Sullenly, I stared at my clear glass of water that I had been sipping on for the past few minutes. There wasn't any ice, thankfully, as I hate having ice in my drinks. Usually they fill the entire cup with ice so they can scheme their way into not having to pump out larger amounts of soda to the patrons. Of course, by they I mean those in the restaurant business and the restaurant in question is the Wingers restaurant, the white-trash mining community surrogate for Buffalo Wild Wings. This wasn't my first time here by any means, and that attributes to my sullen state of mind. Was my food not good? Was the service terrible? I don't have the answer to the first, because I chose not to eat anything besides the small bowl full of popcorn that they provide to their guests. The service was adequate; what you would expect from a restaurant of this magnitude.
Something was missing. I could feel it as soon as my roommate Jayce had asked me to go out to eat. At first glance it didn't feel the same. Were we celebrating something? Was it a special night? No, but that hadn't stopped us from making the same trips all those times a year prior to tonight. Wingers was a haven, our haven. Whenever we wanted to spice things up, Wingers was where we would head. Whenever there was an event that stirred us up, we would head to Wingers afterward to either wind down the night or to enhance our evening. If we had found ourselves to be jaded, bleary, we would look to spruce things up by going down to Wingers. This was our Oasis, the bar in Cheers, the coffee shop in Seinfeld, The Max in Saved by the Bell.
Usually, depending on who was in attendance, I would start by ordering myself a nice, tall glass of Bud Light. After I downed that, I would order another one. After those two, with the equivalent of about four bottles of beer in my stomach and feeling slightly intoxicated, I would move on to some harder liquor. Beer is great, but when it takes a twelve pack to get you drunk, and I mean drunk, you tend to feel a little too full and find yourself making one too many trips to the bathroom. Back in those days, Wingers had a special on drinks each and every night, and you'd be crazy to think I wouldn't take them up on their offer. Whether it be dollar shot night or two dollar beer night, in which I would break apart from taking the shots and just drink beer no matter how full I got, things always turned into an adventure. There was the time that my friend Riley and I had about five shots each, Jager bombs for me, bong water for him, coupled with at least five beers each of our own brands, all before 4 in the afternoon and before the night shift had even clocked in. As we proceeded to leave, Riley dropped his bottle of beer, shattering it on the floor and then fleeing the scene of the crime before anyone noticed. He then lost his sunglasses about three blocks down the road as he stuck his head out of the window to vomit. Oh, yeah, we also went back and had just as much to drink four hours later. Thank God for Jayce, who will always serve as our designated driver.
Or how about the time Riley and myself plowed through over a hundred and twenty shots combined of their 'One Dollar Shot Night' in addition to six Jager bombs for me, seven bong waters for him, and at least a few beers. We found our tab eleven dollars short of breaking the 200 mark. A week later they didn't have their special drink nights anymore. We like to credit ourselves. If drinking stories doesn't do it for you, how about some stories of a young Casanova, racking up waitress' cell phone numbers left and right until I had the entire place electronically stenciled down on my phone's contact list. If you think that's hyperbole then you should also think that me not being able to pull through in the clutch would be an over-exaggeration as well, but sadly, none of those numbers did me any good. At least I got them.
Drunken stories from barely legal drinkers womanizing and enjoying themselves. Every young kids dream it seems. But we didn't take this place for granted. We weren't your average college kids showing up to tear a place down. We respected Wingers. It was almost as if we were stockholders coming to the root of our investment to see how our money was being put to use. We frowned at those who treated her wrong, those who left a mess for the waitresses to clean, letting their napkins amble to the floor, sending their straw wrappers flying through the air, spilling condiments over the tables. We heckled the out of towners, those who came by for a quick bite, almost mocking the place as they knew they were in a hurry but couldn't succumb to ordering a burger from McDonalds. They never took the time to take in their surroundings, to let the scenery consume them, absorb them almost as if this restaurant had a long standing tradition. They used the place because they felt that they had "standards".
There were only a few people who truly appreciated this place. I can gladly say that I am one of those people. There was nothing like the excitement of proclaiming that "Tonight feels like a Wingers night!" Then letting the stimulating euphoria take over of knowing anything possible was now in play as we dolled ourselves up as if we were heading to a school dance. Throughout all of the chicken wings, alcohol, girls, jokes and laughter, what was held onto most was the memories. The way that we drove by the place and then just looked at each other, as we just knew all that encompassed that building. Friendships were groomed in there. Lady skills were matured in there. Maturation as a whole manifested itself in there, as we blossomed from, me anyway, drunk, unstable college kids to mature drunk collegiate ambassadors resembling well seasoned frat brothers. From rookies to veterans. It was almost tear-jerking the last time we went to Wingers last May as our semester had come to a close. You'd be foolish to think that we went because we were hungry. No, Wingers was our universal, symbolizing all the fun that we had had over the course of January through May of 2009. As hope for an even better time filled our hearts, we parted ways with Wingers last May looking forward to that first day when we would all rejoin in some form. Maybe it would just be Jayce and I. Maybe it would be a few new friends who had ventured to Elko to attend college. Maybe we would make new friends.
All of that optimism somehow dwindled away. Throughout the past four months our desires to go to Wingers had lessened. It seemed that we needed to start off the semester with a bang, and Wingers was the perfect destination. One problem was that we thought we needed to yield a huge ceremony, numbers in the tens at least. We couldn't start it off with just Jayce and me. We had to have a huge bash, and that didn't come until my birthday at the end of September. Our plans had never fully come to fruition. A handful of us attended the pseudo birthday bash, at least half of what we tried to expect for, but at least I was able to at least relive some of those old drinking days and we shared a few fun stories that we had had in the past. After that, timing was terrible. Basketball had consumed a decent amount of my time, and my money budget wasn't expandable enough to include $30-$50 weekly at Wingers like it had in the past.
The next time Jayce and I found ourselves at Wingers, I had asked a girl out with, and it was unsettling when one of the waitresses had been one of the lucky vixens whose number I was able to attain. Any previous fires had to be squashed instantly so it wouldn't appear that I was flirting with my waitress while I had a lovely girl sitting next to me. This was a good two months after the September bash.
That all lead to where we were at some odd hours ago. A cold nostalgia crept into my spidey-senses, but it wasn't the same. We opened the same doors that we had done hundreds of times before, but it just wasn't the same. None of the old friends we had made were there, and if they were either we didn't recognize them or they didn't recognize us. Funny how an elongated time period can do that. We had drifted away from our haven, the place that had tied everything up so smoothly and nicely in the past. Ironically enough, our waitress did remember us, well, Jayce anyway. She knew exactly what he wanted to drink, Root Beer, only because they didn't have Mountain Dew, and eat, the Sticky Fingers Salad. I was mistaken for our other friend Trevor, and felt out of place when she thought I wanted a strawberry lemonade. Me? A strawberry lemonade? The same person who got a funny look when I ordered a Coors Light, throwing off our waitress at the time and having her wonder out loud "I thought you always ordered Bud Lights?" with me giggling and replying that I wanted to see if she was on her toes that night? They didn't remember me?
It took me halfway through my first glass of water before I realized I was drinking it without a straw. I'm not a fan of drinking straight from the cup in restaurants, as I can't fully put my trust in the dish washers in the back to thoroughly rinse out each cup after it had been used. What's sad is that I thought the waitress didn't bring me a straw, but I forgot that it was placed in with my utensils wrapped inside a napkin. As Jayce consumed his dinner, I stared blankly into my glass of water as if it were a magical crystal ball showing me flashes of past adventures. To remind me of the better times we had had here. To show me how to have fun here, to show that this place wasn't as depressed as it had seemed. It started out promising, from a dispirited position anyway, when the place looked to be half-filled. Half of the room though was comprised of one big party, and when they left, the spirit of the night left. What was left was an overweight couple that didn't say much at all, a family of four with two young kids, and another family somewhere out of my peripheral vision that had a young child who cried in spurts, quieting down when the parents were able to stimulate the kid, sparking back up when the kid became restless.
Few words were shared between Jayce and I, as we did our best to forge an exciting evening. I thought about asking our waitress about an old acquaintance and if she still worked there. I contemplated between ordering a beer. The highlight of the night came when something was discovered in the men's bathroom that the waitresses found very exhilarating, but I couldn't come to picking myself up out of my cushioned booth to found out what it was, or ask anyone for that matter.
Our waitress brought our ticket after we declined desert. Normally this would be where I would claim it was my birthday to try to finagle us a free ice cream pie. I can't remember how many times waitresses fell for that before they started to either check my driver's license or flat out succumb to my mischief and bring us a pie as if it were on the house. There was no extra fifteen minutes of convo between us and our waitress, fifteen minutes of back and forth flirtatious rapport. No, instead Jayce scribbled down his John Hancock, we put on our coats and never looked back.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Sports Economy 101
Just recently the owner of a professional hockey team called the Phoenix Coyotes was caught between a rock and a hard place. He had been drastically losing money year in and year out with his hockey team, not to mention the financial hit he took when the stock market crashed, and debated back and forth between filing for bankruptcy or selling his team. He chose to do both, a move that would have netted him and his partners around $200 million dollars and would give him some leeway for once. The only problem? The transaction is contingent upon the new owner being able to move the team to the city of Hamilton in the province of Ontario, Canada.
How does this pose a problem? Just this year the Seattle SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City after being a part of Seattle for over forty years. Why would an NHL team that has been steadily losing money and that has only been stationed in its current city for about ten years cause some snags in the line for a team that is over $100 million in debt and that has not made the playoffs since 2002? NHL officials are weary of the move. Commissioner Gary Bettman has stated that he doesn't believe the group that wants to buy the team and relocate the organization will get the support and the vote from the other owners, something that is needed by rule to move a team.
How does this have anything to do with economics? Years ago when hockey enjoyed a peak in interest and when it had not one but two golden childs skating on the ice at the same time, that being Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemuix, the brain trusts of the NHL were thinking nothing of money and profits and wanted to emulate the way the NBA was now operating by adding more teams and expanding out west to bigger markets and bigger cities. In 1991 there were only 21 NHL franchises before a swoon of new franchises and relocations rocked the next ten years which ended with teams now placed in cities such as Dallas, Anaheim, two Florida based teams, the aforementioned Phoenix team, North Carolina, Nashville, and Atlanta. Only one team from that crop is in the top half of operating income, that being the San Jose Sharks who had the best record in the league this year. Their income? A paltry 2 million dollars.
From an economic standpoint, wouldn't it make more sense for an NHL owner to stay in a "hockey-friendly" town? Wouldn't it be smart to try to market an NHL team in a town that where young kids could actually play hockey? For example, take a kid from Phoenix and take a kid from Buffalo. Would the kid from Phoenix rather go indoors to play hockey on an artificial man-made hockey rink in a building that is purposely kept to chilling temperatures while the average temperature doesn't get below 60 in the winter months and he can go out and enjoy some sunshine? How about the same thinking of why herds of people as a whole would want to go to a chilling hockey stadium in March and April when the weather is beautiful outside? It's almost common sense. As for the kid from Buffalo? It would be safe to say that he is out on frozen-over ponds skating around with a stick in his hand as opposed to trying to play basketball on snow-covered courts with huge gloves on.
That brings the next point against hockey expansion and relocation in these "big" market cities, hockey teams will have to compete with football, basketball, and in some cases baseball throughout their regular seasons. Again for the team in Phoenix, in some cases they can get lucky and have days where there is not another ticket in town. How many days out of their season could that possibly be? And why would people want to spend an extra $80 to run out to a hockey game after they splurge a few hundred bucks attending a football or basketball game?
Competition is a key focal point in economics. According to Dr. Tenney, companies do not like competition because it harms them. So why would a team relocate to a city that has forms of competition that they will be directly competing against? For example, seven out of the NHL's top ten teams in terms of attendance figures for this past season had little or no direct competition in terms of other sports. Little competition meaning that those teams didn't really have to compete with another good team that is competing for a playoff spot. Those teams were located in Montreal, Calgary, Ottowa, Vancouver, St. Louis, Toronto and Minnesota. Also, five out of the top ten teams in terms of attendance were located in Canada. Comparing that with the teams that are ranked in the bottom in attendance, seven out of the bottom eleven all have something in common, that being a relatively warm-weathered city. New Jersey is the only team in the bottom eleven that breaks the trend of hockey-friendly town with little competition.
So, following just the attendance numbers, it would make economic sense for a team like Phoenix to relocate then. Five out of the six Canadian-based teams are in the top ten in attendance numbers. It would make them also try to follow the trend of this hockey-friendly town with little competition as opposed to trying to compete against three other professional teams. It would also at least create interest in the team. To correlate it with basketball numbers, the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City this year. It doesn't really seem as though Oklahoma City would be a place for a basketball team to strike gold, but there is no other competition during basketball season and the genuine interest of having a team created buzz amongst the populous of the city. The team then rode that interest and buzz and were ninth in the league in terms of percentage of home games that were sold out and eleventh in the average amount of fans per game. Not bad for a team that had the 4th worst record in the league.
To see if the same trned holds up with the NBA for attendance figures, three of the top ten have no other pro ticket in town. Six out of the top ten have little competition. The exact trends don't necesarilly hold up when comparing basketball attendance numbers to the trends with hockey, but in defense basketball is a more popular sport. It may also be safe to say that that defense can hold up, seeing as how the winless Detroit Lions on average had 30,000 more fans per game than their basketball and hockey counterparts, both teams that made the playoffs in their respective sport, and why football stadiums are built to hold 3/4s of a hundred thousand as opposed to 1/4 of a hundred thousand.
Economics is the science of the production, distribution and consumption of a good or service and their management. Sports easily falls into that mold. There is the production or creation of the team, the distribution or marketing of the team and the consumption of the fan's interest. The management of a team is quite baffling sometimes. It is easy to assume that hockey isn't a sport that could thrive in a warm weather city based on that is a game played on ice, but attendance figures hold up the argument. For the thinking that an ideal goal for a business is to maximize profits, hockey hasn't held up ecomically.
Mike Madias who is a sports journalist tries to make the argument that teams that have left Canada in the past did it because they can make more money in the US because of the way the Canadian economy and currency fluctuate. The revenue for Canadian based teams come in in terms of Canadian dollars, but they have to pay out in American dollars and with the way that the Canadian dollar fluctuates, they then don't make as much money in return. That doesn't explain then how all six of the Canadian based teams were ranked in the top ten of total American dollar revenue even after exchanging Bordens for Benjamins. Hockey has been called a Canadian sport for years upon years, much like how football is an American sport. Why try to think that big market cities with large populations can support a hockey team? It sounds good on paper, but in reality that is not the case.
Oddly enough, one argument from the NHL bosses against the move from Phoenix to Ontario is that they would invade on the fan bases of the Toronto and Buffalo based teams. This doesn't really seem to make sense considering they are already going against three other heavyweights who's stadiums are located virtually next to each other as opposed to an hour away which what Hamilton is from both Toronto and Buffalo, but it also has over 600,000 people living there. That may be almost a million less than what Phoenix has, but what other ticket is there in Hamilton?
In conclusion, speaking economically may be essentially like learning a new language, but using a little bit of economic thinking and comparing what works for other teams and what hasn't worked for the other teams should prove to be a good starting point for any team that is in the hole. Organizations should follow the mold of what has worked for other teams and use some common sense. When it comes to maximizing profits for a sports team, as a lot of teams have shown, you don't need to produce championship contenders year in and year out, you really just need to use a little common sense mixed in with the economic mind set and follow the mold of what has worked for other teams.
The Phoenix Coyotes may not be moving anytime soon and the only real way for it to be known if they would make more money by moving cities would be if they actually did move cities. Based off of other teams though and by following the trends of succesful hockey teams compared with unsuccesful hockey teams though, it would make for a good assumption that they would make money. For a team that has consistantly lost money for ten straight years it would seem that they would take a chance and recreate the organization as a whole as opposed to trying to fix something that seemingly can't be fixed.
How does this pose a problem? Just this year the Seattle SuperSonics relocated to Oklahoma City after being a part of Seattle for over forty years. Why would an NHL team that has been steadily losing money and that has only been stationed in its current city for about ten years cause some snags in the line for a team that is over $100 million in debt and that has not made the playoffs since 2002? NHL officials are weary of the move. Commissioner Gary Bettman has stated that he doesn't believe the group that wants to buy the team and relocate the organization will get the support and the vote from the other owners, something that is needed by rule to move a team.
How does this have anything to do with economics? Years ago when hockey enjoyed a peak in interest and when it had not one but two golden childs skating on the ice at the same time, that being Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemuix, the brain trusts of the NHL were thinking nothing of money and profits and wanted to emulate the way the NBA was now operating by adding more teams and expanding out west to bigger markets and bigger cities. In 1991 there were only 21 NHL franchises before a swoon of new franchises and relocations rocked the next ten years which ended with teams now placed in cities such as Dallas, Anaheim, two Florida based teams, the aforementioned Phoenix team, North Carolina, Nashville, and Atlanta. Only one team from that crop is in the top half of operating income, that being the San Jose Sharks who had the best record in the league this year. Their income? A paltry 2 million dollars.
From an economic standpoint, wouldn't it make more sense for an NHL owner to stay in a "hockey-friendly" town? Wouldn't it be smart to try to market an NHL team in a town that where young kids could actually play hockey? For example, take a kid from Phoenix and take a kid from Buffalo. Would the kid from Phoenix rather go indoors to play hockey on an artificial man-made hockey rink in a building that is purposely kept to chilling temperatures while the average temperature doesn't get below 60 in the winter months and he can go out and enjoy some sunshine? How about the same thinking of why herds of people as a whole would want to go to a chilling hockey stadium in March and April when the weather is beautiful outside? It's almost common sense. As for the kid from Buffalo? It would be safe to say that he is out on frozen-over ponds skating around with a stick in his hand as opposed to trying to play basketball on snow-covered courts with huge gloves on.
That brings the next point against hockey expansion and relocation in these "big" market cities, hockey teams will have to compete with football, basketball, and in some cases baseball throughout their regular seasons. Again for the team in Phoenix, in some cases they can get lucky and have days where there is not another ticket in town. How many days out of their season could that possibly be? And why would people want to spend an extra $80 to run out to a hockey game after they splurge a few hundred bucks attending a football or basketball game?
Competition is a key focal point in economics. According to Dr. Tenney, companies do not like competition because it harms them. So why would a team relocate to a city that has forms of competition that they will be directly competing against? For example, seven out of the NHL's top ten teams in terms of attendance figures for this past season had little or no direct competition in terms of other sports. Little competition meaning that those teams didn't really have to compete with another good team that is competing for a playoff spot. Those teams were located in Montreal, Calgary, Ottowa, Vancouver, St. Louis, Toronto and Minnesota. Also, five out of the top ten teams in terms of attendance were located in Canada. Comparing that with the teams that are ranked in the bottom in attendance, seven out of the bottom eleven all have something in common, that being a relatively warm-weathered city. New Jersey is the only team in the bottom eleven that breaks the trend of hockey-friendly town with little competition.
So, following just the attendance numbers, it would make economic sense for a team like Phoenix to relocate then. Five out of the six Canadian-based teams are in the top ten in attendance numbers. It would make them also try to follow the trend of this hockey-friendly town with little competition as opposed to trying to compete against three other professional teams. It would also at least create interest in the team. To correlate it with basketball numbers, the Seattle SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City this year. It doesn't really seem as though Oklahoma City would be a place for a basketball team to strike gold, but there is no other competition during basketball season and the genuine interest of having a team created buzz amongst the populous of the city. The team then rode that interest and buzz and were ninth in the league in terms of percentage of home games that were sold out and eleventh in the average amount of fans per game. Not bad for a team that had the 4th worst record in the league.
To see if the same trned holds up with the NBA for attendance figures, three of the top ten have no other pro ticket in town. Six out of the top ten have little competition. The exact trends don't necesarilly hold up when comparing basketball attendance numbers to the trends with hockey, but in defense basketball is a more popular sport. It may also be safe to say that that defense can hold up, seeing as how the winless Detroit Lions on average had 30,000 more fans per game than their basketball and hockey counterparts, both teams that made the playoffs in their respective sport, and why football stadiums are built to hold 3/4s of a hundred thousand as opposed to 1/4 of a hundred thousand.
Economics is the science of the production, distribution and consumption of a good or service and their management. Sports easily falls into that mold. There is the production or creation of the team, the distribution or marketing of the team and the consumption of the fan's interest. The management of a team is quite baffling sometimes. It is easy to assume that hockey isn't a sport that could thrive in a warm weather city based on that is a game played on ice, but attendance figures hold up the argument. For the thinking that an ideal goal for a business is to maximize profits, hockey hasn't held up ecomically.
Mike Madias who is a sports journalist tries to make the argument that teams that have left Canada in the past did it because they can make more money in the US because of the way the Canadian economy and currency fluctuate. The revenue for Canadian based teams come in in terms of Canadian dollars, but they have to pay out in American dollars and with the way that the Canadian dollar fluctuates, they then don't make as much money in return. That doesn't explain then how all six of the Canadian based teams were ranked in the top ten of total American dollar revenue even after exchanging Bordens for Benjamins. Hockey has been called a Canadian sport for years upon years, much like how football is an American sport. Why try to think that big market cities with large populations can support a hockey team? It sounds good on paper, but in reality that is not the case.
Oddly enough, one argument from the NHL bosses against the move from Phoenix to Ontario is that they would invade on the fan bases of the Toronto and Buffalo based teams. This doesn't really seem to make sense considering they are already going against three other heavyweights who's stadiums are located virtually next to each other as opposed to an hour away which what Hamilton is from both Toronto and Buffalo, but it also has over 600,000 people living there. That may be almost a million less than what Phoenix has, but what other ticket is there in Hamilton?
In conclusion, speaking economically may be essentially like learning a new language, but using a little bit of economic thinking and comparing what works for other teams and what hasn't worked for the other teams should prove to be a good starting point for any team that is in the hole. Organizations should follow the mold of what has worked for other teams and use some common sense. When it comes to maximizing profits for a sports team, as a lot of teams have shown, you don't need to produce championship contenders year in and year out, you really just need to use a little common sense mixed in with the economic mind set and follow the mold of what has worked for other teams.
The Phoenix Coyotes may not be moving anytime soon and the only real way for it to be known if they would make more money by moving cities would be if they actually did move cities. Based off of other teams though and by following the trends of succesful hockey teams compared with unsuccesful hockey teams though, it would make for a good assumption that they would make money. For a team that has consistantly lost money for ten straight years it would seem that they would take a chance and recreate the organization as a whole as opposed to trying to fix something that seemingly can't be fixed.
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