^^^LOL the cashier at walmart in Portland likes hockey so give them a team.(beware of small sample sizes) I disagree with many parts of this, agree with some. Seattle has a huge rec hockey league from what I’ve heard. Minor league hockey(thunderbirds) are well supported if I’m not mistaken. No Seattle can’t hold a candle to Canada BUT I think Seattle could be something along the lines of a Colorado type market(ie much better than a sunbelt/viable). If so I think the NHL should give them a team. Can you honestly say Seattle can’t beat Phoenix, Florida, Carolina, Nashville, Tampa, Columbus, Anaheim, St. Louis and maybe Dallas, Colorado, Buffalo and the Islanders?
Agree 100% about Key Arena. If the NHL or the new owners are dumb enough to put a team in Key Arena a couple seasons Seattle won’t work. They’d lose around 30 million a season in Key at least. If a Seattle team starts out in a 60 to 90 million dollar hole for no reason whatsoever it for sure will 100% fail. Knowing Bettman and the NHL they will give Seattle a team for next year, play 3 seasons at Key and wonder why it failed. I don’t worry about the NBA not giving Seattle a team. Adam Silver the new commissioner to be says they are looking at expansion. Either Seattle will get an expansion team or they will get Sacramento or Milwaukee if their arena drives fail. The only way Seattle won’t get a team is if one of the long shot law suits stick with the wrong hippy activist judge. Seattle has until December 3, 2017 to secure an NBA team. That’s a long time. Enough time to let things play out in Sacramento and Milwaukee/add expansion.
NHL in Seattle will be below NFL,NBA, MLB for sure. If they don’t get the NBA no arena so no NHL team. However even being 4th fiddle can work. It works in other cities like Chicago, NY, Boston, LA, Denver etc… Seattle is 4.4 Million plus throw in BC. Seattle is growing pretty fast too. It’s one of the fastest growing cities in the US. By 2020(next census) if current trends continue Seattle will be 4.9 to 5.0 million. That’s enough for 4 teams. Denver supports 4 teams with 3.2 million or if you want to throw in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs which are borderline 4.1 million. Seattle is also very rich especially compare to Portland. Seattle is pro-business. They have 14 fortune 1000 companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks etc…. They are also a bigger TV market than Portland 14th compare to 25th. When they sell the NHL TV rights it will be bundled in a regional sports network with the Sonics so the NHL team should have a good TV deal. It will also help the NHL more in the future when they negotiate future national TV deals if they have a Seattle team that isn’t perfect but ok compare to a Portland team that isn’t perfect but ok due to TV market size.
You can’t compare Seattle to the south. The difference between Seattle and hockey in the south is racial demographics. Much of the population growth in the south has been fueled by immigration from Latin American. That’s the wrong demographics for NHL. You need white males for NHL. Atlanta failed because they have a huge African American population plus too many transients.
The other difference between the south like Phoenix/Atlanta and Seattle is Phoenix/Atlanta are/were MASSIVELY short on fans and snowbirds can’t make that up. If Seattle is massively short on fans yes it will fail and BC won’t make it up but I’m not so sure they are. I think a Seattle team could survive weakly without help from BC but BC bumps them up a bit and will make them a lower 2/3rd market team. There is an example of fans from someplace else helping an American team make it. The BUFFALO SABRES season ticket holders are 20% Canadian. Buffalo is a lower 2/3rd revenue team. If you took that revenue away the Sabres would be in trouble long term. A big reason why Bettman was so anit-Hamilton other than the old arena and Ballsille not playing by the rules. Now I don’t think a Seattle team will get 20% fans from Canada since Buffalo is on the boarder and Seattle isn’t but with weekend 10 game packages I could see a nice number. Our very own puckschumuck, pdenny and domi are on record saying they will attend games.
Now in fairness I do agree Seattle isn’t 100% fail proof by any means. I wouldn’t bet my life on the team making it for sure and I do understand your argument against Seattle. I just feel there is enough going for Seattle they deserve a shot. If it don’t work hey fold them/move them to Ontario. You won’t be stuck with a big empty arena cause you’d still have the Sonics.
Portland I don’t know. I can see the argument. Paul Allen is loaded, the arena is awesome. Portland supports the Winterhawks well from what I understand. Demographically Portland is borderline big enough to support another full time team. It’s about 3 million in the combined statistical area but Albany and Corvalis are too far to be counted so I’d say Portland is realistically 2.8M people. The Metro is about 2.3M. The places that bump it up to 2.8 are Salem and Longview Washington which are about 44 miles away. Not that far away.
But it’s very rare for any city under 3 million(combined statistical area) to support 2 fulltime sports(NBA,MLB,NHL).
The only cities that do are
St. Louis(2.9M) (21 fortune 1000 companies) Very close to 3M. The Blues aren’t moving but they were ranked last on the last forbes franchise value list and only sold for 130M a few years ago.
Tampa Bay(2.8M) (4 fortune 1000 companies) This shouldn’t count because Sarasota and Lakeland should be thrown in bring the total up to 4.1M. The Rays are the weakest team in MLB though the stadium is badly located and royally sucks. If you don’t want to count Lakeland/Sarasota Tampa will still go over 3M by next census. So throw them out.
Pittsburgh(2.6M) (13 fortune 1000 companies)
Milwaukee(2.0M) (15 fortune 1000 companies) The Bucks may be the Seattle team
Now in fairness to your argument Portland is growing pretty decent. Every young 20 something year old wants to move to Portland. In my opinion I think it’s the best city in the United States over a million people. So if Portland currently isn’t quite big enough demographically that doesn’t mean it will remain that way.
The biggest draw back and the thing that scares the crap out of me about Portland is corporate Portland. Yes Portland doesn’t have NFL or MLB like Seattle but there is a LOT less corporate $$$ to go around. Portland is a very anti-business far far left city. Portland only has 5 fortune 1000 companies. That’s god awful for a city almost the size of 3M. That’s not a lot of corporate dollars to go around for 2 full time teams. Excluding Tampa Bay every single city in the US with 2 “full time” teams has at least 11 fortune 1000 companies. I think this is where Portland could really run into trouble.
The Blazers may have the best fan base in the NBA/awesome attendance history at legit/good prices(Charles Barkley thinks Blazer fans are the NBA’s best) but Portland is NOT an elite team due the a small local tv deal and in some years some of the suites are the Rose Garden DON’T sell out. Back in the early 2000’s during the Montreal Expos derby when Portland was a candidate the thing that worried the guys most on the old Oregon Stadium Campaign board(I was a member) was corporate Portland. They always mentioned or would say stuff like “hey I don’t mean to be negative BUT the Blazers had some empty boxes again this year.”
LOL about the part about worrying about Vancouver having trouble. When Vancouver had it’s trouble in the 80’s hockey wasn’t as popular in Canada like now plus they played in a crap arena. The other thing is in the 80’s when Vancouver struggled for attendance the city was MUCH smaller too. In the late 90’s/early 2000’s when they struggled the problem was the city wasn’t big enough for both NHL/NBA. Once the Grizzlies left things became perfect. Read my old interview I posted way back about how the former Grizzlies owner said the Grizzlies moving was the savior of the Canucks. If the Canucks have to do a major rebuilt all they have to do is slightly lower the prices. They will still be an elite team. Nothing goes perfect for anybody. Montreal couldn’t sell out before the lockout, Calgary had to close off the upper deck right before the lockout, hell mighty Toronto in the last few years had to remove 12 bunker suites because they failed to sell and 8 loge suites on the 600 level.
www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2010/03/20100329/Facilities/Bunker-Busters-Air-Canada-Centre-Combining-Suites-Into-Club.aspxThey also might have removed the 8 loge suites on the 500 level. They aren’t listed on the Air Canada Web page anymore.
www.mlsesuites.ca/suite-rentals/So that means not even the Maple Leafs are 100% perfect since they had to remove 20 to 28 suites. Are you worried about the Leafs having to remove so many suites too?
In recap I think both teams could potentially succeed or fail. I think Seattle has a better shot because
1. They will be less reliant on the gate(which is a good thing) for revenue due to the following below
2. The luxury suites will sell out at a high price due to corporate Seattle killing Portland in this category
3. They will have a good TV deal(see TV market sizes)
4. They will have more advertising revenue/corporate support. The signage at games will go for a hell of a lot more than in Portland. They can make things contingent on having to sponsor the sonics and Totems.
5. They will get help from Canada. It won’t be enough if there is no interest but if interest is borderline and not god awful this could push them from so-so to viable but not great. Portland WON’T. They are 100% on their own.
For Portland to work they’d need a LOT more interest than Seattle due to less $$$ from the “other things” that go beyond gate. I could see a Portland NHL team(especially if they don’t win) becoming the NHL version of the Vancouver Grizzlies 1.0. Paul Allen might decide having a good mid-market NBA team with elite fans is better than having 2 weak teams and kick out the NHL team.