radoran Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 And I''ll repeat... the problem was NOT anemic fan support.. the problem was severe mismanagement at the upper levels of the organization. Pittsburgh drew 11,877 per game in 03-04. http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance/_/year/2004 Without the new arena and the arrival of Crosby, Pittsburgh was going to lose their team. So, in that respect, the whole "tanking" idea worked out quite well for them, eh? One might say it wasn't "severe mismanagement" in that it actually saved the team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polaris922 Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 Pittsburgh drew 11,877 per game in 03-04. http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance/_/year/2004Without the new arena and the arrival of Crosby, Pittsburgh was going to lose their team.So, in that respect, the whole "tanking" idea worked out quite well for them, eh? One might say it wasn't "severe mismanagement" in that it actually saved the team.Nobody is arguing the attendance was low, but as I believe @B21 stated previously, they could've sold out every game and it wouldn't have mattered. The team was so poorly managed financially by the owners they were done anyway. An example would be that at the time, the team received none if the money from concession sales. Merchandise sales were extremely low. By the time they'd started winning Cups, the writing was on the wall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polaris922 Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 Here... A lot of this from then owner Howard Baldwin... http://old.post-gazette.com/sports/columnists/20030217cook0217p1.asp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruxpin Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 Here... A lot of this from then owner Howard Baldwin... http://old.post-gazette.com/sports/columnists/20030217cook0217p1.asp.That would have been nauseating reading back then. It's still really interesting reading especially after all this time and knowing how it turned out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polaris922 Posted February 21, 2014 Share Posted February 21, 2014 That would have been nauseating reading back then. It's still really interesting reading especially after all this time and knowing how it turned out.For those of us that followed the team so much it was painful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 22, 2014 Share Posted February 22, 2014 Nobody is arguing the attendance was low, but as I believe @B21 stated previously, they could've sold out every game and it wouldn't have mattered. The team was so poorly managed financially by the owners they were done anyway. An example would be that at the time, the team received none if the money from concession sales. Merchandise sales were extremely low. By the time they'd started winning Cups, the writing was on the wall. Bingo. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the attendance issues from 01-02 on led to the bankruptcy but the bankruptcy filing took place in 1998 and their attendance was pretty good in the preceding years. It was then that Lemieux cashed in his deferred salary ($30,000,000+) for a stake in ownership. The attendance became a real problem in 01-02 (15,649), 02-03 (14,750) and the really bad year of 03-04 (11,877). Lemieux's group started the Kansas City courtship - I/M/H/O as leverage for the new arena - and the rest is history. I'm sure that poor attendance didn't help but it was not even close to being the reason they were hemorrhaging money. Bad arena deal (see: SMG). Bad arena. Still feeling the impact from the bankruptcy (they owed $90 million to creditors when they filed). I did some "quick" math to gauge the revenue they lost during those 3 season. If you total up the number of tickets not purchased (capacity - actual attendance) and multiply that by 41 you get the number of seats not sold each year. Then I took the Flyers average non-premium seat price from 2013 and came up with $24.9 million in lost revenue from tickets not sold during those 3 seasons. That money would not have made a lick of difference...and that figure is obviously artificially high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruxpin Posted February 22, 2014 Share Posted February 22, 2014 Bingo. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the attendance issues from 01-02 on led to the bankruptcy but the bankruptcy filing took place in 1998 and their attendance was pretty good in the preceding years. It was then that Lemieux cashed in his deferred salary ($30,000,000+) for a stake in ownership.The attendance became a real problem in 01-02 (15,649), 02-03 (14,750) and the really bad year of 03-04 (11,877). Lemieux's group started the Kansas City courtship - I/M/H/O as leverage for the new arena - and the rest is history.I'm sure that poor attendance didn't help but it was not even close to being the reason they were hemorrhaging money. Bad arena deal (see: SMG). Bad arena. Still feeling the impact from the bankruptcy (they owed $90 million to creditors when they filed).I did some "quick" math to gauge the revenue they lost during those 3 season. If you total up the number of tickets not purchased (capacity - actual attendance) and multiply that by 41 you get the number of seats not sold each year. Then I took the Flyers average non-premium seat price from 2013 and came up with $24.9 million in lost revenue from tickets not sold during those 3 seasons. That money would not have made a lick of difference...and that figure is obviously artificially high.Interesting.I think what's becoming clear is that the attendance was more symptom (or even consequence) than cause.Ever watch Kitchen Nightmares? My wife does, but I secretly get a kick out of it. Anyway, the cliff notes is that Gordon Ramsey goes each week to help struggling and/or dying restaurants.On various episodes, the owners blame the customers (who have stopped coming in droves) or location or staff. In almost every episode the reason for the loss of customers and the critical condition of the business was either neglect, mismanagement or both on the part of the owners.The forensics described by you and Polaris reminded me a lot of that. Obviously an over simplified correlation but some of the principles are the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polaris922 Posted February 22, 2014 Share Posted February 22, 2014 @ruxpinNo over simification at all. Pretty accurate. It's like our Pirates... I grew up loving baseball and loving them. But when the team was managed so poorly, my protest was in not attending any more games. I think I already said that... I must be losing it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Interesting.I think what's becoming clear is that the attendance was more symptom (or even consequence) than cause.Ever watch Kitchen Nightmares? My wife does, but I secretly get a kick out of it. Anyway, the cliff notes is that Gordon Ramsey goes each week to help struggling and/or dying restaurants.On various episodes, the owners blame the customers (who have stopped coming in droves) or location or staff. In almost every episode the reason for the loss of customers and the critical condition of the business was either neglect, mismanagement or both on the part of the owners.The forensics described by you and Polaris reminded me a lot of that. Obviously an over simplified correlation but some of the principles are the same. That's actually a pretty good analogy. The "ironic" part of the entire situation is while that mismanagement led to te bankruptcy, it also was a big part of why they won two Cups and, as @radoran pointed out, indirectly led to a third. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer2 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Interesting.I think what's becoming clear is that the attendance was more symptom (or even consequence) than cause.Ever watch Kitchen Nightmares? My wife does, but I secretly get a kick out of it. Anyway, the cliff notes is that Gordon Ramsey goes each week to help struggling and/or dying restaurants.On various episodes, the owners blame the customers (who have stopped coming in droves) or location or staff. In almost every episode the reason for the loss of customers and the critical condition of the business was either neglect, mismanagement or both on the part of the owners.The forensics described by you and Polaris reminded me a lot of that. Obviously an over simplified correlation but some of the principles are the same. Well, we are in the same boat. My girlfriend watches the show sometimes. I don't secretly like it. The real kicker is how the managers always seem to "see the light" and take ownership of their faults, usually during a sappy melancholy scene that makes we want to rip my eyes out....other than that, no problems with it...LOL! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fanaticV3.0 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Completely agree. I think maybe only the extremes on either end are noticeable, but even that probably has a certain amount of anecdotal evidence. The Panthers' fan base clearly stinks, for example. But there's 25 teams or so in the middle that changes depending upon set of criteria. I agree with you that ticket sales, while a decent ingredient for determining financial success, is not a great measure of a fan base. The absence of ticket sales indicates an unsupportive fan base, it still is difficult to measure against other teams given what you cited about tickets purchased vs. empty seats, etc, I agree, but more importantly, who cares? I'm not 10. Arguing over who has better fans is not something I generally care about. Who gets upset over stuff like this? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruxpin Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I agree, but more importantly, who cares? I'm not 10. Arguing over who has better fans is not something I generally care about. Who gets upset over stuff like this? No kidding. It does sound about 10, actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruxpin Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Well, we are in the same boat. My girlfriend watches the show sometimes. I don't secretly like it. The real kicker is how the managers always seem to "see the light" and take ownership of their faults, usually during a sappy melancholy scene that makes we want to rip my eyes out....other than that, no problems with it...LOL! I actually really like the show. My wife got into Tabitha Takes Over or whatever the hell it was called. Similar, but about salons instead. I'm not really into salons, but the business side of it is interesting. Ramsey also had one with hotels. Same concept. In both cases, what you described above drives me nuts. Only because of the fact the complete change of personality of the owner with no real great reason. The other thing that bothers me is that it is usually the owners themselves who call Ramsey (or Tabitha) to help and then argue with every damn thing they say. I always feel like, "Hey dumbass, your restaurant sucks and YOU called him. Shut up and take notes." It's like "Matlock" or "House" where the lead is going to be right every damn time so why argue? You know what is kind of interesting, though. While you're sitting watching Kitchen Nightmares, pay attention in the introduction to the name of the town and the name of the restaurant. And look it up on yelp.com I always find the reviews before the "takeover" and then after to be interesting. You'd expect bad, then comments about Ramsey coming, then really good immediately afterward and then either stay there or drop off. It's not always that way. Sometimes they were better before the makeover. Sometimes you see that the restaurant closed altogether afterward. I find that interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer2 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 @ruxpin Yes, we are kind of lead to believe that every restaurant he visits will rebound into a market share pig, but I kinda figured that was not always the case. Some of them have geographic problems like being located to far from vast population pockets and they are inevitably tagged for failure, even if Jesus helped them with the new menu. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I agree, but more importantly, who cares? I'm not 10. Arguing over who has better fans is not something I generally care about. Who gets upset over stuff like this? Judging by this thread (started by a Flyers fan), my years in this forum and years on Philly.com, a good portion of your fan base seems to care...and that's without any provocation from the Pens fans here. The next thread we start about our fan base would be the first. Just sayin'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jammer2 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Judging by this thread (started by a Flyers fan), my years in this forum and years on Philly.com, a good portion of your fan base seems to care...and that's without any provocation from the Pens fans here. The next thread we start about our fan base would be the first. Just sayin'. Oh I agree wholeheartedly. The Flyer fan base has always been obsessed over being seen as the top group of fans etc. You see a lot of chest thumping when the topic arises every year or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ruxpin Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Oh I agree wholeheartedly. The Flyer fan base has always been obsessed over being seen as the top group of fans etc. You see a lot of chest thumping when the topic arises every year or so. Yeah, it's certainly not the other fan bases (Pittsburgh, in particular) that starts the "my daddy can beat up your daddy" 10-year old nonsense. It is definitely the Flyers fans. @B21 Do you go on other message board sites that have a bigger representation of Pittsburgh fans? I ask because I'm curious: is there the same battle among Pens fans as to the "definition of a fan?" By that, what I mean is often on any given subject where there is criticism of the Flyers, you inevitably get some homer who wants to tell you that criticism = "not a real fan." Then, of course, you have the required "you're a homer!" or "your a blind sheep!" or something about colored glasses response. Does this happen among other fan bases (Pitt, in particular)? Because at least in the "my team's fan base is better than your fan base" discussion, Philly fans seem to have some kind of chip on their shoulder. I don't know if it comes from decades of losing or if it's an attempt to overcome or live down the Santa Claus/puking on a kid/cheering for an opponent's injury thing. Or both. But you're right that these "let's get out the ruler and a Playboy and measure" discussions usually originate with Flyer fans. (Just to be clear, this was started by @hf101, who I don't think was doing that. I believe HF was simply putting it out there as a "did you see this?") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyercanuck Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 @ruxpin Go on HF boards - there's plenty of douchebag Pens fans on there (as well as every other team). We're lucky to have 3 great Pens fans on here. I know we take potshots at each other, but they're pretty good guys for being the enemy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hf101 Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 Judging by this thread (started by a Flyers fan), my years in this forum and years on Philly.com, a good portion of your fan base seems to care...and that's without any provocation from the Pens fans here. The next thread we start about our fan base would be the first. Just sayin'. I see only one solution for this ^. Please start more Penguins' threads so I don't have to. All true of the intent which @ruxpin stated, I saw a tweet that lead me to the Penguins' website. In attempting not to plagiarize I wrote my own news topic post with the source from the original reference. If anything it was to congratulate the Penguins fans in support of their team. I was tempted to put it in the Around the NHL forum mainly because I was surprised for the support from the fans of the Sabres in second place when they clearly don't have the Superstars in the likes of Crosby and Malkin. However, I chose to put it in the Penguins forum because they were at the top of the Nielsen rating's chart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Do you go on other message board sites that have a bigger representation of Pittsburgh fans? I ask because I'm curious: is there the same battle among Pens fans as to the "definition of a fan?" By that, what I mean is often on any given subject where there is criticism of the Flyers, you inevitably get some homer who wants to tell you that criticism = "not a real fan." Then, of course, you have the required "you're a homer!" or "your a blind sheep!" or something about colored glasses response. Does this happen among other fan bases (Pitt, in particular)? I haven't alot in the last 1-2 years since B21, Jr. came along. My experience has really been that if it is primarily a Pens forum - no. Not much discussion on how big a fan one is and not a lot of "kool-aid" mudslinging. The "best fans" arguements usually happen in forums like this where you have at least a handful of fans from most of the teams. Because at least in the "my team's fan base is better than your fan base" discussion, Philly fans seem to have some kind of chip on their shoulder. I don't know if it comes from decades of losing or if it's an attempt to overcome or live down the Santa Claus/puking on a kid/cheering for an opponent's injury thing. Or both. I think the chip in this case comes from 40 years of trying to win another Cup while the little brother across the state has 3....all of which were aided by the luck of the draft and, in Lemieux's case, tanking. The die hard Flyers-only fan can legitimately question that though it's going on almost 30 years now since that draft. But....the casual all-Philly sports fan? The 2013-14 Sixers say 'hi'. That same rationale applies when our attendance comes up as a topic. When the Philly teams are bad, the attendance reflects that, too. The thing about the Flyers is they haven't really been that bad in 40 years. I think the booing Santa/puking kid/Michael Irvin thing is a whole other "chip". You see it all the time on Philly.com...anytime there is a similar incident elsewhere there is a thread about how these kinds of things happen everywhere. The problem there is that they have all happened in Philly. I think the reputation is deserved and earned but I do think it means lesser incidents are likely to be overblown and get more media coverage (the kid who ran on the field and was tasered at a Phils game comes to mind). (Just to be clear, this was started by @hf101, who I don't think was doing that. I believe HF was simply putting it out there as a "did you see this?") Not knocking the fact he posted it - it's a legit discussion topic. Pointing out that it was started by a Flyers fas was done to reinforce it wasn't Pens fans thumping their chests. Don't get me wrong - if someone brings up the "state" of our fan base we'll certainly defend it. But we've never started anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I see only one solution for this ^. Please start more Penguins' threads so I don't have to. All true of the intent which @ruxpin stated, I saw a tweet that lead me to the Penguins' website. In attempting not to plagiarize I wrote my own news topic post with the source from the original reference. If anything it was to congratulate the Penguins fans in support of their team. I was tempted to put it in the Around the NHL forum mainly because I was surprised for the support from the fans of the Sabres in second place when they clearly don't have the Superstars in the likes of Crosby and Malkin. However, I chose to put it in the Penguins forum because they were at the top of the Nielsen rating's chart. See post to @ruxpin. No sour grapes on my end. Just making a point that it was not Pens fans who started it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 @ruxpin Go on HF boards - there's plenty of douchebag Pens fans on there (as well as every other team). We're lucky to have 3 great Pens fans on here. I know we take potshots at each other, but they're pretty good guys for being the enemy. nossagog, Polaris922 and....sidmalkin? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyercanuck Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 @B21 Exactly...you know a guy joining a Philly-based hockey forum with the username "sidmalkin" isn't there just to stir the pot. :blink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Oh I agree wholeheartedly. The Flyer fan base has always been obsessed over being seen as the top group of fans etc. You see a lot of chest thumping when the topic arises every year or so. FWIW, I put your fan base into two categories. The die-hard Flyers-only fans (flyercanuck for example) who really don't give a rats arse about anything not related to hockey, sleeping, eating and (fill in blank). Then there are the all-Philly-teams fans. That dynamic really doesn't exist in Pittburgh. I'd say a large majority follows Steelers/Pirates/Pens/Pitt. So to me at least, Pens vs. Flyers is = Pittsburgh vs. Philly. And I'll get - at worst - a tie in that one every time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B21 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 @B21 Exactly...you know a guy joining a Philly-based hockey forum with the username "sidmalkin" isn't there just to stir the pot. :blink: Or pEnSuCK... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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