That's not really how it works though. Advertisers spend on the perceived demand. And the problem with Quebec is compounded by the Francophone nature of it all. Montreal has a far more bilingual draw for advertisers and TV deals. There are Habs fans literally everywhere. Nordiques fans? You're going to have a relatively small Anglophone market draw...which limits the broadcasters and advertisers that even want to get involved and the dollars they're willing to sink into it. You're drawing a lot from exactly the same pool that are already putting their dollars behind French broadcasts of existing games on RDS/TVA whatever.
And as far as two weekend games for Habs/Nordiques...you might get two, but they're very likely at the same time on Saturday night. That has no "value added" for advertisers or broadcasters. It's just internal competition.
Yeah. This is why i think it's important to not get swept away in this notion that the development getting a go-ahead as a whole, means it's a signed, sealed, delivered NHL Arena and NHL hockey team. It's a massive development that ultimately
may or may not have an NHL Arena and team attached.
The key to this whole development is clearly more the whole other aspect of:
"
Early plans for the rest of the Forsyth County district have called for about 1.6 million square feet of office and retail space, 450 hotel rooms, 2,400 residential units, a 100,000-square-foot community center, a new fire station, and a 1.2-mile connective trail along the Big Creek Greenway."
The Arena sounds like basically a handshake agreement MOU to provide additional funding if they
do manage to land an NHL Franchise. But could easily be subbed out for whatever else and the rest of the development isn't contingent on landing an NHL Team.
It's basically the complete opposite of what say...Edmonton did with their new Roger McDavey Arena "Ice District".
While we're putting it out there, can we talk about just how incredibly tacky that looks? Specifically, just plastering a big random image of an electric guitar across the entire side of a tower like that?
What even is that? It'd be tacky in Nashville...but at least maybe kinda sorta fit the vibe. In a random Atlanta exurb? lmao.
Also love the artistic vision of whoever put together this rendering, that
only Ferraris and Porsches and Exotic Sports Cars will use this random loopy traffic circle thing in front of the rink. And they will drive in very strange patterns, basically just circling around it and maybe crashing up onto the sidewalk sometimes.
But as a serious point to that...i think it illustrates just how much this whole NHL Arena (and the hypothetical team it's contingent upon) are a tacked on side project to the greater density hub development as a whole.
To be fair though, isn't a huge amount of the Port of Houston's traffic basically just oil and oil accessories?
But regardless, Atlanta is very much not on a peer level with NY/Chicago/LA. lol. It's far more on the level of something like Houston. Just different industries and things. Second tier economic centers.
This is also really just more indication that
this NHL component of the whole project is...flexible and tentative at this point. The whole project has assuredly run the numbers and is extremely confident in the profitability going forward with just the Community Center/Rink and turn that area slated for an NHL Arena into something else entirely. Heck, it might even be a concert hall of some sort...right next to the ugly ass giant guitar wall thing.
The Jaguars to London thing is so much more asinine than the Thrashers to Atlanta again thing.
It's just not remotely feasible. The NFL are plenty content to just continue playing more of these one or two off games in Europe to satisfy that growth. Expanding to adding games in Germany, wherever else they think they can grow the game internationally...
without moving a team there. Which would become a complete logistical nightmare.
The Jacksonville thing is basically a crock that is fueled by some weird misconceptions, speculation because the owner happens to be invested in UK Soccer and was at one point going to buy Wembley Stadium, and an agreement that is beneficial to the Jaguars for a completely different reason than it's generally portrayed.
The Jaguars owner and the City of Jacksonville have been moving along steadily with a huge investment in a project to massively develop the area around the existing Stadium. Boatloads of money in "The Shipyards" project. That's unlikely to be a move from a team that's about to move across the Atlantic.
The biggest thing with Jacksonville continuing to roll with their London agreement, is that the owner specifically sees the value in expanding his team's reach to an International Audience. It's sacrificing a couple home games of revenue in one of the smaller NFL markets...while massively expanding the reach and appeal of the brand and team viewership, merchandise sales, etc, to potentially cover the whole of the UK. Not even just in terms of international viewers...setting their games aside puts those two games out of sequence with all the other games on any given Sunday...which is something that the Jaguars have struggled with. As a smaller market and a generally terrible team for most of the last couple decades, they'd be pretty much completely removed from
ANY primetime National coverage on Sunday Night Football/Monday Night Football.
It's also become a bit of a competitive advantage for the team on the field. lol. They're a lot more "used to it" than other teams. So it can end up being a bigger home field advantage than actual home field.
If the NFL makes a legitimate move to Europe...it's going to have to come in a big chunk. With an entire division of teams there or something. But in the meantime...they seem happy enough to just rake in a ton of extra revenue out of the project, continue to make inroads in those markets, and having a partner team that's invested in being a component of that a couple times a year just helps move that along smoothly.
www.shipafreight.com
