Is Winnipeg's MTS Centre NHL ready?

The attendance numbers are based upon tickets issued. It’s a flawed stat because if you’ve issued 15,000 tickets to a game and no one shows up, it still shows in the official attendance as 15,000 even though nobody was actually there.

Also, if you gave away 15,000 seats and sold another 10 at $100 your average ticket price would be $100 because the average is based upon tickets sold, not issued.

Teams can inflate their attendance numbers by simply giving away tickets or doing two for one deals and some teams do this. Ever wonder why a building looks empty but the “official attendance” number doesn’t match what you’re seeing in the stands?

Also, I do believe that the average ticket price is based upon gate receipts and has a weak relation to attendance.

All this points to why the NHL virtually requires an 18,000 arena. And to fill most of those seats most of the time needs more than simply fans and giveaways. It needs raw population. The bigger the city and its immediate area, not 50 or more miles away, the better. Big sports is big business and why there’s so much talk of relocation whenever a soft team begins to lose.

Let’s also remember that unlike true expansion teams, teams like the Coyotes, Avalanche, and Hurricanes began in the old World Hockey Association (wasn’t it called?) and so were very fortunate to be absorbed into the NHL while their counterparts folded. Had places like Winnipeg, Hartford, and Quebec City tried applying for NHL teams back then they’d still be waiting to this day. It’s no coincidence that all three drifted to large, American, and well monied areas.

This is why there should be a “minor” major league like the WHA, to accommodate cities that frankly aren’t major league in stature like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, and Los Angeles. To mix in cities like Winnipeg or Hartford among them is intuitively silly. And unfair because in the long run they can’t consistenttly sell sufficient tickets and themselves aren’t a draw in the big markets.

That’s something Canadian fans fail to grasp. Who in places like New York or L.A. care about (or barely know the location of) small cities like Quebec City, Winnipeg, or even Nashville when paying $250 to take the family to a game?

Really this goes for all sports. Keep big markets among themselves and ditto for secondary markets.

I would not use the attendance record of the yotes as any sort of example. Just because they had one season where some showed up to free games.
Winnipegs problems wont be getting fans out to games at the high dollar tickets. That will happen for 10 years at least. Along with corp. support That part of revenue will be strong. The problem will be the rest of the equation. Being able to generate money through marketing, tv, and the likes. There needs to be a good winning product on the ice. If the team moves here and we just tread water and cant afford to sign players and run near the top of the cap then things will be a struggle. However the NHL has changed a lot in the last several years. You can have a team that is full of low end players go far in the playoffs and all you need is that to happen a few times and your off to the races. The MTS center will be full for many years and the tickets will be expensive of that you can be sure. The ticket prices to a Moose game are the same as the yotes are now so Pegers are very aware of the fact that ticket prices are going to be out of reach for many.
The fact of the matter is Winnipeg will get a team. It may not be the yotes it may be from another struggling city. And we will keep it afloat as the ownership group here is solid. The product on the ice may not be that great tho. We will need a few star players to hang our hopes on and a winning record because I give the team 10 years and if they don’t have sucess on the ice all it would take is a turn in the economy or some other outside factor and well who knows what would happen. The truth be told Winnipeg doesnt have the population to support a team. Can we do it. I am sure we can but it will be a struggle every step of the way. Even if we have a winning team it wont be easy. No one will make bags of money owning an NHL team in Winnipeg. I would venture to say that the net proffet of the current Moose team will be higher that the NHL. If it were me I would’nt open up an NHLshop here. Bad buisness move. There are other Canadian cities that have way more to offer the NHL than Winnipeg

Well i do see the relevance in all of you’re points. but what i think people are forgetting about is the ownership that the jets would have.
not only is david thomson the 20th richest man in the world, chipman is one of the richest men in winnipeg, if not the richest… and yet everyone is doubting their thinking in all of this..
obviously they know what they’re doing, i sincerely doubt that they would jump into this blindly without any prospect of making money… I’m sure they’re researched it enough and if they were too lose money every year then they probably wouldn’t throw their hats into this whole thing.
I’ll trust his judgement… if we get one thats fantastic… i will go to as many games as humanly possible.. if we don’t we know its because chipman weighed the amount of money that he could make/loose

someone keep commenting i need something to entertain me at work.. please and thank you and have a fantastic weekend

Critics of the NHL’s return to Winnipeg need to understand a few things about economics, the city of Winnipeg, and the motivations of the company that would own an NHL team.

First, economics. In 1996, the final Jets season, the Canadian Dollar was worth 73 cents USD. Now it is worth $1.04. This nearly 30% jump in the Canadian dollar makes a considerable difference in a business’s operating costs, because while paying and salaries and league costs happens in USD, all income for ticket sales, concessions, etc and TV (at the time it was almost all CBC here in Canada) were in USD, and that loss that isn’t there anymore wouldn’t be weighing down a team in Winnipeg. Then there’s the salary cap. It didn’t exist in 1996. Any team that could afford to, could literally buy every player they wanted because money wasn’t an issue with them. This competitive advantage has been nullified.

Next, the City. As stated above, Winnipeg is most comparable to Buffalo when it comes to GDP and an average ticket price of $36 would certainly be affordable enough here to fill MTS up every night.

Finally, True North Sports and Entertainment. Whether you believe it or not, these folks aren’t here to make money in Winnipeg. Nor will an NHL team in Winnipeg be the tax write-off of a zillionaire in a city on the other side of the country. The Chipmans are passionate about Hockey, and they have been blessed enough with moneymaking knowhow to be able to afford making an NHL team in Winnipeg a HOBBY.

Ever wonder about the “Entertainment” in the company’s name?

We all know that True North owns the MTS Centre. Not only does this mean that the owner of the NHL team in Winnipeg would get all the proceeds from concessions, etc, but also from EVERY TICKET to EVERY EVENT held their. Period. So when Keith Urban, Black Eyed Peas, or Metallica play there, the team is earning money. When monster trucks are doing jumps there, the team is earning money. When any other sporting event, such as IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships, Harlem Globetrotters games, major curling events, anything. Any time butts are in the seats and it cost money, the team is making money.

Very few teams have the luxury of drawing revenue from non-hockey-related sources. But when the Chipmans started working at this thing, they set out to make it sustainable and made as many safety nets as they could think of.

The final result? Even though Winnipeg isn’t a large market, preparation has been done to ensure that what it lacks in population can be covered by impeccable organization and planning.

I’m not saying the Coyotes are going to leave you all and come back to Winnipeg. I have a huge amount of sympathy for you if that happens, as one of the kids who smashed his piggy bank at the corner of Portage and Main to give every penny I had to the team I love, I know what that’s like and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. All I’m saying is, some team will come here eventually, and saying we can’t do it is patently false.

So I hope you are all informed now, and I hope that out of your own fear or pain at the prospect of losing your team, you will stop shooting US down.

I’m not here to bash anyone, but I find it interesting to see how things are playing out here in Winnipeg this week. $36/ticket? Not even close! Third priciest seats in the league, and they’re going to sell out the building for 3-5 years tomorrow in less than an hour. 97%? There will not be an empty seat for years to come.

Of course, even with that…the new Jets (whatever they’re going to be called) won’t be one of the wealthier teams in the league. The building isn’t a cash cow like some arenas, but it’s going to do the trick. The fans are in a frenzy here and most of them aren’t even considering the cost/length of term/whatever…they are just going to pay whatever it costs.

Now that Winnipeg has successfully gotten an NHL team, I would guess that the Coyotes are not in any real danger of moving next season…there’s not a lot of Winnipegs out there with the facilities and the instant support to make it work. Quebec is still years away from having it’s arena.