Does it really matter? if there's nobody (Les) willing to move them to H-town, given the terrible ROI the NHL has been recently, with at least 2 teams that I know of becoming insolvent/bankrupt, I sure wouldn't be... and more importantly nobody (Les) able to move them to H-town (les has seen huge portions of his net worth vanish recently) .....it's pretty much a non-issue as far as potential goes. I mean why not just keep them in Phoenix where you face a lot of the same challenges (cold weather sport in a hot weather town) and there's no reason to suspect that the City of Houston would be overcome with hockey fever in a way that Phx would not be. The Blackberry guy is willing to buy them and move them to Southern Ontario - the NHL shoud just let them. They seem to have actively worked to hurt themselves over the last 15 years or so.
I agree entirely. There was a time when I REALLY wanted Houston to get a team. But it seems so outside of the realm of possibilities, now, that I don't even consider it.
I haven't heard about the Argonauts getting into the NFL. All I have been hearing is someone buying the Buffalo Bills and relocating them to Toronto.
Houston supports its teams very well. The Texans have sold out every game in their existence and have a waiting list for season tickets....the Astros draw around 3 million fans/season for ten years now....I don't really know about Rockets attendance, but I assume it's above-average. More importantly, there's a huge corporate base. That's what owners are concerned about. If they sell their suites and the food/booze that flows therein, they don't care if their top rafters are half-empty.
terrible in what ways? surely not in attendance. rockets - 96.9% capacity texans - 101.3% capacity (i'm not sure how that's possible) astros - 84.8% last year the dynamo average 16,085 people so far this season (i don't know what capacity is at robertson stadium
Capacity at Robertson is between 30-32k depending on who gives you the number. I dont think Houston would support a NHL team either. Houston fans are well known front runners and if the team isn't sucessful pretty fast it might be a failure.
yeah, they've really been front-running the Texans. this was the first season where the highlight of the year wasn't our draft pick. i think that front-runner label was at one point applicable...but no longer...or at least it's far less applicable than it used to be. having said that, how many franchises enjoy unconditional support in all of sports? assume about 95 pro sports franchises among MLB, NBA and NFL.....how many sell out, no matter what. happens in football more because there's only 8 home games...each game is a special event. but in baseball or basketball...with as many games as they play....if you're not competitive, people just aren't showing up.
4th largest city in America. All three arenas/stadiums are less than 10yrs old. I don't know about the Toyota Center, but Reliant & Minute Maid are amazing. Add in that the Astros & Rockets are successful teams, it is a sad attendance. And to think the Rockets have a marketing dream in Yao, and its obvious what effect he has had on attention and attendance for the Rockets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Rockets http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/nl/MinuteMaidPark.htm Edit: Houston is a football city. Past that its all about bandwagon.
I think its fairer to compare capacity agains the league average, not other sports, didn't the Detroit Lions just end their sell-out streak this season even though they have sucked for many years now? Football, most teams sell out almost every game, baseball is different with 81 home games, hard to sell out 10 monday night games in a season
Supposedly, Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas said they have a group that would potentially step in and buy the Bills should it come to that. They say this group will NOT move the team from Buffalo. People are already fired up about the games in Toronto. If they moved to Toronto, the many people would flip. The problem is, the city of Buffalo has a VERY bad economy, and I think, for as many diehards there would be crying wolf, there would be nothing that could be done, financially.
These discussions usually devolve to whether Houston is a "good" sports city...and we define that with absolutely no definition at all. But I'll point out that sports leagues don't seem to care about that reputation. Houston's reputation as a sports city or a football city was in the crapper when the NFL decided to award us the franchise to be named the Texas. And Atlanta wasn't exactly a hotbed of sports fanatics when the NHL expanded there. None of that is really at issue here. The #1 issue in Sam's post above is the central issue in all this.
I disagree with this completely. Part of the reason people spend their money to go see a sports team is that they have a real rooting interest. They follow the team, know the players, etc. It is very difficult to do that with a minor league team. Your players' entire objective is to leave (ie go to the NHL). That does not foster a scenario where you really follow the players. Secondly, it is much more difficult to follow the team in this day and age when they are not televised....ever. If you cannot watch the games, you aren't going to have the same level of interest in attending home games at roughly $40 a seat.
Ah, the somber words of one "CougarMatt" turned "SR610 Know it all". Luckily I have class at 2pm on the weekdays. Can someone get RocketABC on one of the prime-time shows and kick porkster to "Sports Flash" duty.
I'm sure they do, too. Refman makes a good point about media coverage...it's difficult to get in to being an Aeros fan when there's zero way to watch them play beyond showing up for games. Hard to develop much fan continuity that way. In addition, I'll tell you that the Aeros are trying to draw a completely different fan than the ones that the NHL would be trying to draw. NHL is all about the corporate dollar and selling luxury suites.
http://www.ajc.com/thrashers/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/05/09/thrashers_move_ontario.html Another team that is on the move.
