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Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek
There’s a lot more question marks in the NHL before we harp on Winnipeg for its subpar attendance.
Arizona is a disaster, Buffalo has sucked for awhile, Ottawa has had dwindling fan support ever since their ECF appearance, Columbus is a dumpster fire, and funny thing is even New Jersey (the 19-4 team) has a lower average attendance then us.
That’s not even considering tickets are dirt cheap in a lot of American markets. If they had Jets prices they would likely be at 50% capacity.
Enough with the doomerism. The Jets are a good team, Chipman & Thompson have not even hinted towards those talks, and they play in the middle of the city. Let’s not act like half the cities license plates don’t have a Jets logo on it, or ignore the vast amount of Jets clothing you will see in public literally anywhere in the city. It’s our cities identity and is the best shot we have at garnering anything worthy of international attention. Just look at the relevance of Kansas City when they got Mahomes, or Edmonton when they got McDavid. Not saying we have a Mahomes or McDavid like player, but a successful franchise in a world class league sometimes can provide the moral boost necessary for legitimate growth and progress.
The reality is times are tough right now for Canadians in general. A lot of people are struggling to make ends meet they definitely aren’t considering dropping $250 for entertainment purposes. That’s enough for a week of groceries at most with how absurd food prices have climbed up recently. Winnipeggers are a resilient bunch I’m sure the tides will turn and hopefully when the Jets are in the playoffs and the whiteout returns we won’t be having these talks again for a while.
Although, maybe they could consider trying to up their game with promotional deals for idk university students, Indigenous people, and families for start. I bet 50% off drinks on certain nights would get butts in seats as well.
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This is a good perspective. The Jets will be fine. Winnipeg will always support them. The Stockholm Syndrome "OMG we have to buy tickets or we're worthless as a city" is pure silliness.
The worst anyone can say is that the days of the Jets being a Leafs-style cash cow with 100% sellouts every night at very inflated price points are gone. But no one including TNSE ever thought that would last forever. It's impressive that it lasted for nearly a decade. Maybe in decade two TNSE will have to mark down some seats and run more specials and promos like most other NHL teams do.