WIN AND THE FANS ARE IN
NHL expansion history shows the secret for Vegas will be in making a run at the Cup
Eventually, there came a point where I couldn’t resist it any longer.
I simply had to swing that sledgehammer. I had to crush that car. I wasn’t a Nashville Predators fan — or technically a hockey fan anymore, for that matter — but the lure was just too strong. I wanted to do what everyone else around me was doing and take part in an experience like no other. And so, before Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final, I put on a cowboy hat and paid $20 to put a few dents in a Pittsburgh Penguins-painted car.
It was the most fun I’ve had at a hockey game.
“Some of the visiting media give us flak for smashing their logo, but we’re like, ‘It’s sports. It’s supposed to be fun and not serious,’ ” Predators president and CEO Sean Henry said. “That’s what it’s about.”
As the hockey world realized this spring, no one does fun quite like Nashville.
Slamming a sledgehammer into a car painted in the opponents’ colours was just one of the many reasons why the southern market emerged from the shadows as the toast of the NHL. From tossing catfish onto the ice and taunting opponents with soccer-style chants to inviting country artists to sing the national anthem and live bands to play during intermission, the Predators made home games as events, with upwards of 70,000 yellow-clad fans filling the street outside Bridgestone Arena.
Some were diehards who finally had something to cheer. Some, like one sweet lady who honestly believed the franchise was in its first year, had jumped aboard the bandwagon as though it were another booze bus touring the city.
It didn’t really matter where they came from. The Predators were there to cash in on the growing interest, providing old, new and visiting fans with entertainment options you just don’t see in other markets.
“You used the word non-traditional market as if that’s something we want to shake,” said Henry, who before coming to Nashville in 2010 had worked for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“I love being a non-traditional market. I think that’s what sets us apart. You can either tap into the traditions of an established team or you can set your own. I think setting your own is more important. Each market has its own unique flavour.
“Once you embrace it, that’s when you start seeing success.”
It’s something the Vegas Golden Knights can learn from as they prepare to enter the league next season. Heck, it’s something teams in traditional hockey markets could learn from.
“Obviously, we watched just about every minute of every (Predators) game in the playoffs, so we were paying close attention,” said Golden Knights president Kerry W. Bubolz, who added that the team already has a partnership with Cirque du soleil. “There will be many nights during the year where the intermission entertainment will be their athletes. (Nashville) did things that are unique and organic to their market and we’ll have things that are unique and organic to our market.”
It’s been two decades since commissioner Gary Bettman rolled out his sunbelt strategy and started awarding franchises to far-off places such as Florida, Carolina and other places where hockey had to be explained. This year, the NHL expands again, to the desert of Las Vegas.
It’s another gamble by a league that has a struggling team in Carolina looking for new ownership and a struggling team in Arizona looking for a new arena. Bettman had a sure thing in Quebec City, but the NHL — which has had a Sunbelt team in five of the last six Stanley Cup finals — believes this strategy can work.
It seems like it can, so long as the teams are winning.
“The southern teams in general stand no chance of making a profit unless they go into the playoffs and go a round or two,” said Mike Ozanian, executive editor at Forbes Media. “What the Predators did this year was great — I think that was great for hockey — but with all that, they are still a team that unless they get into the playoffs and get to the second round, they’re probably not going to make money.”
The Predators’ original ownership recorded losses of US$70 million when they sold the franchise in 2009. But ever since majority owner Thomas Cigarran purchased the team and provided GM David Poile with the finances to hold onto its star players, revenues have slowly climbed to the point where Henry said “this year we will have black ink.”
“The finances weren’t good when I started here,” Henry said. “The most sellouts we had were four or five. I’m pretty excited to say that we sold out every single game this year. Once you do that, you then have the ability to grow your broadcast, bringing in new partners, extending your brand throughout the community, leveraging the interest of the fans and starting up youth hockey.”
Of course, it helped that the team made it to the final round of the playoffs, providing ownership with 11 extra home games and far more marketing opportunities.
No one was in line to smash cars when the Predators failed to make the playoffs three years ago or in the dark days of the franchise when then-owner Jim Balsillie was threatening to move the team to Hamilton — just like no one is lining up to buy tickets in Arizona after the Coyotes finished near the bottom of the standings again.
“I think that the recent Stanley Cup is proof that if you put a good team on the ice, the NHL will sell anywhere,” said Moshe Lander, professor of sports economics at Concordia University. “By default, the Leafs’ fans will continually support a losing team, but everyone else likes a winner. Any hockey fan will remember the rats in Miami when Florida went to the Cup 20 years ago.
“At the end of the day, hockey will be successful as long as you put a good product on the ice. If you don’t put a good product on the ice, I don’t care where you are, you’re not going to do well.”
This is not a secret. While established hockey cities such as Toronto, Montreal, New York and Boston can fill a building and make a profit even when teams finish near the bottom of the standings, southern markets rely almost exclusively on a strong on-ice product.
According to Forbes Magazine’s annual ranking of the most valuable teams, the Los Angeles Kings are the only southern U.S. team ranked in the top 10 with an estimated value of US$600 million. It makes sense, since the team won two Stanley Cups in the last six years and has missed the playoffs only twice since 2009-10.
The San Jose Sharks (US$470 million) and Anaheim Ducks (US$415 million) — who have won 20 combined playoff rounds in the last 10 years — were ranked 13th and 15th, respectively. The Nashville Predators are ranked 26th overall, a number Ozanian said should rise if the team can sustain its on-ice success.
“We’ve had more playoff rounds than any other team since 2003, so it’s not just regular season,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said. “You earn some equity, but you have to re-earn it every day. The fans expect a certain experience.”
The three worst franchises, meanwhile, were the Arizona Coyotes, Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes.
“Whenever we’ve had a contending team, we’ve drawn pretty well,” said Bill Torrey, who was the Florida Panthers’ first president. “But unfortunately, with all the ownership changes that we’ve had, we did not always have success to go with it. Not making the playoffs and creating the excitement that winning does in any sport made it very difficult.”
“Look at the difference between the Lightning and the Panthers,” Ozanian said of two teams that are not far apart geographically but are clearly separated on the Forbes rankings, listed at 24th and 29th. “The Lightning didn’t make the playoffs this year, but in previous years they were right there and made a small profit. That’s cool, but they had to go far into the playoffs to do that. The Panthers didn’t, and they lost money. ”
Perhaps that is why the league is trying to ensure the Golden Knights are competitive from the start. Vegas is not Winnipeg, where there is an established fan base that is willing to put up with a non-playoff team because they are simply happy to have an NHL team. The honeymoon phase in Vegas might last only a year. After that, they have to start winning.
Besides holding the sixth-overall draft pick, the Golden Knights will have a cache of established players to choose from thanks to an expansion draft that allows the 30 other teams to protect only a handful of players from their rosters. They probably will not make the playoffs this coming season, but they could be competitive. At the very least, they should have some interested fans.
Like in Nashville, it will be up to Vegas to ensure those fans come back.
“The Vegas team should do really well,” said Torrey, who was the New York Islanders’ first GM and also built the expansion Oakland Seals from scratch in the mid1960s. “My initial reaction is it will draw a lot of attention — it’s exciting, the game itself sells when people see it in person. As for long term, I don’t think Vegas is any different than anywhere else. People want to see a winner.”
You earn some equity, but you have to re-earn it every day. The fans expect a certain experience.