Location Not to Blame for Warm-Weather Team Woes

Two years ago, the Washington Capitals were just another NHL franchise. In fact, they were a pretty poor one. They didn't draw well, they didn't win, and they weren't making money.

The situation was so bad that you could have conceivably thought their future in Washington was in peril. One coaching change and the development of a true superstar later, the thought of the Capitals moving is almost as stupid as thinking the Montreal Canadiens could head out of town.

So let's think twice before we assume that the Coyotes have to leave Phoenix to be successful, on ice and off of it. Though the team is drawing extra scrutiny because, unlike the Caps, they play in a warm-weather market, the proof is there that the climate and location aren't the issues here.

In an effort to broaden the NHL's reach, the league has made an effort to put franchises in warm-weather cities. Reality is that exciting sports, even ones played indoors, should draw good crowds in places like Florida and California. The league has added teams in San Jose, Anaheim, Atlanta, Nashville, Tampa and Miami in the last 20 years. They've seen franchises from Minnesota, Winnipeg and Hartford relocate to Dallas, Phoenix and Raleigh, respectively.

All of that has been done with varying degrees of success.

The Florida Panthers, Nashville Predators, Coyotes and Atlanta Thrashers have struggled to keep butts in seats, as well as in overall revenue. Florida was famously drawing awful television numbers for a solid team this season, and they had to deal with cutbacks in the front office. The Predators almost moved out of Nashville, but the NHL balked at the brashness of Jim Balsillie. There is already chatter of a second hockey failure in Atlanta being upon us.

Of course, we have the situation in Glendale, too.

There are many hockey fans who will call for the elimination of these struggling teams. Obviously, Balsillie (pictured right) is in the front of the line hoping the league will start relocating franchises that are hurting for money.

This would be a bad idea. As commissioner Gary Bettman says, the league doesn't want to get in the business of giving up on cities.

When you're trying to bring a sport into areas not familiar with it, the first thing you have to do is bring them well-run teams. Find executives who understand how to make the sport sell. Teams like Florida (despite their late-season surge), Atlanta and Phoenix have been mismanaged so badly that they appear to be hopeless in many ways. Promising free tickets can even prove to be a failure. As dumb as people can look in the choices they make as consumers, if they're promised an entertaining product but feel cheated when they spend money on that product, they will often stop spending money on it in the future.

Bad hockey isn't going to sell, especially to people in these non-traditional hockey markets who don't understand the game. Providing a poor product is either going to turn people off to hockey or turn them into fans of the visitors. You'll fail to sell season and single-game tickets. When you play the Rangers, Red Wings, Canadiens, or Penguins, your arena will become a haven for their fans.

So how does a struggling team turn their product around?


Give credit to Capitals general manager George McPhee and owner Ted Leonsis for the blueprint they laid in remaking their team's profile. They identified the obvious problems, took their time to build a nucleus of young talent, and made the right coaching change (bringing in Bruce Boudreau) at the right time. Instead of trying for the quick fix of free agency, they're reaping the benefits of developing their own talent.

Teams like Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, and Vancouver didn't build successful teams by signing all the big-name free agents. They built the core of their teams through the draft, and used free agency to add supplementary pieces. In none of these cases is the best player on the team a free-agent acquisition. Did Detroit spend oodles of money to sign Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, Johan Franzen, or Tomas Holmstrom? Of course they didn't. Instead, they developed elite players through the draft, and they used free agency to supplement the work they had done.

Contrast that with a team like Phoenix, who tried to turn their image around by signing free-agent defenseman Ed Jovanovski in 2006. Look at Tampa Bay and their free-spending ways this past summer. Neither team has been able to achieve the playoff berth they set out for when they opened up the checkbook.

Even for the successful squads that have built their team the right way, much pain was endured. The Blackhawks nearly alienated the entire city of Chicago with poor choices and bad public relations. The Capitals were obviously not doing very well. The Penguins nearly moved, as the bad hockey they were playing wasn't enough to drum up support for a new arena (until, of course, Sidney Crosby showed up). If teams in traditional markets can suffer so badly in terms of attendance and overall revenue, you know it's going to be easy for teams in non-traditional markets to perform poorly financially, as well.


As the Lightning proved in the years before and after the lockout, winning teams will sell tickets practically anywhere. While on-ice success is the ultimate goal, no franchise should look for a quick fix as a way to solve its financial or organizational problems, as the Lightning did. It just doesn't work that way. The Lightning look like a franchise that sold its soul for one Stanley Cup, with little ability to build a consistently successful team. The balance sheets reflect that now.

The Carolina Hurricanes, meanwhile, appear to have more "long-haul" potential in them. As a result, you aren't going to hear many horror stories about masses of empty seats in their building. They also appear to have no shortage of extremely enthusiastic fans. The stability offered by having Jim Rutherford running the front office since 1994 helps a great deal, as he helped steer the organization through a couple empty seasons after their 2006 Stanley Cup. Rutherford has stocked the franchise well with good young talent, and at no point has he mortgaged the future or the salary cap for expensive veterans destined to underperform.


While no franchise -- not even Detroit -- is perfect in every way, teams like Carolina, San Jose, and Anaheim have shown you can put together solid organizations and build sizeable fanbases in markets that aren't thought of as "hockey-centric."

The most important part of this seems to be having patient ownership. If you're going to take the time and spend the money on a general manager, you need to give that general manager the time it takes to build a successful team. Is there a chance you hired the wrong guy? Obviously, there is. But if you don't give that general manager at least four or five years, you're leaving open the possibility that your own impatience, and not someone else's incompetence, is to blame.


Whoever takes over the Coyotes can bank on losing money initially. The goal can't be to turn a profit in the first year. The goal has to be to trim the losses, with an eye on forming a competitive team that can sell tickets and become a thriving part of the NHL. Cutting personnel and payroll to make a profit in the first year will only drive more and more potential customers away from the product, and you'll have little chance of winning them back, especially when your organization hasn't won a playoff series in over 20 years.

With the Coyotes about to get a new owner, you can bet there will be changes in how the franchise is run. They made some positive strides on the ice this season, but are nowhere near the kind of organization that inspires ticket sales or sponsorships. There are some who will say their task is impossible, because if Wayne Gretzky can't sell the game, no one can. With the NHL not willing to desert the desert, it's obvious they either disagree.

Either way, a mountain of work faces new management, whoever that ends up being. That doesn't mean a reformation can't happen without calling the moving trucks, though.