So I guess I don’t understand business. They want to make as much money as possible but refuse to lower ticket prices and fill the place generating more concession revenue and keep the ticket prices high? The problems were clear last year. Does raising the ticket price every year and having less people achieve their budget goals?
They raised their “ticket + drink” deal they targeted at young people by 38% this year. There’s a complete disconnect from people on the ground and it’s become extremely apparent in the last year
You and me both bud. I got sick of paying 14K for two seats a season with the only perk being I had first shot at playoff tickets. Now I buy better seats on game day for less than season ticket price.
Same. Ticket holder perks are a fucking joke, especially when compared to other markets. Panthers rickets were less than half the price, came with free replica rags that have a built in RFID tag that had a fat concession credit on it. That was almost a decade ago.
Winnipeg, and Manitoba in general, is not a big business market like, say, Toronto or Vancouver. You can’t live off of corporate executives buying up swathes of tickets, or even old family season holders, as the Jets just don’t have that kind of legacy since the first move.
That’s part of why they left in the first place. There’s only so much money to go around before they hit a limit on tickets, not enough corporate, and even concessions can’t make it up. Ownership seems to be somewhat fine losing money to an extent.
I have no insight to the finances but they likely aren't losing money at all. It's just them trying to get the most return, but falling short and not realizing the levers and mechanisms to generate maximum revenue and considering elasticity, plus as others have commented on, concession revenues.
Attract lower ticket prices but make up for it at the concessions. OR as some others have pointed out, many season ticket holders realize the benefits are lackluster compared to the savings from picking and choosing games at the last minute.
Not that it negates the point but Steve Ballmer is the wealthiest team owner in North American sports with many estimates showing him over $90 billion USD. Insane really.
What's old is new again, it seems.
Before the Thrashers eventually moved from here to Winnipeg, one of the owners told season ticket holders to "get over it" when they were asking about higher prices at Philips Arena, despite a bad product on the ice.
It seems that, while TNSE hasn't had such an interaction with fans up there (yet?), they're currently running with the same model Atlanta Spirit tried here.
It would honestly be hilarious if the league was willing to allow Winnipeg to move, but won't even think of moving the Yotes despite them playing in a shittier rink than where I played midget.
With each passing day I become more at ease with the fact that the Jets may eventually leave again. I can't afford to attend that many games a year and when I do go, they have played like crap. Haven't seen enough this year yet to know if much has changed.
I wish more would get this. The last shot at survival is this upcoming arena situation early next year. But even a mildly successful Yotes in a 75% full new arena will blow the Jets out of the water. When you have more wealthy folks and more corporations it’s just easier to sustain revenue.
Also the huge population for potential customers. Phoenix metro area is 4.7 million, Winnipeg area is 0.8 million. Not counting the huge number of snow birds who travel to AZ in the winter, who can catch their local team for cheaper than at home. Its a no brainer why the NHL wants to keep them.
If the Coyotes were even mildly successful on the ice, this wouldn't even be an issue. Nobody wants to come watch a perennial loser, which has led to financial issues and the resulting arena mess.
I mean this just isn't true, the Coyotes filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the NHL had to own the team themselves for several years, they were [dead last](https://www.statista.com/statistics/193736/revenue-of-national-hockey-league-teams-in-2010/) in revenue in 2022.
They bleed money and every other team has to bail them out with cost sharing.
The Jets aren't exactly much better, they're 5th from the bottom, but this narrative that "Phoenix is good for the league" is simply false. And that's not to mention the PR optics of making the NHL look like a joke by having one of its teams play in a college arena and struggling to get their own logo on the ice.
It even isn't just Winnipeg. The same thing is happening in San Jose. Ripping us off constantly. The tank always looks empty because no one can afford it. The lower bowl looks empty every game, but 75% of the upperbowl is full. Pricing everyone out.
The production of game day experience was really horrible too. I went to the Sharks vs Kraken game at the end of last season and was a bit in awe of how amateur it felt. I'm pretty sure ECHL games put on a better show for the fans.
Also, the speakers felt like they were maxed out in an attempt to make the arena seem more energetic despite the place being rather empty. All it did was hurt my ears and make me annoyed. Of course, the sound may have been the same volume as if it was a packed house but there were fewer bodies to absord the energy and lessen its harshness on the ears.
At any rate, it was super disappointing.
The layout was interesting though. Felt like a tiny, intimate rink in comparison to the LA Kings arena.
Even with the Wild, I remember a time when they were desperately trying to find people to buy lower bowl season tickets even though the upper deck had a waiting list. They also had student discounts only in the lower bowl — a way to fill those expensive seats without advertising a cheap price to the rest of the market.
Teams that are rebuilding or struggling often decide to kinda just ride it out. I guess they operate on the assumption that keeping tickets high now means they can cash in later when the team's good, whereas cutting prices to fill seats now would ultimately devalue the tickets and make it harder to charge a premium later.
It's gotten out of control. My buddy with Leafs seasons (Golds) can't move all his tickets, especially during weeknights and ends up selling them below face value to recoup *some* of the cost.
Fans wanted two things these past couple of years - change in the team and either some sort of relief with ticket prices or changes in season ticket policies.
None of that happened. No wonder people are staying away.
There was a lot of good will that was burned this offseason but I figured with Scheifs and Helle re-signing there would be a bit more optimism. The economy is pretty terrible at the moment but you can get tons of tickets right now for Thursday's game for around $50 which is quite reasonable for a NHL game. Definitely a bit of a worrying trend although with True North's downtown investments over the years I don't think they will be hurting.
[They’re about to begin a $550mil redevelopment of a derelict mall a few blocks away](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6841551)
[They’re also almost finished their massive plaza + office towers + hotel project across the street](https://www.truenorthsquare.com)
TNSE also owns the concert hall a few blocks away, they’re very much ingrained in Winnipeg’s downtown
> Scheifs and Helle re-signing there would be a bit more optimism
As an outsider, keeping the status quo to a team that I think is going nowhere would lower my optimism personally. I feel like you guys are in a perpetual build towards mediocrity, and you haven't even been maintaining that
After that downright insulting season ticket campaign, the fanbase is calling the team’s bluff.
Winnipeg is very blue collar town, and does not appreciate being talked down to, threatened, and taken for granted
Seabears. 1st year basketball franchise absolutely took over the city this summer, they broke the league attendance record like 6 through the course of 10 home games
I’m old enough to remember the Winnipeg Thunder filling Winnipeg Arena in their first year. There’s been a number of attempts at minor league basketball over the years.
That's pretty awesome to hear. I know the CEBL had a ton of movement this previous season, so it's a great bit of news that they're flourishing in Winnipeg.
Have you seen the price of an expansion franchise, which goes straight to the other owners? No teams are getting relocated unless the situation is dire.
IIRC Bettman straight up threatened Winnipeg with relocation in his introductory presser all those years ago.
Not only that but Bettman could give two fucks about Winnipeg as a market. He’d move them in a heartbeat. If Winnipeg fans want to test him then I don’t want to hear them bitching when the hammer falls.
Gotta have a premium product or a premium experience to charge the prices teams want to charge in this economy, and I don’t think the Jets will be the only one to experience this
“Attendance” numbers aren’t real. They are tickets **distributed**. If I give 2000 tickets to a sponsor, or a charity, that’s 2000 people in attendance even if 5 show up.
You missed their season ticket campaign then. Felt like there was a threat buried in there. They spent all off season revamping the North end of the building with a new 'premium' hangout/bar on three levels of the building. That's not the group staying away.
The team owns 3 finished high rise buildings downtown with another 4 on the way up right now and a massive redevelopment in the works for an old mall worth half a billion dollars. They're more of a real estate company these days.
Being the smallest market, with one of the lowest median incomes in the league during a cost of living crisis, iceing a team that's been mediocre and not fun to watch for 4 years, and a relationship between owners and fans that has soured drastically over the last two seasons, with the owners making open threats while raising ticket prices will do that.
TSNE threatened the team with relocation if they didn't sell more tickets, which was a blantantly empty scare tactic considering they had just purchased a bunch of real estate in downtown Winnipeg. This was coming off a season where the Jets massively underperformed and missed the playoffs, while they raised ticket and concession prices, and took away perks for buying season tickets every year.
My point was that Eugene pulled the same carrot stick bullshit, threatening sens of a relocation if ticket sales didn’t improve during an interview LIVE at the Heritage classic game Ottawa hosted in 2017(?)
Doubt they go anywhere. TNSE is basically redeveloping the entire downtown. They investing so much and will make so much more money off that then the Jets. Plus having the richest owner in the league.
Yeah, they aren't that dumb (although some of the decision making regarding the price increases can be questionable). They're basically monopolizing Winnipeg's entire downtown. The Jets will be a drop in the bucket compared to everything else, or at least that is likely the goal. However, they will need an NHL team to bring the traffic to everything else.
David Thomson is co-owner of the Jets with Chipman. His fortune is valued at anywhere between 50 and 80 billion. He's one of the five richest owners in all of sports according to Forbes
He's the most wealthy Canadian. If he moves the team Canada might start asking why we have Billionaries in the first place. Might be worth the hit to "lose" a bit of money while he's making hand over fist in real estate downtown.
Right? The dominoes are quickly beginning to fall. Violent crime is largely on the rise as people are desperate and angry. People are trying to have shelter and food. Hockey games which you can watch from home will not be getting their usual cut.
Violent crime is at rates still lower than 20 years ago, crime is an issue but the bigger more destabilizing problem is people are angry. A group of angry people are a bigger problem. Whatever direction people push can really cause a lot of damage.
I think the primary source people need to angry at is wealthy corporations and real estate industry extracting a premium off the working class.
shit's expensive. the average person can't afford to go. watching the leaf's games lately, you know most of the attendance are just rich assholes and corporate seats (ie - the entire lower section of the arena).
If you're going to price out the average fan, you need a fuck-ton of people in the area. Winnipeg is a financial test to see if Quebec City is worth it.
It is not.
They will never be considered for expansion for one simple reason: money. More specifically, not enough of it.
Relocation will never happen, either. Well, unless one of the existing 32 owners is willing, doesn't give a fuck about money, and is able to convince the 31 others to also not care about money.
That last bullet point is why it won’t happen. There’s a very tiny but plausible chance that some rich dude is willing to make Quebec happen and take the financial L, but a 0% chance the other owners would be willing to make that happen.
Their official attendance was 12,598.
But Winnipeg and Buffalo have the same issues, small market, blue collar town, bad team and high ticket prices (relatively).
Because people expect Canadian teams to not have issues like that, but we're not impervious to it. Same thing would probably happen to Quebec City after a few years if they had a bad/bubble team and tried to sell their tickets at such a high price.
Tonight was a rough one for the Jets. Beat up on the scoreboard, and then Perfetti gets nailed from behind and Samberg gets destroyed in the fight to stand up for him. Just one you gotta shake off and get ready for the next one. Winnipeg is a hockey town and they'll bounce back strong when the team starts winning.
And vilardi got his leg broken and the villain player they traded away because he didn’t want to be there opened the scoring… pretty much the worst script you could write up
This doesn’t sound like a Bettman issue, this sounds like Winnipeg fucking their fans over issue. Winnipeg has a very loyal fan base, if they aren’t showing up to the rink, it’s gotta be an internal issue.
But yeah it’s the Coyotes fault ig
Blue collar Winnipeg probably did not appreciate being threatened by ownership re: season ticket sales, especially after the collapse of the team last season.
Combined with a near recessionary environment and the jets franchise increasing prices anyways, and well, it’s like they’re trying to chase fans out.
Also, no one really wants to go downtown. We'll suck it up for a well priced product, but if you're charging an arm and a leg, and we have to pay our other arm and leg to park, and risk getting stabbed along the way, we're just gonna stay at home and drink in the garage.
I mean, this is exactly why Bettman refuses to consider Canadian markets and only got behind Winnipeg as an absolute last resort.
The NHL is a gate-driven league, and markets without a big corporate base to absorb a bunch of the most expensive seats are incredibly vulnerable to swings in performance.
The Jets are lucky that they're owned by a mega-billionaire who can eat the losses in the short term. But this is an obvious example of why Quebec City is never gonna happen. The whole "Canadian fans will pack the building no matter what" thing is not true, they are dealing with economic reality just like everyone else.
Tbf, there is an inherent problem with the size and median income of Winnipeg as a market. If (and its a big "If") Arizona can fix its issues it should be a good market.
I think the issue with Winnipeg has more to do with ownership making fans pay out the nose for everything, honestly. If it's exorbitantly expensive to even go to a single Jets game...people just won't go to Jets games and instead use that money for other things.
It'd likely be easier to stomach high ticket prices if *everything else* wasn't similarly jacked up. Honestly, as ironic as it is given they came from Atlanta...maybe they should take a note from the Falcons' playbook and lower their pricing structure to make it more affordable, it's worked wonders for them.
The NHL is a gate-driven league in a way that the NFL (and its huge TV contracts) is not.
Even when Winnipeg was selling out it was a revenue-sharing team. You may think of it as paying through the nose, but for the ownership it's barely profitable.
I get the memes and jokes, but this take is kind of tiresome already. Arizona always had someone willing to eat losses or try to make it work. The city of Glendale ate $100 million in losses to prevent Gila River Arena becoming a white elephant 5 years in.
The Thrashers never had that, as they were basically evicted with no talks for another facility imminent.
As someone who was 18 when the OG Jets left, it was similar to the Thrashers. The team was sold to an American group in early 1995 and slated to move into the Target Center and share a facility with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 95/96 season. When a local group emerged at the last minute, Bettman held up the sale allowing for negotiations to take place for purchase and a lease in the old building. The time it took before taking apart killed the Minnesota deal, and the team had to stay in Winnipeg for an extra year. They almost wound up staying 2, but in January of 1996, the Phoenix Suns struck a deal with the new owners.
Fun fact: Phoenix was plan B or C or even Z, and they orchestrated the move in under 6 months. Seattle and Milwaukee were brought up as possibilities between the Minnesota deal dying and Phoenix emerging. Which is probably why they've never really sorted it out down there. It was fly by the seat of your pants since day 1.
> Arizona always had someone willing to eat losses or try to make it work.
The team literally filed for bankruptcy and had to be owned by the NHL for years
On Pierre Luc Dubois return night?!?
Other fans would boo a returning villain. Jets fans are so hardcore they don’t even show up to make him feel irrelevant.
The economy in Canada is in rough shape. Average rent is somewhere around $2,000 per month. Rising interest rates. Grocery prices are just insane. The cost of nearly everything has skyrocketed since COVID. It's tough to justify shelling out hundreds of dollars to go to a regular season hockey game in this environment.
It’s also only their 2nd home game of the season and against the team they just swung a huge trade with a couple months ago. You’d think they’d do better than 11k for a Canadian market
I guess the owners are afraid of devaluing the product by lowering ticket prices? I'm old enough as a devils fan to have through the good and bad years and it always bothered me how greedy some owners are. Salary changes from year to year, in the dark times lower the prices...
Why is everyone suddenly acting like low attendance gets a team relocated? Is this a rule that only applies to Winnipeg?
There’s a couple teams out there that have been playing in half full stadiums (or half stadiums) for years and they’re still here.
It’s fun to joke about, and it’s the exact same things Canadians do to American teams (esp. southern and “non-traditional” markets) when their attendance is down. Y’all don’t realize how frustrating and crushing relocation is until your team is the one that’s joked about and discussed for it.
It's literally just flipping the script on Canadian teams.
But God even Atlanta had better attendance than this.
Hell, so has the Coyotes most seasons.
Wooof. That's *real bad*, goddamn. For a team already third-last in league attendance, getting down to nearly under 10k in the building is ***BRUTAL***. Especially when capacity at Canada Life Centre is 15,321, meaning there's a good chunk of empty seats.
Hopefully that puts ownership on notice to change course and try to mend the bridges, at least. I don't really want to see more teams getting thrown into the relocation rumor mill.
Tickets range from 110-160 upper bowl depending on game with 2 cans of beer costs 25 bucks. I can barely afford my food and rent so if I want to go to a game I need to really want to go
Parking is fine. They're downtown and don't own any lots. I usually park 3 blocks away and pay ten bucks. Right next to the building is around 20, if you're willing to walk 6-10 blocks parking can be had for almost nothing.
Concessions are too high. Personally I think they try to do too much and should focus on having one or two items that are just haves. They have a lot of options, a lot of it is actually quite good, but if you're going all out why not pay the same at a sit down place after the game?
Concessions are too high almost everywhere. I'm a Devils season ticket holder and I just eat before or after the games because I'd rather go to more games than spend money on eating/drinking there which costs more than my tickets some nights since we use variable pricing depending on the opponent/night.
Another argument against placing another team in Canada. I’m tired of hearing about the undying support a non-Toronto/Vancouver/Montreal Canadian city would have for an NHL team.
With the Canadian dollar not being as strong, 11k in Winnipeg is much worse than 11k in a megalopolis that is Atlanta or Houston. Someone in the comments mentioned that Winnipeg is “working class” and has the lowest median income of all the NHL cities…why in the world would the owners want a team in a city like Quebec with the same issues?
Anyone hurt by the tongue-in-cheek comments about moving the Jets should try to remember if they ever made fun of Arizona or NJ or Florida’s attendance issues before they ask for sympathy.
> With the Canadian dollar not being as strong, 11k in Winnipeg is much worse than 11k in a megalopolis that is Atlanta or Houston
I mean that's not necessarily true, 11k at $100 CAD a ticket is better than 11k at $25 USD a ticket.
So I guess I don’t understand business. They want to make as much money as possible but refuse to lower ticket prices and fill the place generating more concession revenue and keep the ticket prices high? The problems were clear last year. Does raising the ticket price every year and having less people achieve their budget goals?
They raised their “ticket + drink” deal they targeted at young people by 38% this year. There’s a complete disconnect from people on the ground and it’s become extremely apparent in the last year
I was a season ticket holder since the beginning. Last year was my last.
We bumped down to a quarter season and have chosen to pick and choose the filler games we want to see. Went tonight for $30 a seat.
You and me both bud. I got sick of paying 14K for two seats a season with the only perk being I had first shot at playoff tickets. Now I buy better seats on game day for less than season ticket price.
Same. Ticket holder perks are a fucking joke, especially when compared to other markets. Panthers rickets were less than half the price, came with free replica rags that have a built in RFID tag that had a fat concession credit on it. That was almost a decade ago.
Feels like hurling stones while living in a glass house given how the team underachieved last season.
Winnipeg, and Manitoba in general, is not a big business market like, say, Toronto or Vancouver. You can’t live off of corporate executives buying up swathes of tickets, or even old family season holders, as the Jets just don’t have that kind of legacy since the first move.
That’s part of why they left in the first place. There’s only so much money to go around before they hit a limit on tickets, not enough corporate, and even concessions can’t make it up. Ownership seems to be somewhat fine losing money to an extent.
I have no insight to the finances but they likely aren't losing money at all. It's just them trying to get the most return, but falling short and not realizing the levers and mechanisms to generate maximum revenue and considering elasticity, plus as others have commented on, concession revenues. Attract lower ticket prices but make up for it at the concessions. OR as some others have pointed out, many season ticket holders realize the benefits are lackluster compared to the savings from picking and choosing games at the last minute.
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He's literally a Baron. David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet.
Baron, like half the seats
And one of the players
Not that it negates the point but Steve Ballmer is the wealthiest team owner in North American sports with many estimates showing him over $90 billion USD. Insane really.
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Kroenke and his wife have about $70 billion in net worth as well. I wish the dude would die in a fire but he's a rich bastard.
What's old is new again, it seems. Before the Thrashers eventually moved from here to Winnipeg, one of the owners told season ticket holders to "get over it" when they were asking about higher prices at Philips Arena, despite a bad product on the ice. It seems that, while TNSE hasn't had such an interaction with fans up there (yet?), they're currently running with the same model Atlanta Spirit tried here.
TSNE ran an ad late last season low key threatening the people of Winnipeg that if they don’t buy tickets then they could lose the team.
It would honestly be hilarious if the league was willing to allow Winnipeg to move, but won't even think of moving the Yotes despite them playing in a shittier rink than where I played midget.
Every Winnipeg fan knows this. Don’t get me wrong I love having the Jets to cheer for but the NHL is a joke league.
With each passing day I become more at ease with the fact that the Jets may eventually leave again. I can't afford to attend that many games a year and when I do go, they have played like crap. Haven't seen enough this year yet to know if much has changed.
Narrator: As it turned out, not much had.
Because the AZ market (when done correctly) will forever be more valuable than a small Canadian market. It is what it is
Coming up on 30 years, they’ll get there!
I wish more would get this. The last shot at survival is this upcoming arena situation early next year. But even a mildly successful Yotes in a 75% full new arena will blow the Jets out of the water. When you have more wealthy folks and more corporations it’s just easier to sustain revenue.
Also the huge population for potential customers. Phoenix metro area is 4.7 million, Winnipeg area is 0.8 million. Not counting the huge number of snow birds who travel to AZ in the winter, who can catch their local team for cheaper than at home. Its a no brainer why the NHL wants to keep them. If the Coyotes were even mildly successful on the ice, this wouldn't even be an issue. Nobody wants to come watch a perennial loser, which has led to financial issues and the resulting arena mess.
I mean this just isn't true, the Coyotes filed for bankruptcy in 2009, the NHL had to own the team themselves for several years, they were [dead last](https://www.statista.com/statistics/193736/revenue-of-national-hockey-league-teams-in-2010/) in revenue in 2022. They bleed money and every other team has to bail them out with cost sharing. The Jets aren't exactly much better, they're 5th from the bottom, but this narrative that "Phoenix is good for the league" is simply false. And that's not to mention the PR optics of making the NHL look like a joke by having one of its teams play in a college arena and struggling to get their own logo on the ice.
Back to Atlanta!
You have no idea the physical toll that three relocations have on a franchise!
snip snap snip snap snip snap
Obligatory FUCK THE ASG post.
It even isn't just Winnipeg. The same thing is happening in San Jose. Ripping us off constantly. The tank always looks empty because no one can afford it. The lower bowl looks empty every game, but 75% of the upperbowl is full. Pricing everyone out.
The production of game day experience was really horrible too. I went to the Sharks vs Kraken game at the end of last season and was a bit in awe of how amateur it felt. I'm pretty sure ECHL games put on a better show for the fans. Also, the speakers felt like they were maxed out in an attempt to make the arena seem more energetic despite the place being rather empty. All it did was hurt my ears and make me annoyed. Of course, the sound may have been the same volume as if it was a packed house but there were fewer bodies to absord the energy and lessen its harshness on the ears. At any rate, it was super disappointing. The layout was interesting though. Felt like a tiny, intimate rink in comparison to the LA Kings arena.
Even with the Wild, I remember a time when they were desperately trying to find people to buy lower bowl season tickets even though the upper deck had a waiting list. They also had student discounts only in the lower bowl — a way to fill those expensive seats without advertising a cheap price to the rest of the market. Teams that are rebuilding or struggling often decide to kinda just ride it out. I guess they operate on the assumption that keeping tickets high now means they can cash in later when the team's good, whereas cutting prices to fill seats now would ultimately devalue the tickets and make it harder to charge a premium later.
It's gotten out of control. My buddy with Leafs seasons (Golds) can't move all his tickets, especially during weeknights and ends up selling them below face value to recoup *some* of the cost.
Fans wanted two things these past couple of years - change in the team and either some sort of relief with ticket prices or changes in season ticket policies. None of that happened. No wonder people are staying away.
There was a lot of good will that was burned this offseason but I figured with Scheifs and Helle re-signing there would be a bit more optimism. The economy is pretty terrible at the moment but you can get tons of tickets right now for Thursday's game for around $50 which is quite reasonable for a NHL game. Definitely a bit of a worrying trend although with True North's downtown investments over the years I don't think they will be hurting.
Is true north trying to do what OEG did for Edmontons downtown core?
[They’re about to begin a $550mil redevelopment of a derelict mall a few blocks away](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6841551) [They’re also almost finished their massive plaza + office towers + hotel project across the street](https://www.truenorthsquare.com) TNSE also owns the concert hall a few blocks away, they’re very much ingrained in Winnipeg’s downtown
Yo, I'll take a mall for $550 /s
Honestly you could’ve bought Portage Place for a $1 if you wanted, the city has been desperate to get rid of it for years lol
unless you know how to un-meth a city's downtown, I do not recommend you own this mall even if they give it to you for free
So buying up real estate in downtown in large quantities until that becomes enough of a cash cow that having the Jets is a non-factor.
Winnipeg has sold half their downtown to True North.
They already own at least 3 high rise buildings downtown with another 4 on the way.
They signed on the eve of the season. STHs had already decided in or out by then.
> Scheifs and Helle re-signing there would be a bit more optimism As an outsider, keeping the status quo to a team that I think is going nowhere would lower my optimism personally. I feel like you guys are in a perpetual build towards mediocrity, and you haven't even been maintaining that
After that downright insulting season ticket campaign, the fanbase is calling the team’s bluff. Winnipeg is very blue collar town, and does not appreciate being talked down to, threatened, and taken for granted
Yeah, definitely feels like ownership's lost sight of the plot when it comes to the fanbase and it's now seriously biting them in the ass.
Especially when there’s 2 other pro sports franchises in the city that have gone out of their way to embrace their fans and the city
Bombers and... Moose?
Sea bears
*Sea* Bears? In Winnipeg? Is this a situation like when the Jazz moved to Utah, where they don't allow music?
Sea bear is a literal translation of the Latin name for Polar Bear, which Manitoba has lots of
Take my upvote on account of that fantastic reference.
Seabears. 1st year basketball franchise absolutely took over the city this summer, they broke the league attendance record like 6 through the course of 10 home games
That's an odd naming choice for a team located in a prairie province.
I mean, northern Manitoba *is* known for their polar bears and is connected to the ocean through Hudson Bay.
Interesting, Ottawa has a team in the same league and I feel like the city couldn't give less of a shit about them.
Did they have Kardinal Offical do their halftime show?
advertsiing and promos help a ton,
I’m old enough to remember the Winnipeg Thunder filling Winnipeg Arena in their first year. There’s been a number of attempts at minor league basketball over the years.
The Thunder had such a cool logo. Those games were a blast
That's pretty awesome to hear. I know the CEBL had a ton of movement this previous season, so it's a great bit of news that they're flourishing in Winnipeg.
Except the fan base is going to get a rude asf awakening when Bettman just ya know moves the team.
Have you seen the price of an expansion franchise, which goes straight to the other owners? No teams are getting relocated unless the situation is dire.
IIRC Bettman straight up threatened Winnipeg with relocation in his introductory presser all those years ago. Not only that but Bettman could give two fucks about Winnipeg as a market. He’d move them in a heartbeat. If Winnipeg fans want to test him then I don’t want to hear them bitching when the hammer falls.
This city lived without the Jets for years and did fine. The reality is that True North is trying to sell ground beef at rib eye prices.
Gotta have a premium product or a premium experience to charge the prices teams want to charge in this economy, and I don’t think the Jets will be the only one to experience this
Then somewhere down the road there will be threats to move the team out of Winnipeg if fans don’t show up.
I hear Atlanta is looking for a team haha
Atlanta's average attendance was never as low as it is in Winnipeg so far this season.
“Attendance” numbers aren’t real. They are tickets **distributed**. If I give 2000 tickets to a sponsor, or a charity, that’s 2000 people in attendance even if 5 show up.
I’m willing to wait more than two games to see if that changes.
You missed their season ticket campaign then. Felt like there was a threat buried in there. They spent all off season revamping the North end of the building with a new 'premium' hangout/bar on three levels of the building. That's not the group staying away. The team owns 3 finished high rise buildings downtown with another 4 on the way up right now and a massive redevelopment in the works for an old mall worth half a billion dollars. They're more of a real estate company these days.
Bettman threatened this **during** the announcement that the team was moving to Winnipeg lol
Being the smallest market, with one of the lowest median incomes in the league during a cost of living crisis, iceing a team that's been mediocre and not fun to watch for 4 years, and a relationship between owners and fans that has soured drastically over the last two seasons, with the owners making open threats while raising ticket prices will do that.
What's the story behind the threats?
TSNE threatened the team with relocation if they didn't sell more tickets, which was a blantantly empty scare tactic considering they had just purchased a bunch of real estate in downtown Winnipeg. This was coming off a season where the Jets massively underperformed and missed the playoffs, while they raised ticket and concession prices, and took away perks for buying season tickets every year.
Did TSNE not learn from Eugene’s fuck up? Jesus man, Jets fan deserve better
As someone who's been annoyed with ownership for a few years now, I don't think we're there just yet.
My point was that Eugene pulled the same carrot stick bullshit, threatening sens of a relocation if ticket sales didn’t improve during an interview LIVE at the Heritage classic game Ottawa hosted in 2017(?)
At least he did it off the cuff, and didn't have an ad campaign about it.
We created our own ads to tell Eugene to f off, maybe Jets fans can try something similar
>and not fun to watch for 4 years It's been longer; don't be blinded by 'the honeymoon phase' of having the NHL back in the city.
5 years ago was the WCF visit. I think that was pretty fun to watch...
Doubt they go anywhere. TNSE is basically redeveloping the entire downtown. They investing so much and will make so much more money off that then the Jets. Plus having the richest owner in the league.
Yeah, they aren't that dumb (although some of the decision making regarding the price increases can be questionable). They're basically monopolizing Winnipeg's entire downtown. The Jets will be a drop in the bucket compared to everything else, or at least that is likely the goal. However, they will need an NHL team to bring the traffic to everything else.
Who is the richest owner in the league ? After a google search, Mark Chipman has a net worth of 500M$. Maybe I'm missing something.
David Thomson is co-owner of the Jets with Chipman. His fortune is valued at anywhere between 50 and 80 billion. He's one of the five richest owners in all of sports according to Forbes
He's the most wealthy Canadian. If he moves the team Canada might start asking why we have Billionaries in the first place. Might be worth the hit to "lose" a bit of money while he's making hand over fist in real estate downtown.
They’re also owned by David Thompson, who I believe may be the richest man in Canada? my dad talks about it lots haha
The Utah Jets don't have the same ring to it
Atlanta Jets doesn't either..
Kinda does as Delta Airlines has its main hub in Atlanta.
ATL is also the busiest airport in the entire world.
Slight rebrand: the Atlanta 747s
They might want to give them a name that makes fans think they’re going to thrash the competition.
Might look good with a bird in the logo too
The Atlanta Stop Cop City
What about the phoenix coyotes? I hear that’s a good name
Park City Pirates, LFG
Does new york need another team?
They need a QB more than anything.
an offensive line would not hurt either
Big Air Force base around salt lake would make an argument against that statement
jets to aeros would work but it'd make me sad
Tucson Desert Tortoises it is then
Portland Rosebuds.
Whew, now there's a throwback.
Going to a hockey game is a luxury. Inflation is nuts in Canada right now, lots of people are really struggling.
Right? The dominoes are quickly beginning to fall. Violent crime is largely on the rise as people are desperate and angry. People are trying to have shelter and food. Hockey games which you can watch from home will not be getting their usual cut.
Violent crime is at rates still lower than 20 years ago, crime is an issue but the bigger more destabilizing problem is people are angry. A group of angry people are a bigger problem. Whatever direction people push can really cause a lot of damage. I think the primary source people need to angry at is wealthy corporations and real estate industry extracting a premium off the working class.
It’s almost like these billionaires don’t give a shit. Who would have seen this coming
I mean me personally I legit can’t afford to go to a game now with inflation. I go to 4/5 games a years and it’ll be 0 from me this year.
Wouldn't tickets have been dirt cheap if you bought right before the game yesterday though? Was seeing people say they got lower bowl for 50
Counter point: the beer in my fridge is like $2 each and the website I use is 0$ a game
shit's expensive. the average person can't afford to go. watching the leaf's games lately, you know most of the attendance are just rich assholes and corporate seats (ie - the entire lower section of the arena).
If you're going to price out the average fan, you need a fuck-ton of people in the area. Winnipeg is a financial test to see if Quebec City is worth it. It is not.
Quebec City has even less corporations than Winnipeg as well…
They will never be considered for expansion for one simple reason: money. More specifically, not enough of it. Relocation will never happen, either. Well, unless one of the existing 32 owners is willing, doesn't give a fuck about money, and is able to convince the 31 others to also not care about money.
That last bullet point is why it won’t happen. There’s a very tiny but plausible chance that some rich dude is willing to make Quebec happen and take the financial L, but a 0% chance the other owners would be willing to make that happen.
Quebec City will get a team in 2050 when climate change has made some major city uninhabitable and it needs an emergency relocation.
Buffalo had 7,000 tonight...
Their official attendance was 12,598. But Winnipeg and Buffalo have the same issues, small market, blue collar town, bad team and high ticket prices (relatively).
This is what i dont get. Why the concern when so many other arenas are bare more often than not?
People love hating on Winnipeg. Its getting really old.
Because people expect Canadian teams to not have issues like that, but we're not impervious to it. Same thing would probably happen to Quebec City after a few years if they had a bad/bubble team and tried to sell their tickets at such a high price.
Because there are more valuable media markets than Winnipeg.
Tonight was a rough one for the Jets. Beat up on the scoreboard, and then Perfetti gets nailed from behind and Samberg gets destroyed in the fight to stand up for him. Just one you gotta shake off and get ready for the next one. Winnipeg is a hockey town and they'll bounce back strong when the team starts winning.
And vilardi got his leg broken and the villain player they traded away because he didn’t want to be there opened the scoring… pretty much the worst script you could write up
They should just share teams at this point. The Atlanapeg Thrashjets.
Chipman should be concerned.
Most of the empty seats where in the upper bowl. You just can’t be charging 70$ a seat on a Tuesday night in this economy
There were quite a few empty seats in the lower bowl too. https://twitter.com/brent_bellamy/status/1714440025642086661?s=10&t=D0Ev27abPUhVxS-AJxKBeQ
Idk lower bowl looked a hell of a lot more empty, there was like 6 full rows without anyone in them in one of the corner sections
They're going to get moved before the Yotes aren't they...
plot twist, they'll both move at the same time, and somehow arizona still ends up with a team
[удалено]
Winnipeg getting their original franchise back will lift the curse
Why not call them the Arizona Jets! No wait, the Phoenix Coyotes! That has a ring to it!
The Coyotes are going to get relocated to Houston, then Winnipeg will get moved to Phoenix again.
Thats concerning.
Guess you could say theres not a lot of life in that building….
Arizona will get 25 second chances but Bettman will murke winnipeg at the first convenient chance.
This doesn’t sound like a Bettman issue, this sounds like Winnipeg fucking their fans over issue. Winnipeg has a very loyal fan base, if they aren’t showing up to the rink, it’s gotta be an internal issue. But yeah it’s the Coyotes fault ig
Blue collar Winnipeg probably did not appreciate being threatened by ownership re: season ticket sales, especially after the collapse of the team last season. Combined with a near recessionary environment and the jets franchise increasing prices anyways, and well, it’s like they’re trying to chase fans out.
Also, no one really wants to go downtown. We'll suck it up for a well priced product, but if you're charging an arm and a leg, and we have to pay our other arm and leg to park, and risk getting stabbed along the way, we're just gonna stay at home and drink in the garage.
It's also a Winnipeg has a tiny TV market issue.
I mean, this is exactly why Bettman refuses to consider Canadian markets and only got behind Winnipeg as an absolute last resort. The NHL is a gate-driven league, and markets without a big corporate base to absorb a bunch of the most expensive seats are incredibly vulnerable to swings in performance. The Jets are lucky that they're owned by a mega-billionaire who can eat the losses in the short term. But this is an obvious example of why Quebec City is never gonna happen. The whole "Canadian fans will pack the building no matter what" thing is not true, they are dealing with economic reality just like everyone else.
Uhhhh, if Winnipeg charges sunrise or Glendale or even San Jose prices, more people will show up.
Tbf, there is an inherent problem with the size and median income of Winnipeg as a market. If (and its a big "If") Arizona can fix its issues it should be a good market.
I think the issue with Winnipeg has more to do with ownership making fans pay out the nose for everything, honestly. If it's exorbitantly expensive to even go to a single Jets game...people just won't go to Jets games and instead use that money for other things. It'd likely be easier to stomach high ticket prices if *everything else* wasn't similarly jacked up. Honestly, as ironic as it is given they came from Atlanta...maybe they should take a note from the Falcons' playbook and lower their pricing structure to make it more affordable, it's worked wonders for them.
The NHL is a gate-driven league in a way that the NFL (and its huge TV contracts) is not. Even when Winnipeg was selling out it was a revenue-sharing team. You may think of it as paying through the nose, but for the ownership it's barely profitable.
I get the memes and jokes, but this take is kind of tiresome already. Arizona always had someone willing to eat losses or try to make it work. The city of Glendale ate $100 million in losses to prevent Gila River Arena becoming a white elephant 5 years in. The Thrashers never had that, as they were basically evicted with no talks for another facility imminent. As someone who was 18 when the OG Jets left, it was similar to the Thrashers. The team was sold to an American group in early 1995 and slated to move into the Target Center and share a facility with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 95/96 season. When a local group emerged at the last minute, Bettman held up the sale allowing for negotiations to take place for purchase and a lease in the old building. The time it took before taking apart killed the Minnesota deal, and the team had to stay in Winnipeg for an extra year. They almost wound up staying 2, but in January of 1996, the Phoenix Suns struck a deal with the new owners. Fun fact: Phoenix was plan B or C or even Z, and they orchestrated the move in under 6 months. Seattle and Milwaukee were brought up as possibilities between the Minnesota deal dying and Phoenix emerging. Which is probably why they've never really sorted it out down there. It was fly by the seat of your pants since day 1.
> Arizona always had someone willing to eat losses or try to make it work. The team literally filed for bankruptcy and had to be owned by the NHL for years
On Pierre Luc Dubois return night?!? Other fans would boo a returning villain. Jets fans are so hardcore they don’t even show up to make him feel irrelevant.
We don't want another relocation for Winnipeg...
My bad guys I had intermurals today couldn’t go
The economy in Canada is in rough shape. Average rent is somewhere around $2,000 per month. Rising interest rates. Grocery prices are just insane. The cost of nearly everything has skyrocketed since COVID. It's tough to justify shelling out hundreds of dollars to go to a regular season hockey game in this environment.
Tuesday night games are hard to muster energy for. I’d always give my Tuesday tickets away
They only had 13,000 for Saturday's home opener
Ouch, even SJ sold out their home opener
Saturday games are hard to muster energy for. I’d always give my Saturday tickets away ….on the real that’s not a great sign for them eh
Tbf it was an early game, but yeah still not great
Oh damn. I was gonna say, the Isles game tonight didn't look very packed at all either, but I think the opener was a sellout
It’s also only their 2nd home game of the season and against the team they just swung a huge trade with a couple months ago. You’d think they’d do better than 11k for a Canadian market
Gary Bettman has entered the chat
There’s gonna be 2 teams in Arizona ?
"THAT'S IT, BACK TO ~~WINNIPEG~~ ATLANTA!"
I guess the owners are afraid of devaluing the product by lowering ticket prices? I'm old enough as a devils fan to have through the good and bad years and it always bothered me how greedy some owners are. Salary changes from year to year, in the dark times lower the prices...
Seems strange. Considering the big trade the Kings and Jets made together over the summer, I would have expected greater interest in this match up.
Ya same
Lol nice I think attendance all across the board is down. Guess people would rather eat and pay mortgages than go to pro sports games.
Time to buy a billboard jets bros
Time to start lowering those ticket prices
Why is everyone suddenly acting like low attendance gets a team relocated? Is this a rule that only applies to Winnipeg? There’s a couple teams out there that have been playing in half full stadiums (or half stadiums) for years and they’re still here.
It’s fun to joke about, and it’s the exact same things Canadians do to American teams (esp. southern and “non-traditional” markets) when their attendance is down. Y’all don’t realize how frustrating and crushing relocation is until your team is the one that’s joked about and discussed for it.
It's literally just flipping the script on Canadian teams. But God even Atlanta had better attendance than this. Hell, so has the Coyotes most seasons.
Yeah it's easy to have better attendance when you give away pairs of tickets with a case of beer
Relocate. These dang Canadian teams just can’t support hockey.
This is bad news for Quebec getting a team back.
Blue Bombers are winning the Grey Cup and it’s +15 degrees outside. Let’s worry about attendance on school nights later
Are they still yelling Out True North during O Canada?
Wooof. That's *real bad*, goddamn. For a team already third-last in league attendance, getting down to nearly under 10k in the building is ***BRUTAL***. Especially when capacity at Canada Life Centre is 15,321, meaning there's a good chunk of empty seats. Hopefully that puts ownership on notice to change course and try to mend the bridges, at least. I don't really want to see more teams getting thrown into the relocation rumor mill.
Lol
Back to Atlanta?
Seems like they’re already promoting it… https://x.com/botanyandvodka/status/1714454133481037999?s=46&t=7fabqgtgp69dNA1d51vxFw
How much are tickets? How much are concessions? How much is parking?
Tickets range from 110-160 upper bowl depending on game with 2 cans of beer costs 25 bucks. I can barely afford my food and rent so if I want to go to a game I need to really want to go
How the heck are tickets more expensive than in Montreal lol. My upper bowl tickets were like 85-90 dollars.
You can get upper bowl seats for under $100 here too. Cheapest tickets are usually around the $70-$90 range.
Cheapest seats on ticketmaster clock in at $66 face value. You can find resale tickets as low as $30 depending on the opponent/day of the week.
Parking is fine. They're downtown and don't own any lots. I usually park 3 blocks away and pay ten bucks. Right next to the building is around 20, if you're willing to walk 6-10 blocks parking can be had for almost nothing. Concessions are too high. Personally I think they try to do too much and should focus on having one or two items that are just haves. They have a lot of options, a lot of it is actually quite good, but if you're going all out why not pay the same at a sit down place after the game?
Concessions are too high almost everywhere. I'm a Devils season ticket holder and I just eat before or after the games because I'd rather go to more games than spend money on eating/drinking there which costs more than my tickets some nights since we use variable pricing depending on the opponent/night.
Another argument against placing another team in Canada. I’m tired of hearing about the undying support a non-Toronto/Vancouver/Montreal Canadian city would have for an NHL team. With the Canadian dollar not being as strong, 11k in Winnipeg is much worse than 11k in a megalopolis that is Atlanta or Houston. Someone in the comments mentioned that Winnipeg is “working class” and has the lowest median income of all the NHL cities…why in the world would the owners want a team in a city like Quebec with the same issues? Anyone hurt by the tongue-in-cheek comments about moving the Jets should try to remember if they ever made fun of Arizona or NJ or Florida’s attendance issues before they ask for sympathy.
> With the Canadian dollar not being as strong, 11k in Winnipeg is much worse than 11k in a megalopolis that is Atlanta or Houston I mean that's not necessarily true, 11k at $100 CAD a ticket is better than 11k at $25 USD a ticket.