Winnipeg Jets

[bomberjet]

How does the river valley in Edmonton affect the Jets? Tune in to Sportscentre at 10 to find out.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Edmonton's river valley is much nice than Calgary's; UofA is better than UofC; and there's no comparison between sports facilities - c'mon, McMahon Stadium and the Saddledome.

What's Winnipeg's claim to fame? A dead and dirty downtown; pothole riddled roads; "what's a LRT?". If Edmonton is depressing; what would you describe Winnipeg as being?

I get that Winnipeg’s not the best place in the world, but damn I don’t think I’ve seen a single post of yours that has been remotely positive about Winnipeg. You might be the biggest hater on this particular subforum which is quite an accomplishment considering the pessimism that the average Winnipegger has.

Fwiw Winnipeg has the Forks which is one of the most significant historical sites in North America, there is no historical district in EDM or CGY that matches the Exchange District, and our tree canopy is superior then both Albertan cities. Of course both cities in Alberta have their advantages over Winnipeg but it’s not like they’re better in every possible way.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Well if you really want to make a comparison between Edmonton and Winnipeg, you may not like the response. The Forks is better than anything in the river valley. The Exchange District is far better than anything Edmonton has in the city centre. Whyte Avenue is overrated. Edmonton is dirtier. Good luck getting anywhere in Edmonton without a car.

Nailed it, the 2 cities are extremely similar, anything bad you could say about Wpg is equally true about Edmonton - cold, boring, crime-ridden, etc. But we have some real gems in the Forks, Exchange and other mature neighbourhoods that Edmonton really has no answer for. Better arts scene too. Plus Wpg isn't full of the oil patch "high-school dropout making 6 figures but spends half of it on coke and the other half on an F350" type dudes.

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Winnipeg is not perfect, but it is much better than Deadmonton. However, I admit that Calgary trumps both cities.

Man.. Calgary is very "nice" in the sense that everything is clean and new and shiny... but damn the only fun thing about that city is it's proximity to the Rockies. It's a dull town. Like what do you DO there? No lie, if you google stuff to do in Calgary most of the answers are "go to Banff".

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by EdwardTH

Man.. Calgary is very "nice" in the sense that everything is clean and new and shiny... but damn the only fun thing about that city is it's proximity to the Rockies. It's a dull town. Like what do you DO there? No lie, if you google stuff to do in Calgary most of the answers are "go to Banff".

I haven't been to Calgary in years, and have only seen it's skyline from the airport. Lots of tall building make it look like it's a happening place, but is it? Is there a lot to do in downtown Calgary after office hours? Some company co-workers in our Calgary office claim they leave the downtown asap after work is done, and that few people want to hang around there.

It's obviously a wealthy city that's still attracting a lot of people, but are they going based on their past boom-time reputation, or are they still Canada's "golden city on the hill" as it were?

[lotw_wpg]

Many young people tend to move to Calgary because of pay and better nightlife. I'm curious to know how it is with their nightlife culture. Several friends say it's significantly better, but the pay I get—less taxes, etc. Also, Calgary is ranked very high in city quality. I see it ranked as the 7th best city in the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_q...f_life_indices). I wonder how Winnipeg can get there. Like, what do we need light rail? Better social services for people experiencing homelessness? Less taxes? High-paying jobs, etc. Something to ponder and achieve.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

This is not even remotely close to being true.

Maybe if you were just watching from tv. If you were actually at the game and looked at the stands at all it was very clear that a lot of tickets went unused. Saturday was very likely the lowest actual attendance at a Bomber game this season and likely for several seasons.

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

I had season tickets for over a decade, and attendance actually increases in the fall. During the summer months, too many people are away at the beach, and attendance suffers. In the fall, all games are on the weekend, and everyone has locked up their cabins by October, which is great for attendance. Weather has never had an adverse effect for football in Canada, especially in Winnipeg.

I have also had Bomber tickets for over a decade. There are many fans that have season tickets and will never attend any games in October or later as it is often too cold. Also as I indicated there are lots of effectively comp'd tickets for the last home game every Bomber season. As they aren't sold and they recipients already have tickets lots of those go unused. It is well known that Bombers do best against key opponents with Banjo Bowl always being the peak of the season.

And the claims about people being at the cabin and missing summer games for the Bombers holds little weight. Many of the best attended games are those exact same ones. Further a lot of the "I have a cottage" demographics has stopped being season ticket holders as they can just watch the games on TSN from their cottage

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by CoryB

Maybe if you were just watching from tv. If you were actually at the game and looked at the stands at all it was very clear that a lot of tickets went unused. Saturday was very likely the lowest actual attendance at a Bomber game this season and likely for several seasons.

Announced attendance was a sellout of 32,343. You are saying that official attendance figures are incorrect, and your "eye-test" is, especially when the final home game outsold the first couple of games by over 3,000.

It is well known that Bombers do best against key opponents with Banjo Bowl always being the peak of the season.

Attendance vs. Saskatchewan was always going to be higher than average, long before the Banjo Bowl.

And the claims about people being at the cabin and missing summer games for the Bombers holds little weight. Many of the best attended games are those exact same ones. Further a lot of the "I have a cottage" demographics has stopped being season ticket holders as they can just watch the games on TSN from their cottage

This has ALWAYS been the case. Why do you think the CFL has so many Thursday night games during July/August? Traditionally if it came down to a choice between going to a cabin for the weekend, or a Bomber game, the cabin experience wins, hands-down. I know it's been over 20 years since I had season tickets, but I doubt things have considerably changed, in terms of attendance being adversely affected by fans wanting to go to the lake on summer weekends. People in Winnipeg have been doing this for the past century.

PS...playoffs games in November are better attended than regular season games, so obviously weather is not a big factor in terms of attendance (barring a major blizzard).

[thurmas]

Jets won 4-2 against blues but had lowest jets 2.0 attendance of just 11136 in non covid-19 games. I know bombers are eating up a lot of the sports oxygen right now but not sure why true north isn't offering promos or what not?

[wags_in_the_peg]

Dreger from TSN sat down with Chipman, they previewed parts of it last night, full airing on Thursday. It'll be a interesting one I bet. the small clip they showed, he said the team is not for sale and not moving under his ownership group watch! Go Jets Go

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Jets won 4-2 against blues but had lowest jets 2.0 attendance of just 11136 in non covid-19 games. I know bombers are eating up a lot of the sports oxygen right now but not sure why true north isn't offering promos or what not?

Weird, on tv it looked full

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Jets won 4-2 against blues but had lowest jets 2.0 attendance of just 11136 in non covid-19 games. I know bombers are eating up a lot of the sports oxygen right now but not sure why true north isn't offering promos or what not?

Geez.

That TNSE marketing campaign the Jets did last spring has not worked out too well. Chipman may need to overhaul his marketing team, and get an outside agency to help the team sell tickets. The "just be lucky you have tickets!" spiel, to the "if you don't buy tickets next season, we could move again" campaigns ahve not worked very well in the past few years.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

Geez.

That TNSE marketing campaign the Jets did last spring has not worked out too well. Chipman may need to overhaul his marketing team, and get an outside agency to help the team sell tickets. The "just be lucky you have tickets!" spiel, to the "if you don't buy tickets next season, we could move again" campaigns ahve not worked very well in the past few years.

It was very insulting to fans coupled with 2 straight summers of players or coaches not wanting to be here and not really having that solved until the end training camp this year did a lot of collateral damage.

[blueandgoldguy]

Originally Posted by thurmas

Jets won 4-2 against blues but had lowest jets 2.0 attendance of just 11136 in non covid-19 games. I know bombers are eating up a lot of the sports oxygen right now but not sure why true north isn't offering promos or what not?

They are. We received an email for $69 (with fees I think $80) for corner upper deck seats to Nashville, Edmonton and some other team. This also included a beer.

[DLLB]

The last thing Winnipeg needs is to lose them again. It seems like the marketing group has failed miserably. Where are the corporations supporting the main international team in their city! Terrible!

[pspeid]

If anyone wants to read the interview with Chipman, here's one from TSN. Haters will be disappointed.

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/winnipeg-jets...ipeg-1.2026324

If readers want to see him to fall on his sword and admit his organization is an abject failure in terms of marketing, they'll be disappointed. He DOES, however, mention that they've made some mis-steps, and are trying to correct them. I believe blueandgoldguy already mentioned one such offer.

I have to admit, Chipman appears very committed to the team and the city. He seems to view the recent attendance dips within the big picture of business ups-and-downs.

Sadly, the blood-in-the-water death-watch for the Jets will probably continue for some time. Chipman touches upon this as well, talking about the unique challenges of a small-market NHL team.

Personally I have no doubt there are much larger cities, and their media, who have predicted, and most likely hoped for, the failure of the Jets in this market. I don't think I'm being paranoid or Winnipeg-negative, just realistic. We're like a tradesman who somehow got into the country club. Some folks think in terms of who they feel "deserve" things, and I don't doubt there's lots of people who don't think Winnipeg "deserves" an NHL team.

[EdwardTH]

Originally Posted by DLLB

The last thing Winnipeg needs is to lose them again. It seems like the marketing group has failed miserably. Where are the corporations supporting the main international team in their city! Terrible!

It seems like it came back to bite them that all the season tickets got snapped up by groups of like 8 people sharing them. It was like a house of cards - once the novelty wore off, finances got a little tight, people started dropping out and all the elaborate, precarious arrangements people had to split their tickets started to fall apart. It's almost as if they should have released them in waves and set aside a large chunk to market directly to businesses.

But yeah they really need to bring in a marketing team that has their finger on the pulse. Revamp all the branding, game-day production and events, maybe even new jerseys and whatnot. All that stuff is very old-school, generic, conventional "hockey" branding right now.

And drop prices to fill the barn. They take a hit on revenue but IMO that protects the brand by improving the atmosphere in the arena and getting some excitement going again.

[thurmas]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

They are. We received an email for $69 (with fees I think $80) for corner upper deck seats to Nashville, Edmonton and some other team. This also included a beer.

That's a deal?

[Biff]

Lots of empty seats in Detroit tonight. Where do you think they will be moving to? Houston, Kansas City, Oaklahoma?

[lotw_wpg]

Originally Posted by Biff

Lots of empty seats in Detroit tonight. Where do you think they will be moving to? Houston, Kansas City, Oaklahoma?

I was thinking Brandon.

[Highwayman]

Let's get off the attendance dilemma ALL teams are having and back to the fact we just won 3 in a row. Seems Helle is getting back to his old self. I'm happy with how Scheif has played so far this year. Ehlers scored !!!! LoL.