[quote source="/post/180157/thread" timestamp="1431599993" author="
quackbeth"
It's strange how some US markets have done well, while others have faltered. I'm not sure why. In California, the Sharks and Ducks were instant hits, and sold out most of their games. Florida did well in their first few years, but went off the radar when the team relocated to Sunrise, which is nowhere near Miami. Tampa did well at first, had a few rough years, and now attendance is among the highest in the NHL. Carolina was a horrible place to put hockey, and with the exception of a few years where the team was great, have usually been in the bottom 5 markets.
Atlanta could have worked, as Ted Turner was going to bankroll the team. Unfortunately, once the AOL-Time Warner merger became official, the franchise never really had a stable ownership group. Nashville, on the other hand struggled for a few years, but have been relatively successful, once the Preds became successful a decade ago. It almost seems like it is somewhat hit-and-miss which markets can and will support an NHL franchise.
I think Norm Green is proof that you can own a team in the best market in the USA (Minnesota North Stars), but if the ownership is horrible, the team will not draw. that is why Atlanta moved.
1. Right after fanbase-building rivalries, ownership's as key as it gets to making a non-traditional market work. The Ducks have been lucky--much as I'm not at ALL a Disney person, all the ice in Canada will melt before Disney goes bankrupt, so the Mighty Ducks wouldn't ever have gone belly up that way, and then the Samuelis are as good an ownership family as there is in the NHL. The ex-Thrashers are the inverse of that, almost having a hugely-wealthy owner to keep them afloat before things fell apart. (The Expos had a similar problem, another Canadian team I'd like to see back...ax the Rays already and bring the Expos back...actually, the baseball history nerd in me would REALLY love to see them come back to the NL and swap with the Nationals, as the Washington Senators were an AL team...but the Nats have built their own rivalries and this is a tangent, so I digress.)
2. I don't think Atlanta ever had a realistic chance. Ask anyone, Atlanta's notorious for being one of the worst and most fickle sports cities in North America...add to that...
3. Competition from the other three major North American sports leagues, and no way. My nightmare is an NBA team coming to Anaheim, as was thrown around (mostly without consequence) when it looked like the Sacramento Kings were moving, and not just because I don't give a fig about the NBA (loved it in the 90s, The Jordan/Pippen/Rodman/Phil Jackson Bulls vs. Reggie's Pacers vs. Ewing and Spike Lee's Knicks vs. the Alonzo Mourning Heat with Charles Barkley's Suns and Kobe and Shaq bickering and slam dunking for the Lakers...and then...it just grew stale for me) but because the Ducks work in part, even when they're in the 20s in attendance, because they're basically Anaheim's team. The Angels are as well, but A) They're the LOS ANGELES Angels of Anaheim now (kinda takes away from your representing Anaheim before big brother LA when the latter comes first in your name) and more importantly, B) They play March-September, October if they make the playoffs, while the Ducks have most of fall and winter to themselves, share spring, and if they're still playing when baseball really gets underway, as is the case now, it means they're deep in the playoffs, so the interest is already there.
Besides the fact it's Canada's game, that's another reason Canadian/Northern teams can/could do better than many failed and failing non-traditional teams.
Taking nothing away from the Bombers, the CFL isn't the NFL, and anyway, hockey usually wins in Canada anyway.
The failed/failing non-traditional teams?
--The Thrashers had to compete with the Hawks, the Braves when they were still winning division championships all the time, and the Falcons, and where hockey wins in the Great White North, football wins in the American South.
--The Coyotes likewise have had to contend with the Suns, the Diamondbacks, and the Cardinals, plus Arizona and Arizona State University basketball and football.
--The Panthers have to fend off the one team Miami's supported with any consistency, the Dolphins, while the Marlins have won two World Series (before blowing up both winning teams immediately afterwards) and the Miami Heat when LeBron James won two titles there and nearly took home a third (and Miami's another one of those cities that doesn't have the best reputation as a diehard sports city for anyone except the Dolphins, everyone else is trendier.)
--The Hurricanes have had to contend with the Charlotte Hornets/expansion Bobcats-turned-reborn-Hornets (and as a side note, the New Orleans Pelicans relinquished the Hornets name and history so the reborn Hornets could use them again, so why don't the Coyotes just do that?), the Carolina Panthers, and then the biggies, North Carolina and Duke basketball...basketball is big in the Tar Heel state, and it being played at the same time as hockey doesn't bode well for a non-traditional start-up there except for, as you say, the few years the Hurricanes were good and the year they won the Cup...otherwise, Charlotte reverts back to a basketball-first, football-second place.
And others?
--The Lightning compete with the Buccaneers and Rays, but the former have been bad for some time now since their Super Bowl win, and the latter were good, are now decent but not World Series contenders, and they're the baseball equivalent of the Coyotes/Thrashers right now, a team destined to either move or get an absurd deal to keep them where they're drawing no fans...either way, the competition in Tampa isn't TOO tough, so the Lightning could survive the bad years with the memory of the Cup win and hang onto until they've recharged a bit in the last year or two. (As a cynical side note, it always helps when the competition is "less worse" than you...and when you can clearly say you're the less worse--or "better"--of the two Florida teams, it helps your case for you being the one that survives.)
--The Predators are the Lightning Redux, minus the Cup but plus the benefit of not having to contend with title winners, either. Aside from a few playoff wins by the Grizzlies and the Titans' lone AFC Championship win and memorable Super Bowl loss, and a couple playoff victories besides, they haven't owned Tennessee the way Duke, UNC, NC State and others have owned North Carolina, or the way the Braves constantly won in Atlanta.
--The Stars are really the outlier here, with teams in all four major North American sports, having to share time with the ungodly behemoths of Texas and NFL football that ARE the Dallas Cowboys, along with the the Mavericks during a NBA Championship win and two pennant wins and one near World Series win by the Rangers, who play in near-ish Arlington, to say nothing of all the college football teams there, and the fact high school football gets a good following there as well. The best I can do there is posit the Stars basically had the best of possible timing in winning when they did, 1999. Late enough that it was after the main years of the 1990s Dallas Cowboys' dynasty, but well BEFORE the Mavericks and Rangers had their major successes, AND doing it far enough from their relocation that the win didn't overlap with the start-up buzz they'd get anyway BUT not so long after that they'd lost all interest or momentum, AND making it back to the Finals next year AND having a recognizable face of the franchise to bank on in Mike Modano. The "Stars" aligned for them, if you will.
But yeah, that incredibly lucky timing in winning how and when they did (always helps to win in memorable fashion, and their win sure was and is memorable even today), Dallas' big population, and Mike Modano are probably the three factors that let hockey flourish there.
--The Blue Jackets have lots of competition from all the sports teams in Ohio, pro and college, but 1. Get the benefit of being Columbus' major team, and thus don't have to "officially" compete with the teams in Cincinnati or Cleveland while still being able to draw fans from there, and 2. The Buckeyes' college football wins aside, Ohio sports...how should I put this...suck.
The Big Red Machine days are decades past, the Bengals ARE the Bungles, the Browns are, well, the Browns, the Indians look good this year but haven't been to the World Series since 1997...basically it's a Buckeyes and (once again) a LeBron state. Both of those titans overlap with the Blue Jackets' schedule, but they're not quite in dire straights yet, and are still young, though if they don't start winning soon there could be bigger problems.