Quote:
Originally Posted by glovesave_35
I could be wrong but Rangers baseball or no we're not going to see much difference in the crowds anytime soon. No disrespect to our northern fans, but we should really dispense with the game by game question and answer session on the topic. It's bad for all the reasons mentioned over the last two years and certainly won't get remotely better until this team gets an owner and a plan for the future. Until then, it's cheaper to go to a movie.
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I agree strongly with this statement... And I am a "northern" fan.... I know a lot of us Canadian fans take for granted the strong attendance at our local rinks but we often conveniently forget that this was not always the case. Just a decade ago teams like the Sens and Flames played in front of sparse crowds and there was talk of possible relocation. The fact is attendance boils down to pretty much two things Team Performance and Money. And in my opinion it's pretty clear that even team performance takes a backseat to a teams finances.
The evidence is clear when you look at the state of Canadian teams in the late 90's early 00's. When I look specifically at the Sens, Flames, and Leafs they have all had relatively lengthy playoff droughts in the past twenty years yet in was only the Sens and the Flames that struggled with attendance. It's clearly not because one is a "hockey market" and the other two aren't, which is an excuse I hear all the time as to why Dallas has poor attendance (does no one remember the beginning of this century). No all three are rabid hockey bases, the issue was that the sens and flames struggled in a time where the Canadian dollar was at about 60 cents american, whereas the Maple Leafs are and have always been one of the richer teams in the league.
Without an owner, or at least an owner with money, the payroll is smaller, which in turn makes it more difficult to compete, which in turn makes fringe fans start to lose interest, which in turn requires the need for more marketing and exposure, which is more difficult to do because of the aforementioned lack of money. It's a vicious cycle.
That being said it's a cycle that many if not most (including Canadian) teams have gone through. And with a new owner on the horizon there is reason to be optimistic that the turnaround will occur sooner than later. Regardless I agree with glovesave_35 that it is pointless and counterproductive to talk about and ask about the attendance in every single thread. These things happen in cycles and until we start hearing rumours of the Stars moving let's just let it be what it is and leave it to the journalists to write about it when they have nothing better to talk about.
