had, which is what people tune in for in the first place.

I've been to Florida quit a bit (Coastal), and the general impression I get from the locals is that they simply don't really care all that much about professional sports. They'll watch it, but it doesn't really get them going that much. Would go to a game or two as casual fans, would rather be outdoors doing something or playing a sport and casually watch a game from home now and then. Seemed to be the complete opposite to me from most other US states i've visited. I guess I would describe it as indifference.

When your NFL teams have to put tarps over the top rows of their stadiums in the US, you know a hockey team is likely going to be in trouble. The Lightning benefit greatly from the amount of Canadians which winter in the St. Petersburg area.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Not really, no. The league wants $500 million from Las Vegas and Seattle too. The league isn't fighting to prevent relocation to Quebec in favour of expansion - if that were the case, there wouldn't be rumblings about the league stalling to try and get Seattle in the expansion picture at the expense of Quebec.

The league is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent *any* team from relocating. They succeeded (for now) with Phoenix and failed with Atlanta. But as long as someone is willing to own and operate a team in places like Florida and Carolina, the league will always support those cities. But Quebec will be held in reserve in case one of those markets finds itself with nobody willing to operate a team.

It's my belief that Quebec will be ‘held in reserve’ until someone is willing to pony up the fee for an expansion team there. $500 million is $500 million. $1.5 billion is $500 million more than $1 billion. There's nothing magic about having two and only two expansion teams. Yes, it would look nice and neat with eight teams in each division; but the league has often run with unbalanced divisions in the past.

I suspect that the ‘rumblings’ may have more to do with not wanting to put 17 teams in the Eastern Conference and only 15 in the West. Since both Detroit and Columbus refuse to change conferences again, this probably has some bearing on the situation. But mainly, the problem in Quebec is that the market is not big enough to justify spending $500m for an expansion franchise.

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

It's also in the league's best interest to have a Quebec willing and ready to go immediately. It keeps the threat of relocation real, so there is some leverage on the fans.

As far as I know, the NHL (as opposed to individual owners) has never used relocation as a threat. If one owner wants to relocate to Quebec, there are 29 other owners who want to hold out for their share of that expansion money.

We've already seen that the league will subsidize losing teams or even take over ownership of a franchise outright, rather than allow relocation. That shows how little they care about having ‘leverage on the fans’. All told, the league has probably poured somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100 million into the black hole of Glendale in order to keep the Coyotes from moving. If and only if they can sell an expansion franchise to whichever city the Coyotes would have moved to, they make a profit on the deal in the end. They'll never get that $100m back from the fans in Arizona.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

I've been to Florida quit a bit (Coastal), and the general impression I get from the locals is that they simply don't really care all that much about professional sports. They'll watch it, but it doesn't really get them going that much. Would go to a game or two as casual fans, would rather be outdoors doing something or playing a sport and casually watch a game from home now and then. Seemed to be the complete opposite to me from most other US states i've visited. I guess I would describe it as indifference.

When your NFL teams have to put tarps over the top rows of their stadiums in the US, you know a hockey team is likely going to be in trouble. The Lightning benefit greatly from the amount of Canadians which winter in the St. Petersburg area.

Yes, I'm not really contesting that point. My post was intended to illustrate a reason why that is the case. With such a limited sporting history, most people have found other things to fill their time here.

You have to think about what age range typically buys tickets, or are financially able to. Pretty much mid-late 20s to 50s. When your franchises have been around 20-30 years, you're just starting to establish your identity with an entire generation of kids that grew up with the team. Other than that, people typically revert to older alliances, and that's even more the case in Florida with so many transplanted people (many from northeast USA) and few original locals.

Also, there are a ton of Canadians down here in the winter too, but nobody wants to pay to see a losing team unless they're playing their favorite Canadian team. If Tampa had been losing as much as the Panthers, they'd be in the exact same situation. The markets don't differ much at all.

[undercoverbrother]

This is all I know about Broward Country

Spoiler!

[The Yen Man]

OT, but everytime I see BB&T Centre, I think it's called the Bubble Tea Centre lol.

[Geeoff]

I think support for this team would be a lot better if they were ever a consistent playoff contender. If you look at the team that relocated recently (Atlanta) and the teams that have been struggling financially (Florida, Arizona, Columbus) they are all teams that are bad every year.

[saskflames69]

Here are nineteen cities that would be more suitable for a pro hockey franchise than South Florida and Phoenix combined.

Baltimore, Cleveland, Halifax, Hamilton, Hartford, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Kitchener/Waterloo, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Omaha, Portland, Quebec, Sacramento, Salt Lake, Saskatoon, Seattle, Toronto, Victoria.

...and the NHL wants to put another team in the desert. Just pathetic. Let the NBA go there, I guarantee they'll have more success.

[Locke]

Do they have to change their name to the Broward County Panthers?

[Passe La Puck]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I'm very pleased by this news. This is not as much about the success of the Panthers, but rather simply operating the BB&T Center. The county figured it was good to keep it running as it brings more than just Panthers hockey, but many big acts throughout the year to a place that isn't in downtown Miami.

Heck, the wife and I are going to see Amy Schumer there this Saturday.

It allows the Panthers to be accountable for how they run the team, and not a whole lot else in terms of maintaining the building etc. With the Panthers trending up, it bodes well for the long term success of the team in South Florida.

Cue everyone saying how stupid it is to have a team here and how they don't belong in Florida in the first place.

http://unitedstatesofhockey.com/2011...-on-the-south/



If you're interested in growing the game, it's a good thing that there are still teams in the sunbelt. Look at what's happened in L.A. and San Jose. Very, very strong hockey markets now that are also producing players. Florida is just beginning to produce players (as they would have been born around the time that hockey was introduced to Florida initially), but excellent young players like Shayne Gostisbehere come from here. My neighbor's kids even played with him growing up.

Lol ridiculous claim, every hockey player in the entire state couldn't fill the seats in the building...and they have two buildings!!

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by saskflames69

Here are nineteen cities that would be more suitable for a pro hockey franchise than South Florida and Phoenix combined.

Baltimore, Cleveland, Halifax, Hamilton, Hartford, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Kitchener/Waterloo, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Omaha, Portland, Quebec, Sacramento, Salt Lake, Saskatoon, Seattle, Toronto, Victoria.

...and the NHL wants to put another team in the desert. Just pathetic. Let the NBA go there, I guarantee they'll have more success.

Please...show the information that indicates these are better hockey markets than "South Florida and Phoenix combined". It doesn't help to just list a bunch of cities without any data or argument to back it up. Some of those I seriously question as viable sports markets at all: Halifax, Hartford, Norfolk, Omaha, Saskatoon, Victoria.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Passe La Puck

Lol ridiculous claim, every hockey player in the entire state couldn't fill the seats in the building...and they have two buildings!!

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Since when do only hockey players attend games?

[SuperMatt18]

I don't care where the team is if you play in a random building that isn't really close to anything but a giant mall, and only make the playoffs 4 times in a 23 year history, including only 1 time in a 14 year period, you are going to fail.

Put those factors into pretty much any city outside of Toronto/Montreal and the team is going to be in trouble.

I compare it to the New York Islanders. They had similar issues (poor rink outside of downtown & struggling team) and they were struggling even though they had the New York metro area to pull fans from.

[Passe La Puck]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Since when do only hockey players attend games?

You tried to make the claim that hockey was growing based on people playing it, but actual numbers are insignificant.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by saskflames69

Here are nineteen cities that would be more suitable for a pro hockey franchise than South Florida and Phoenix combined.

Baltimore, Cleveland, Halifax, Hamilton, Hartford, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Kitchener/Waterloo, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Omaha, Portland, Quebec, Sacramento, Salt Lake, Saskatoon, Seattle, Toronto, Victoria.

...and the NHL wants to put another team in the desert. Just pathetic. Let the NBA go there, I guarantee they'll have more success.

The southern Ontario teams are not permitted by the Leafs. The rest of these cities have lost NHL teams already, can't even support AHL in many cases (eg. Omaha) and haven't even said they want a team.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Please...show the information that indicates these are better hockey markets than "South Florida and Phoenix combined". It doesn't help to just list a bunch of cities without any data or argument to back it up. Some of those I seriously question as viable sports markets at all: Halifax, Hartford, Norfolk, Omaha, Saskatoon, Victoria.

There have been hockey "avidity" studies. You may questions their assumptions, but I think they are within reasonable margins of error:

http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Dai...arborough.aspx

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

[Cali Panthers Fan]

I don't really contest those numbers, except for one. Miami by itself isn't really the market. The arena is located quite a bit north of Miami in one of the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale. The feasible market is all 3 of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties as they are all less than an hour from the arena. That population is 6.695 million, and if you look at their percentage of avid NHL fans, just 5% of that population is more like 335000 which puts them firmly in the group of San Francisco/San Jose and Denver.

[TheAlpineOracle]

Originally Posted by troutman

There have been hockey "avidity" studies. You may questions their assumptions, but I think they are within reasonable margins of error:

http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Dai...arborough.aspx

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

As an aside,

Saint John - Moncton with a population of almost 700K? 300k at the most, and the includes every nook in cranny in and around the two cities.

[Jaydee]

Originally Posted by saskflames69

Here are nineteen cities that would be more suitable for a pro hockey franchise than South Florida and Phoenix combined.

Baltimore, Cleveland, Halifax, Hamilton, Hartford, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Kitchener/Waterloo, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Omaha, Portland, Quebec, Sacramento, Salt Lake, Saskatoon, Seattle, Toronto, Victoria.

...and the NHL wants to put another team in the desert. Just pathetic. Let the NBA go there, I guarantee they'll have more success.

My Grandfather smoked his whole life. I was about 10 years old when my mother said to him, 'If you ever want to see your grandchildren graduate, you have to stop immediately.'. Tears welled up in his eyes when he realized what exactly was at stake. He gave it up immediately. Three years later he died of lung cancer. It was really sad and destroyed me. My mother said to me- 'Don't ever smoke. Please don't put your family through what your Grandfather put us through." I agreed. At 28, I have never touched a cigarette. I must say, I feel a very slight sense of regret for never having done it, because your post gave me cancer anyway.

[heep223]

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

It's also in the league's best interest to have a Quebec willing and ready to go immediately. It keeps the threat of relocation real, so there is some leverage on the fans. And it is also insurance against having a homeless franchise if a team gets pushed out. For that reason, I don't think that they are going to make relocation easy, but in the end, if it makes business sense, I think it will happen eventually.

Whether or not it makes business sense isn't something I can comment on, but on a personal level, I would love to see them get a team.

Same thing the NBA is doing with Seattle too

it's always good for business when there's another option out there, its an empty thread to ask a city/county etc. for money when you have nowhere to go

When there's a constant threat of a city ready to take a team at the start of next season, NHL is going to extend this as long as they can