The Dilemma of Small-Market Teams: Winnipeg Jets, Buffalo Sabres

The Dilemma of Small-Market Teams: Winnipeg Jets, Buffalo Sabres

Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to Buffalo Sports Center I am Don and today we are going to talk about the anti- small Market bias in the NHL and how that could probably and potentially hurt the Buffalo Savers in a couple of years but before I get to that make sure to

Hit that like button and subscribe follow us on Instagram Tik Tok join the Discord and of course subscribe here on the YouTube but anyways let’s talk a little bit about this small Market bias and you know you can’t really talk about this bias until you talk about the Winnipeg Jets because currently the

Winnipeg Jets are in Dire Straits their season ticket numbers have dropped their overall attendance has dropped and this is despite the Jets currently being first in their division at the time of this recording the Jets have been successful they have made the playoffs while they haven’t had a lot of playoff

Success per se they have made it there something that other franchises like the Buffalo Sabers can’t really say they have done or have accomplished but let’s talk about the Jets here for a second because for the Jets this is really concerning and the NHL commissioner Gary bedman He’s traveling to Winnipeg to

Discuss these statistical woses with the Winnipeg Jets owner Mark Chipman and it’s it’s really concerning as a Sabers fan because you’re watching what’s happening in Winnipeg you’re looking at their numbers and then you look at buff numbers and you say oh mo oh no um this is kind of a serious problem because

These numbers are within the same ballpark of each other but let’s let’s see what the Winnipeg Jets numbers are first before moving on and talk about buffalos because Winnipeg has actually got lower season ticket numbers than the sabes do the Jets only have about 9500 season ticket holders for this season

Their average attendance has dropped to 12 a little under 12,100 people and their owner came out and publicly said this Chipman said that this is not going to work for us in the Long Haul can you imagine that the sabes their drought is so large that we will not have seen uh a

Playoff appearance in the time between the Jets getting resurrected again and the time that the Jets are potentially having to relocate again it’s pretty damning about this Sabers but again let’s get back to the Jets here and talk about their WS before talk about ours the Jets are just struggling and they

Haven’t been able to replicate prepandemic levels of both attendance and season ticket numbers both of those figures have cratered in the last couple of seasons and it’s not overly surprising if you’re looking at this from an economic perspective inflation has been bad costs of living has been

Bad disposable income is just not there for a lot of families especially when you’re in Canada where they were probably harder hit economically than we were here in the United States and Canada the dollar their dollar is weaker as is so that’s one reason why Gary bedman has never really liked expanding

Teams into Canada the dollar is weak the economy is rougher the their federal government is also not as conducive as you the US is towards large businesses being there so all of those fact S Plus the whole stigma around Canada doesn’t have a lot of people has given Gary

Bedman this anti small Market kind of bias especially anti-canadian bias so you combine the small Market bias plus the anti-canadian bias and then you have a really perfect storm and you have a couple really easy things for Gary bedman to do right when a Canadian team like the Jets are struggling Gary benman

Will step in and say uhoh okay look these uh numbers are not good enough we’re going to have to relocate you guys the fans have not done enough to really warrant us remaining in operations up here and that’s what he’s kind of saying here and that’s what Chipman is also

Saying that it’s not going to work in the long hole that these numbers are way too low to operate upon for Gary bman to come out and say that these numbers are concerning and that he’s going to have to discuss with the owner about the next steps these are all really grim

And very scary quotes from from both men and it’s also very indicative of a larger problem especially for the Buffalo Sabers because the Sabers attendons and season ticket numbers are very very close to the Winnipeg Jets the only difference between the Jets and saber situations is that the Sabers they

Haven’t won we haven’t won in since 2011 coincidentally like I said right when the Jets was uh finally getting their NHL team back for the second time so for the sabes I guess you could explain away all the issues with oh the team just isn’t winning and when the team wins

Again and the building gets packed again and you know we’ve actually kind of seen that a couple times last season during the 2022 23 season there were more sellouts That season than the last two combined and this season in the current season 2023 24 I I think there’s only

Been two or three sellouts opening night I’m sure the Boston game and uh I I can’t think of another one honestly that’s pretty sad if you think about it but Buffalo’s attendance is marginally better we’re 28th in the NHL with averaging about 13,000 people a game uh

If you look at Winnipeg they’re only averaging 12,000 game now granted that uh little percentage there is how much of the building is actually like full so winipeg has a much smaller Arena than Buffalo’s that’s why despite them averaging lower numbers of people at a game their Arena smaller so that out of

The overall pie it’s not as bad it’s like it’s 87% the Sabers are in a 19,000 seed Arena and only getting 13 so it’s going to look bad in overall percentages but for the Sabers too another reason why we may need to be concerned and we should start having this Frank

Discussion because the franchise has been struggling when you don’t win when you consistently lose for as long as a period of time as the Sabers have then of course the attendance is going to go away the fans have a right to walk away not to spend their money hard-earned

Over the week on just watching the Sabers lose and you know spending 80 90 100 120 bucks in the process on parking tickets concessions all of the fun Arena stuff but if you look at it from a macro perspective you step back a little bit and look at the statist the statistics

From the Sabers over the last six seven 10 years or so you’ll see that the Sabers attendance has sharply decreased since 2017 we are averaging less than 35,000 people less now than we were in 2017 in 2017 the average figure was around 16 to 17,000 now it’s only 13 so

If you see that sharp decline that’s typically not what a profitable business will do and Gary bman has said numerous times that he wants the NHL to grow he wants to put hockey in places where it can grow that’s why he went to Seattle that’s why he expanded to Vegas that’s

Why we’re seeing brand new cities like Utah Houston Kansas City they are all interested in hockey teams and we’ve also seen a big city like Atlanta maybe get a third shot at an NHL Franchise so if you’re Buffalo can you really say that you’ve been growing the game of hockey

Over the last half decade no you can’t and if you’re Buffalo would you consider yourself to be a small Market team yes you would and if you’re Buffalo wouldn’t you say that we are in a sphere of influence of a much larger market yes that would be Toronto that’s the exact

That third reason that I mentioned there is the exact reason why the buffalo bison never became an professional MLB team Toronto was already did there and the mo deemed that Buffalo was just too close to Toronto to the Blue Jays to really warrant having another team and

The same thing goes for Rochester just down the highway so if you look at those three big issues Buffalo’s on the losing end of all of those arguments they were small Market team the game has not only been not growing but it’s been getting smaller in Buffalo you’ve had a whole

Generation of people that no longer care about the Sabers and I and I get it that the team hasn’t been winning that’s what happened in Atlanta though the second time Atlanta moved to there when the Thrashers were still in operation you know Atlanta has a lot of potential they

Have a rabid fan base that’s what we’ve all been told but the team was never successful and after a lot of losing Seasons Atlanta was finally packed up and relocated to Winnipeg the same thing could scarily happen to the Buffalo Sabers and as Sabers fans and for Sabers

Ownership you have to be able to look at that and go wow this could get real if there are teams that have more passionate fan B well not more passionate fan bases but uh much more successful team like the Winnipeg Jets if a more successful team like the Jets

Are at risk of potentially being relocated for a second time then Buffalo who hasn’t had that same success over the last decade almost 12 13 years you have to step back and go oh my this could get real very soon if the sabes can’t turn this around then the

Franchise may be in trouble the franchise that we all love may be in trouble now I want to end this video by saying that we shouldn’t be necessarily scared just yet Sabers fans should not be scared just yet and this is not like a video saying that hey Sabers fans we

We have really dropped the ball on our end we got to go back and support the team no matter what because we did that already and now the team the fan base has grown extremely impatient really apathetic towards the franchise so it’s not our fault that this is happening

That people are starting to connect the dots together about the Buffalo Sabers and relocation that that that’s not what I’m saying here what I’m saying is that the franchise needs to take notice of this the franch in the ownership and the executive team they need to go oh crap

We really need to get real about our on Ice product and even our Arena product um before we get mad at the fans before we get all arrogant and sit back and pretend that we’re safe from all of this because they’re not they’re not things could easily change and we have seen

Teams like the Jets the Quebec nordiques the Hartford Whalers all passionate fan bases and small markets that have been screwed over because profits weren’t there and with other big cities licking their lips at the potential of getting their own NHL team teams like Buffalo Winnipeg uh I would even not Montreal

They’re they’re pretty stored but Ottawa San Jose Anaheim you have to be really concerned if you’re the owners or fans of one of those teams because at any Split Second Gary bedman can come in and say that your attendance hasn’t been good enough over a long enough period of time it’s

Been so bad that I have to step in and we have to discuss the next options on either how to change it or if we have to go even further and make extremely drastic steps such as relocation or just fold the franchise so the team really needs to

Figure their stuff out and this is a big wakeup call to any Sabers fans who thinks that this will go on forever because the Sabers losing will not at some point if the Sabres don’t start winning and if they keep losing then we could see the NHL step in because we all

Know the Sabers fans won’t come back to the arena and start engaging until this team wins but hey you know what winning solves everything if the Sabers just started winning we saw it last season people will go back people will pay their money to sell out that Arena I was

At a couple of those sellouts last year and let me tell you when that building is buzzing it’s Extremely Loud and it’s a fun atmosphere it’s crazy it’s like a playoff atmosphere every time it’s sold out but we need to start winning otherwise we could see ourselves ending

Up like Winnipeg who are potentially on the chopping block again but anyways folks this was a particularly long rant by me um I hope you guys have some good constructive thoughts in the comment section down below I was done this is Buffalo Sports Center make sure to hit

That like button and subscribe follow us on Instagram Discord join or and Tik Tok join the Discord I was Don hope to see all of you in the next video peace out everybody bye

The Winnipeg Jets have seen their season ticket numbers and overall attendance drop over the last couple of seasons. This has caused NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to sound the alarm about their long-term security in Winnipeg.
But this issue doesn’t just stop in Winnipeg. Other franchises like the Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators are watching on and drawing some parallels between Winnipeg’s situation and theirs.
In today’s video, Don breaks down the perils of being a small-market team in the NHL and how to combat it.

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