I think the advantage in vegas is that while we have 13000 people or whatever now in line for tickets, we havnt even considered the corporate side or the tourist side.
Yes, after 3 or 4 years of suck, those fan numbers will drop, but vegas has the capacity to weather low attendance with a decent tv deal and strong corporate sponsorship. And the tourists, however many there may be, dont care if the Black Knights are bad, they either just want to see a hockey game or are coming for the opponent.
How dare you! Haven’t you learned by now that no one will accept that Las Vegas can draw from three distinct pools of potential customers! Here come the broad generalizations!
Everyone in Las Vegas works a night shift at a casino!
Everyone in Las Vegas is a tourist with Celine Dion tickets!
Every ticket distributed will be dropped to the sidewalks and trodden upon like all the brothel leaflets!
How in the hell will Vegas ''weather'' (as you put it) low attendance if Phoenix couldn't with more than double the population. Despite what some think, the majority of teams rely on gate driven revenue. What corporate sponsorship exactly is Vegas in line for that the Coyotes could barely get in Phoenix?
We talk about the NHL being a gate-driven league, but the suite/premium tickets are a small percentage of capacity and a massive percentage of gate revenue. And most of those premium tickets are season commitments.
So when 20% of the average Joe Six Pack fans stop buying Vegas tickets after the newness wears off, the team doesn’t lose 20% of its revenue, it loses less than five million bucks.
Who on earth is going to travel to Las Vegas....sit in their hotel looking out over the strip and say "Let's go to a hockey game."
I mean, I might. But I'm not normal. If I'm travelling to go to a hockey game I'm going to New York, Chicago, Boston or Montreal. Not Las Vegas. So the typical tourist isn't going to have a million and one entertainment choices during their stay in Vegas and choose a hockey game.
You might get a bit of people planning their Vegas vacation to coincide with their hometown team being there, but I wouldn't imagine it would be in large numbers or often enough to depend on.
I still disagree. I am like you in the sense that I’m a sports/hockey freak. (The last time I was in Vegas, I was at a college basketball tournament and gambled for like 20 minutes). I’m not normal. But I wouldn’t call people who go to Vegas to see Penn & Teller normal, either.
I previously answered your question of “who’s going to visit Las Vegas and go to a hockey game?” With “They’re called DUDES.” I think there is a difference between a Vegas VISITOR and a Vegas TOURIST. A Tourist is more likely to go see a magician, acrobat or singer. A visitor is someone in town for a conference or convention (and tons of millions who visit Vegas are in that category). While a tourist is more likely to be a family or couple, the visitors are going to have a higher concentration of businessmen in groups of other business men.
The real draw of Vegas is that people can go to dinner, then A THING at 7 or 8, then hit the casinos and the clubs after. There’s plenty of men and women who will be interested in hockey as an option as one of those THINGS.
But I don’t see that as a critical point for Las Vegas. Vegas isn’t going to rely on 16,000 tourists/visitors a night.
Vegas is going to draw fans from multiple pools of people:
1. High rollers / corporations
2. Local Die-Hards who will comprise season ticket holder base.
3. Locals who like hockey and attend occasionally, specifically when their previous favorite team comes to town.
4. Locals who check out hockey because it’s their city’s team (hopefully they become fans)
5. Visitors coming to town to see a game
6. Visitors in town who happen to decide to catch a game
Those six groups makes them no different than any other NHL/NBA team in a market of 2 million people. Comparing them to similar sized franchises (San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators, Columbus Blue Jackets; and the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, Indianapolis Pacers)
1. Vegas probably has more high rollers/corporations than Nashville, Indy or Cleveland, and the about the same or less than San Jose or Columbus.
2. Tough to say, but no reason to believe it would be less than Nashville or Columbus
3. Again tough to say, but no less than Nashville
4. A little bit more than any of those five cities, because Vegas is the biggest. AND WAY MORE than Cleveland, Indy and Nashville because it will be the FIRST BIG LEAGUE TEAM in Las Vegas. And while Columbus/San Jose are "alone" among big four teams, San Jose has seven other franchises in the area in MLB, NFL, NBA and MLS; Columbus has MLS and Ohio State football. (UNLV football is terrible, their basketball is very good).
5. Vegas & San Jose blow the others out of the water. Vegas because of tourism and San Jose because there’s an INSANE amount of people in the region around them compared to anyone else that size (SF/OAK, Fresno, Stockton/Modesto, Sacramento)
6. Vegas blows everyone else out of the water.
7. Vegas can also have people who get comped tickets as part of a casino tie-in, where Vegas can make a little bit of scratch on otherwise unwanted tickets (if necessary).
And of course, it’s a safe bet that Vegas is going to promote better than anyone because that’s what Vegas does.
But no one said Nashville, Cleveland, Indianapolis, San Jose or Columbus couldn’t survive because the tourists will only care about Country Music, the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, IndyCar racing, Computer Chips or Insurance.
