I know your entire schtick is basically being a contrarian shithead WRT Canadian markets, and damn any evidence otherwise, but for the have nots of Canadian markets (meaning Winnipeg, Ottawa though for how long that applies remains to be seen with new ownership) there's only so many dollars you can squeeze out of the region before you start to hit a hard ceiling in terms of profit, and the Jets have hit that point long ago. Considering how the Jets took on a large group of season ticket holders when the team came into fruition, and proceeded to ride that group of people through the honeymoon period with little benefits or care given to STH's, their feeling was that they could effectively guilt trip people into buying in without anything else added on because people were afraid of losing the Jets for a second time.
Well, now that the Jets are in a weird minus zone of being good enough to make the playoffs, but not good enough to make deep runs, that's coming back to bite them in the ass. That the Bombers have been consistently good before COVID, and still are even now, means that more people are willing to spend the big money towards Bombers season tickets, or even stuff like the Goldeyes or Sea Bears. For the longest time the Jets were effectively the only game in town even with the Bombers, but now? There's a larger slice of the pie with regards to sports not only in Winnipeg, but also southern Manitoba in general, winter and summer. Jets management realized too late that they need to offer more towards STH's, and more importantly, treat them better.
Considering the fact that downtown Winnipeg is the domain of corporate Manitoba Hydro and MTS employees even before COVID, there's a need to get people into the downtown core now that a lot of work is remote, and most people who come into Winnipeg are realistically going to spend it in Polo Park, St. Vital, or anywhere else on the outer ring of the city. And taking into account that there's a lot of people coming into Winnipeg from First Nation reserves and the far north for medical reasons, that part of it makes sense.
To loop it to the Jets though, I have serious doubts that this ultimately drives much towards the Jets considering the people who are apart of this specific project TNSE are wrapped up in aren't the same people who would go to Jets games. If anything, it raises serious questions as to how much of TNSE owning the downtown core of Winnipeg is enough before people start wondering aloud why.
globalnews.ca
