Is Colorado too far south?

by Derek Zona on Jan 18, 2010 11:39 AM PST in News Comment 17 comments

A common complaint from fans in "traditional hockey markets" revolves around the latitude of "non-traditional hockey markets". The teams located in the Southern U.S. are poor hockey markets (though, to be fair, Toronto is too far south for Edmontonians, and is considered a poor hockey market) that can't survived on their own. Attendance numbers and television ratings normally prove their point, heated debate ensues then everyone goes home.

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Markets that are typically labeled as "poor" include Atlanta, Miami, Nashville, and Tampa. In recent years, the attendance numbers for these teams have sagged something fierce. But Dixie Hockey is not alone. Since their sellout streak ended in October of 2006, the Avalanche have watched as attendance has dropped yearly.

	% Capacity	NHL Rank	Finished	Playoffs
2006-2007	97.8%	14th	9th in Conf.	No
2007-2008	93.5%	17th	10th in League	Yes
2008-2009	85.7%	25th	28th in League	No
2009-2010	78.1%	26th	3rd in Conf.*	Yes*

The chart speaks for itself. Colorado made the second round of the playoffs in 05-06. Coming off of that season, the sellout streak was broken and they sold out a portion of the games the rest of the year, but there was no restarting the streak. They missed the playoffs in 2007-2008 by a single point, but were in the race until the last week of the season. Attendance continued to sag. Last season, the rebuild began and the attendance numbers fell sharply.

This year, with the team off to a hot start, a possible Olympian in net and a possible Calder winner, the first-place Avs have watched as attendance has fallen off of a cliff. Commenters and writers have blamed the recession, the 28th place team last year, and other factors, but teams like Philadelphia and New York have weathered the same circumstances without watching the gate implode.

So is Colorado too far south? Is Denver just a poor hockey market? Should the Avs move to Hamilton or back to Quebec?

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To me any place where ice forms naturally is a hockey market. Lots o’ snow in the Mile High City. Denver’s history is not atypical; fill the house when the team is good, don’t fill it when it isn’t, and lose a team entirely when it sucks (the Rockies). Typical fair-weather fans.

Bear in mind that Denver is just the 20th-largest US city in terms of population, yet supports baseball, football and basketball franchises in addition to hockey. There will always be flavour-of-the-month considerations in a place like that.

Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries

"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg

by Bruce McCurdy on Jan 18, 2010 12:12 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Denver

Denver’s the smallest city in the U.S. to have four major professional franchises, for what that’s worth.

Also, the relative decline of the Avs has coincided with the rise of the Rockies and the Nuggets, and no Denver sports team is going to be as popular as the Broncos, Josh McDaniels notwithstanding.

Finally, as someone else mentioned below, the ticket prices are just as expensive this season as they have been in years past, which is fairly absurd considering the economy and the fact the team was awful last year. As a side note, I don’t understand why, as a professional sports franchise, you’d ever want empty seats. Empty seats don’t buy beer, or hot dogs or jerseys, and empty seats don’t fall in love with the game and make it a point to come back.

by Andrew_in_Seattle on Jan 18, 2010 6:29 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

That’s not even particularly high or northern in Colorado…

As far as fanbase is concerned, Denver’s metro population is 2.5 Million and we have the Avalanche, Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies, and the Rapids (if the MLS counts as major league…)

Philly has a metro population pushing 6.5 million and supports the 76ers, Phillies, Eagles, and Flyers. They’re getting the MLS soon…

I’m not sure why the attendance hasn’t been better this year, but I live in Vancouver and was home for two weeks this December. I saw literally zero ads for the Avs and went to two games. The ticket prices, even last minute through resellers, were high. (They count NONE of the lower bowl in their average ticket price calculations and still aren’t that low comparatively…) They sucked badly AND gave very little effort a lot of nights last year. All of these factors play in, and I’ve heard of a few more recent games where the roof was bursting off the place. Perhaps the average is down for shit games like the Isles but when Dallas or Jersey are in town, look out… We also have something like 2/3 of our remaining games at home so I guess we’ll see.

Finally, Edmonton averaged between 14.7 and 12.3 thousand attendees from 1992-1996. Wasn’t that a time of notable economic boom? Luckily, people kept their heads on their shoulders and Bettman didn’t move you guys to Tiujana or Vegas or wherever the hell else he sees as the ‘next viable market’…

by wflan on Jan 18, 2010 12:36 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

No, but they were about five minutes from catching a flight to Houston in 1998.

SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.

by Doogie2K on Jan 18, 2010 2:40 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I did a study a couple of years ago where I tried to estimate the demand placed disposable income dollars by pro sports teams in each metro area. FWIW, Denver and Pittsburgh were too of the US markets that had too many pro sports teams given the size of their metro area.

All things Thrashers + stats: www.birdwatchersanonymous.com

by The Falconer on Jan 19, 2010 10:19 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Hello there,

As an Avs fan, I’ve seen a lot of this discussion on opposing team’s blogs this year. In the interests of my time and your sanity, I’ll let those who write far more eloquently than myself add to your discussion. So, In Our Defense.

Also, I barely heard you from all the way down there in the standings. Speak up! (All kidding aside, I fully expected the Avs to be right were you guys are this year.) I haven’t paid any attention to the team, so I’m curious as to what happened?

by Theodore on Jan 18, 2010 12:37 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Thanks Theodore, good article in the link. We too had universally low expectations of the Avs this year, ranked them pretty much last across the board in our preseason forecast of the Northwest, which turned out to be about as accurate as last Tuesday’s weather forecast in Haiti.

The rebirth of your team this quickly was unexpected by pretty much everyone, but as Jibblescribbits put it:

For God’s sake they have the overall #3 pick in the draft, the steal of the draft and the steal of free agency!

… which is pretty much where we’re hoping to be this time next year. :) Like you, we could use a miracle or two.

I’m curious as to what happened?

A short list of what happened would include but isn’t limited to:

— Management doing next to nothing to address exisiting holes in roster (checking centre, depth at LW, stay-at-home D, general lack of actual NHL players)

— Management creating new hole by dumping durable G for injury-prone one

— Ales Hemsky, leading scorer the last four years, lost for the season

— Nikolai Khabibulin, the only goalie in the org. with >10 NHL GP before this year, lost for the season

— Illnesses from swine flu to mononucleosis to ulcerative colitis. The team was wracked by flu for about three or four weeks in Oct-Nov, and has never gotten over it. e.g. Gilbert Brule didn’t make the current trip, and will miss his third game with his present bout of flu tonight. This is the FOURTH TIME THIS SEASON that Brule has been sidelined by illness.

— Injuries/illness have seemingly targeted either the guys who can score (Hemsky, Comrie, Brule, Souray, Grebeshkov) or the ones who can check (Pisani, Pouliot, Stone, Horcoff, Staios, also Souray).

— Underperformance by, and/or injury to, most of the veterans and big money ($2 MM+) players.

— Persistent rumours of unhappiness “in the room”.

— Open but unanswered questions about the leadership of the team both on and off the ice, from the captain to the GM.

In short, it’s been a pretty rough season.

Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries

"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg

by Bruce McCurdy on Jan 18, 2010 1:06 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Sorry to hear...

I was pretty surprised things turned out the way it did, given the quality of some of your guys

If you tank hard enough to lottery, I hear there’s a decent guy at LW in this year’s draft :p

by wflan on Jan 18, 2010 1:12 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

The good news is there is a good chance with that list that the Oilers will bounce back next year. Clearly, the Oilers are a worse team than they have any right to be at this point, due to the factors you’ve mentioned above.

I mean the Avs had similar issues last year:
- Sakic and Stastny being gone for long lengths of the year
- A leadership void due to this
- Lots of injuries and illness to other players
- Underperforming high-salaried players (the D, Tucker in particular)
- Getting Andrew Raycroft instead of a legitimate goalie

by HugoAgogo on Jan 18, 2010 1:19 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Thanks. You guys changed management and coach, made a couple of drafts and signings and things turned around pretty fast. Here in Edmonton things aren’t quite as bleak as they appear — the prospect cupboard is far from bare — but this season has been a catastrophe. We will need a good garage sale and a good draft and some good action on the UFA market and maybe a firing or two to turn it around.

Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries

"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg

by Bruce McCurdy on Jan 18, 2010 1:47 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Things turned around pretty fast

Faster than anyone thought – a very similar instant turnaround happened to Philly a couple years prior. Whether it is just a temporary swoon or something more permanent is still questionable.

The mood at Mile High Hockey last year was very self-deprecating with some depression, hopefully you guys get through it. Clearly, moving forward you would think that the Oilers should move one/both of Visnovsky or Souray and their big cap hit and see out the Khabibulin era.

by HugoAgogo on Jan 18, 2010 3:04 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

For What It's Worth

The picture at the top of the page is from Joshua Tree National Park, located in southern California.

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind - Humphrey Bogart

by smoky201 on Jan 18, 2010 1:22 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

hah

I thought it looked like southern CO.

My pic was from Rocky Mountain National Park… In late June…

Also, fuck Darcy Tucker

by wflan on Jan 18, 2010 2:16 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I just searched for a commons picture of “mountain desert”.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jan 18, 2010 2:35 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

A "mountain desert" it might be

But it’s 750 miles (1200 km) from Denver. 20 miles north of Mexico.

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind - Humphrey Bogart

by smoky201 on Jan 18, 2010 2:54 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Right. Still a mountain desert, which is what I was going for in the picture.

Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.

by Derek Zona on Jan 18, 2010 2:58 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

You could take a similar picture in southern British Columbia. Just not in the winter.

Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries

"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg

by Bruce McCurdy on Jan 18, 2010 4:17 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

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