voyageur
Hockey fanatic
- Jul 10, 2011
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For me I look at Anaheim being tied with Ottawa for 2nd in lowest gate receipt revenue, and possible candidate for lowest this year, and I wonder if that isn't a case of saturating a market. Southern Cal has a limited number of hockey fans...And most are Kings fans. I think Anaheim moving to San Diego would make some sense, if an arena was available. But again look at what Hamilton would generate for fan income, as a certainty and I don't think there is a strong argument there. Portland would make sense if there was an owner who wanted to buy in.Well, the Padres owner just died.
The thing about the Padres is that they are the PERFECT example of what we talk about with "market saturation" for teams.
San Diego had the Padres and the Chargers. The Chargers left for LA. The Padres revenues skyrocketed. Because Chargers STH now bought more Padres tickets, and single-game, it's only the Padres.
But also corporate dollars: The advertisers, there's less total sports ad space in San Diego, so the Padres not only got more people wanting to advertise, but the demand allowed them to raise prices for limited quantities.
It was a slight increase in attendance, but a massive increase in revenues. The Padres stopped being "a small market team" and signed Machado, Tatis, traded for Soto and signed Bogaerts. That was four guys making the $300m contract money per season. (Sure, they traded Soto, but they've got the other three).
That being said, I don't think that the Padres finances are going to revert back to small market with a second team rejoining, because the Padres will be #1 to an NHL team instead of #2 to an NHL team. And the NHL will be fine because NHL teams require about a third of revenue NFL teams require. It's more that it's just fascinating to view and take lessons from.
I hope the owners don't get too greedy. They have made some money by expanding, and negotiating a better TV deal because of it. Atlanta with its strong Southern presence still sticks out as a potential growth market, you could argue that Houston will divide a finite number of Texas hockey fans, but there is the coroporate dollars that can't be ignored. Fertitta may not be the guy to bring hockey there, but I suspect it will happen in the next 5 years.