News Article: Quebec City, Andlauer and the Sparticat Fiasco

[GCK]

Raleigh and Columbia are much much closer to Charlotte than Quebec City is to Ottawa.

I don’t think the Hornets are going into Nashville Tennessee to grow their brand.



It costs games that could have been held in Ottawa for local fans who actually cheer for the team.

There are 39 home games. Play a couple in QC in the middle of a 6 homes in a 12 day stretch where local fans don’t want to see Seattle Tuesday and Utah Thursday.

 

[DackellDuck]

There are 39 home games. Play a couple in QC in the middle of a 6 homes in a 12 day stretch where local fans don’t want to see Seattle Tuesday and Utah Thursday.

There are plenty of fans in Ottawa who’d be happy to go to those games. Especially season ticket holders.

But screw them. Let’s help out Quebec City.

And from a competitive on-ice perspective, put ourselves at a disadvantage by making players play two extra games on the road, 5 hours away, in front of an ambivalent non-Senators fan base.

So the owner can make a couple extra bucks.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Raleigh and Columbia are much much closer to Charlotte than Quebec City is to Ottawa.

I don’t think the Hornets are going into Nashville Tennessee to grow their brand.



It costs games that could have been held in Ottawa for local fans who actually cheer for the team.

Being so concerned with the “size” of the fanbase, on your part, is bizarre. Who cares if the Habs have more fans in more places?

People are so very concerned about the owners pocketbook that they’re willing to see their team play games outside of their own city.

now you are just whining for the sake of it

 

[Golden_Jet]

There are plenty of fans in Ottawa who’d be happy to go to those games. Especially season ticket holders.

But screw them. Let’s help out Quebec City.

As a STH for 20 years, you have no evidence to back that up, Season ticket holders aren’t big pre-season fans tbh, some like them, most don’t.
If 1 regular season game ever happened, it will depend on the pre season response.
Seems like you’re just arguing to argue, but don’t provide any evidence to back it up.

How many games are you attending a year?

 

[GCK]

There are plenty of fans in Ottawa who’d be happy to go to those games. Especially season ticket holders.

But screw them. Let’s help out Quebec City.

And from a competitive on-ice perspective, put ourselves at a disadvantage by making players play two extra games on the road, 5 hours away, in front of an ambivalent non-Senators fan base.

So the owner can make a couple extra bucks.

I know a bunch of STHs who would be happy to not have 5 games in 11 days especially

 

[DackellDuck]

As a STH for 20 years, you have no evidence to back that up,

Judging by the reaction on social media and radio to this announcement from Sens fans, there’s plenty of evidence to back this up.

I know a bunch of STHs who would be happy to not have 5 games in 11 days especially

LOL. Yeah, people buy season tickets but don’t want to go to games.

Maybe they can give them away to local Ottawa families who don’t get the chance to go, then. Lots of people who live here and are die hard fans would love to take in a game live.

Nah, let’s support the owner padding his pockets in Quebec City.

 

[GCK]

Judging by the reaction on social media and radio to this announcement from Sens fans, there’s plenty of evidence to back this up.



LOL. Yeah, people buy season tickets but don’t want to go to games.

Maybe they can give them away to local Ottawa families who don’t get the chance to go, then. Lots of people who live here and are die hard fans would love to take in a game live.

Nah, let’s support the owner padding his pockets in Quebec City.

Umm you aren’t paying for 41 games when there are only 39. Are you serious ?

 

[DackellDuck]

Umm you aren’t paying for 41 games when there are only 39. Are you serious ?

Lots of people in Ottawa would be happy to pay for those tickets.

Like I said, the fan response has been so harsh for a reason. It’s a bad idea that was very poorly executed.

We’ll agree to disagree. I hope one day you can tell your Habs buddies how excited you are that the Senators have gained a foothold in Quebec City and how great that is for Ottawa since now they can watch their own team play less.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Judging by the reaction on social media and radio to this announcement from Sens fans, there’s plenty of evidence to back this up.



LOL. Yeah, people buy season tickets but don’t want to go to games.

Maybe they can give them away to local Ottawa families who don’t get the chance to go, then. Lots of people who live here and are die hard fans would love to take in a game live.

Nah, let’s support the owner padding his pockets in Quebec City.

Obviously you’ve never been a STH.
Most STH will try and sell the games they can’t attend, before giving them away.

How many games are you attending a year?

They only mistake they made was with the jersey on Spartacat,

 

[GCK]

Lots of people in Ottawa would be happy to pay for those tickets.

Like I said, the fan response has been so harsh for a reason. It’s a bad idea that was very poorly executed.

We’ll agree to disagree. I hope one day you can tell your Habs buddies how excited you are that the Senators have gained a foothold in Quebec City and how great that is for Ottawa since now they can watch their own team play less.

I tell you what, if the Sens play games in Quebec City that aren’t the 13K dregs (like Seattle on a Monday), I’ll complain.

 

[DackellDuck]

Obviously you’ve never been a STH.
Most STH will try and sell the games they can’t attend, before giving them away.

How many games are you attending a year?

I go to 10-12 games a year. What does it matter?

What a bizarre viewpoint. Can you imagine Habs fans being excited if their owner said his vision was to play less games at the Bell Center and more in Sherbrooke?

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

That’s just your opinion, although most would disagree with, but everyone gets an opinion.

The sharing of regions is an excellent agreement for both teams and fans.

I never commented on whether it was a good or bad agreement.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I go to 10-12 games a year. What does it matter?

What a bizarre viewpoint. Can you imagine Habs fans being excited if their owner said his vision was to play less games at the Bell Center and more in Sherbrooke?

If that’s actually true then you should be buying a partial ticket package, to save money.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I never commented on whether it was a good or bad agreement.

lol sure ok.

There was a deal made to share territorial rights. This is something people should ask Andlauer, Mendes, and Leeder to elaborate on - because it makes no sense as a business plan.

 

[BankStreetParade]

Could we start by filling our arena with Sens fans for Habs + Leafs games before we start expanding our map? This is the most cart before the horse idea in the history of this franchise.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

lol sure ok.

There was a deal made to share territorial rights. This is something people should ask Andlauer, Mendes, and Leeder to elaborate on - because it makes no sense as a business plan.

I was referencing how they justified this as reaching out to potential TV viewers as a bad business plan if Montreal is also in that territory. Because it's unlikely that they are going to convince fans to switch who have already chosen Montreal.

I brought up the original deal and said that someone should directly ask the team if that deal is still active, and if it only covers the city limits - or if it is an exchange of the entire territory. In short, are regional Canadiens games also shown in Quebec City, or is it only the Senators.

The business plan I referred to as making no sense was not Bruce Firestone's original deal to swap territorial rights, it was the Senators idea that they are going to waste marketing resources on a city that is 400km with the justification that they have the territorial rights to that area.

It's strange because you're the first one to insult people by saying they are insecure, but 'lol sure ok' is a pretty insecure response on your part.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Could we start by filling our arena with Sens fans for Habs + Leafs games before we start expanding our map? This is the most cart before the horse idea in the history of this franchise.

I really don't want to get into the whole discussion about Leafs fans buying Sens tickets, but part of the reason why I don't buy this being an innocent business proposal is because of what you're saying. There is an entire next generation of Francophone fans to try and win over in Orleans and Gatineau, who would be tremendously more valuable given their proximity to the product. Could they do both? Maybe. But most organizations have a limited marketing budget.

This is Daryl Katz going visiting Seattle on steroids: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/edmonton-oilers-owner-daryl-katz-visits-seattle-1.1281994

As the other poster pointed out, right out of the NHL playbook.

One of two things has to be true based on how they executed this campaign, and the extreme negative reaction to it. Either, their entire organization from top to bottom is incompetent and does not understand the local fanbase. I find this hard to believe given they have Leeder and Mendes involved. Or this was done deliberately to incite a certain outcry related to the possibility of relocation, with the "oh we just wanted some tv viewers from 400km away" as their plausible deniability.

The point is to get the city and NCC to give them an arena. Not to relocate the team. But it's still a very dangerous avenue to see them go down and people should be very concerned.

 

[PlayersLtd]

Oh? Eugene Melnyk was a self-made billionaire too. How did his smart ideas turn out?

Overdrive spent a segment dunking on the Sens. Paraphrasing Jeff O’Neill:

“I just spent two weeks in Ottawa for the world juniors. They have great hockey fans who’ve stuck with that team through some dark times. Finally they have a team in the playoff chase that they can rally around, and some bozo in the front office decides that nows a good time to announce that they’ll be playing games in Quebec City and dress their mascot in a Nordiques jersey.”

Sums it up pretty well.

Hayes kept hammering at Andlauer saying that this will be something that happens for regular season games, too.

Sh1t man you got me with the Melnyk thing but then totally neutered yourself with a straight faced Overdrive reference!

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

Andlauer is learning that when you are explaining, you are losing.

The message, whatever it is supposed to be, is lost. You simply can't ignore the history of how Melnyk used Quebec as a pawn - at the same time as you are messaging to fans/ncc/both that the NCC deal is looking rough and not expect to get a wtf.

It's like if you are 45 and your wife is like "I was at the fertility clinic today. It's looking like success" and after pulling yourself off the floor she means she just drove a friend there.

*for the record, I don't think this is about growing the game. Apparently Quebec fans are already watching on T.V, so whatever this is, it's not to get more eyes on the T.V. It's probably a pain to the NHL because now Quebec will be on them again about a team.

When did Melnyk use Quebec as a pawn again?

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

I know Jeff O'Neill is a Leafs fan, but maybe if Andlauer starts having regular season games in Markham his kids will cheer for the Senators. I see the sparkle in his eye when Methot makes him wear that jersey on TSN.

 

[Crosside]

RDS has rights for 40 regional french games, and Sportsnet actual has rights to some french language games as well (news to me but these might be via their app only?), but I'm not sure if that's national or not, it might only be available in areas not covered by RDS or possibly only the games RDS doesn't cover.

Chabot was saying he was surprised to learn 80 games are now available in french, which apparently wasn't the case when he was a kid. I think that's how you go after the kids of anything but the Habs ex-Nordique fans,

Sportsnet share is right with TVA sports. Lots of saturday game broadcast

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Could we start by filling our arena with Sens fans for Habs + Leafs games before we start expanding our map? This is the most cart before the horse idea in the history of this franchise.

Leafs and Habs fans fill up every arena in the country when they’re the visiting team, Ottawa is just a bigger deal because of the proximity of the city and the history of the fanbases here that predates the franchise.

It’s an overblown topic and something we’ll have to deal with no matter what. You want to fight back? Go to some Sens games in Toronto or Montreal.

 

[DackellDuck]

Hayes makes some good points towards the end about having to actually invest in the QC market if you want to win fans, but that means investing less in Ottawa. References the disaster that was the Bills trying to play games in Toronto to “tap” that market, using it as a money grab and pissing off their own fans.

Garrioch says there were people within the org that said this was a bad idea, and based on the reaction, they’ll play the preseason games there next season but the chances of a regular season game have gone up in smoke.

Hopefully a lesson learned for Mr. Andlauer.

 

[Stylizer1]

It’s not 1994 anymore. People have easy access to games and highlights nowadays. No matter where you live, you can be an Oilers, or Canucks, or Golden Knights, or whatever fan. It’ll only become easier as rights shift from traditional networks to Netflix, Amazon, etc.

Sens games have been available to Quebec City kids on TSN for a while. There’s no hotbed of fans there. There never will be.

No everyone are millennials.

 

[Stylizer1]

That Quebec and the Maritimes are our broadcast area must add to the franchise value. When i was a kid, regions would get exclusive access to one team. In the new digital age, im not sure how valuable that exclusivity is anymore or even if its possible. It must require new ways of reaching out to new fans.

Its a fair point to debate about whether such a move is warranted. They must have assigned risk to that possibility. At least that doesnt seem to be coming from a place of insecurity. But attempting to strengthen TV ratings and broadcast rights in our broadcast area doesnt really seem unusual. Welcome Québec fans, come on over.

its been like this since at least the mid 2000's. I was surprised when I was living out east that i got to watch all of the Sens games.