It doesn't have to be winning, You don't need to win a Cup to have a rabid fanbase that sells out the arena most nights. You just need to have an ownership and management group that at the very least gives the impression that they are legitimately trying.
Speaking from first hand experience here, things in Raleigh cratered when it became obvious that Karmanos didn't care enough to try. It was bad enough that he was unwilling to spend more than the cap floor every year for a team that always finished 10-15 points outside the playoff cut line, but then he had the audacity to start blaming the fans for his unwillingness to spend money. Those last few years were seriously ugly, and I'm glad he's gone, but gave me so much sympathy for the shit that fans in Atlanta and Arizona dealt with (and hell, now for the fans of the Oakland A's as well).
And the kicker is, Tom Dundon came in and immediately proved everything Karmanos said was a load of BS. He immediately started spending to the cap, dropped ticket prices for the explicit purpose of getting people into the arena and hooked back onto the game, and allowed it to grow from there, because he knew that spending a little bit of money up front would exponentially increase his revenue down the line. And sure, the Canes are a consistently good team now, and that helps a lot, but we've now basically sold out every game since COVID and had a wait list for season tickets last year (I do believe that dropped this year because they jacked up cost across the board and a lot of people dropped).
If you do the same in Atlanta or Phoenix (or hell, Houston), by taking a loss and investing up front to build a following and making sure you spend to the cap every year, you will have a strong fanbase in those areas. Its really not that hard to accomplish, but some people just got rich by being really cheap, and they don't know any other way to act.
