Adam wrote:
 
> It's amazing ... but the more I'm around minor pro hockey, the more it
> startles me about attendance.  We go head to head with a CBA team.  We
> are both the best teams in the league ... we've been in town a decade
> shorter ... we draw 8,400 per game ... they get about 3,000.  Baseball
> is worse.
>
> It's like this everywhere.  Despite the theory that basketball is much
> more popular in the US than hockey ... it's not true in places where
> the
> two sports go head-to-head.  Take a look at the minor pro attendance
> figures for hockey in Oklahoma City, Austin, New Orleans, Baton Rouge,
> Kentucky -- the list goes on.  The key, I suppose, is for hockey teams
> to go into more cities -- especially college.  But to college AD's ...
> look up and notice, that in towns where pro hockey goes up against pro
> hoops, pro hockey is winning.  The same might be able to be said for
> college.
>
> AW
The problem is that hockey is far more expensive to field than
basketball.  You need bigger team rosters, you need expensive equipment,
and you need an arena that   1) probably can't seat as many fans as the
others; and   2) costs more to construct and maintain.  Start up costs,
therefore, can seem prohibitive.
 
WE know that hockey is a better sport.  But I'm going to stick in a
personal observation FWIW (i.e., not much) - I am happy to watch hockey
on TV if its on, but its nothing like being at the game.  You may not
have instant slo-mo replay, but it seems you can see so much more of
what is happening while there then you can on the tube.  OTOH, with
football, you get a better view of the game at home than you can in the
stands.  Baseball and Basketball somewhere in between, but they also
lend themselves to TV much better than hockey does.  Result:  We aren't
going to see hockey become the national (U.S.) pasttime even if it
always wins in head-to-head competition with the other sports.
 
Tom Rowe                                     [log in to unmask]
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