MLSE Is Not A Charity

[teddym]

TFC supporters complained? I don't remember that.

They did. Never shut up about it. I remember it well, if you don't. But maybe you don't read other Toronto forums?

[narduch]

Man, that's a reach.

I didn't know MLSE had an office in London.

Ignore me too!

LOL.

I love how he continually dodges the question about price increases. I wonder if the Hamilton Accies doubled the price of his tickets in 5 years?

[teddym]

I complain about the way this team is run because I want to see it succeed. Not because I'm jumping ship.

So Narduch you're once again bending over and paying the shot? Ah well, "there's one born every minute" as they say at MLSE. Enjoy the MLS Cup. (My dream final would be Columbus vs Real Salt Lake.) Meanwhile keep on-a b*tchin' an-a payin', jis a b*tchin' an-a payin' . . .

[narduch]

So Narduch you're once again bending over and paying the shot? Ah well, "there's one born every minute" as they say at MLSE. Enjoy the MLS Cup. (My dream final would be Columbus vs Real Salt Lake.) Meanwhile keep on-a b*tchin' an-a payin', jis a b*tchin' an-a payin' . . .

I have 4 tickets on my account.

I'm dropping it to 2 now.

And I've heard a lot of other season ticket holders are doing similar. Lots of season ticket holders with multiple seats are cutting back.

Plus I'm going to sell my MLS Cup tickets to ease the cost.

[paul-collins]

I wonder if the Hamilton Accies doubled the price of his tickets in 5 years?

...and, so what? That's where the sense of entitlement enters the equation. I followed a team called Hamilton Accies when I was growing up. They have never won a major trophy in over 130 years of existence and probably never will. The fact they lost more than they won didn't stop me from having some good times watching them as a kid.

Ah, well that explains it then. Hamilton. I have a good friend who's a die hard TiCat fan. Same deal.

(Just kidding)

The thing is, the Accies are the very definition of the harvest brand - 130 years of stability, you know what you're getting.

I suppose MLSE sports fans should just use the same yardstick for the FC that they use for the Leafs - plan the parade route in the preseason and then ***** for the rest of the year as it all falls apart - then it would make sense to them. I'm just not sure there are enough soccer fans in the GTA to support that model of performance...

[paul-collins]

I have 4 tickets on my account.

I'm dropping it to 2 now.

And I've heard a lot of other season ticket holders are doing similar.

In a similar vein, how many of the vaunted "waiting list" are STH that wanted to expand their footprint? Will they buy the additional tickets now?

[jpg75]

I wish more people would get on BBTB's ignore list, then he might actually stop posting here...

The Scottish professional football structure has existed in it's near-current state for decades, even a century. Most clubs were formed in the late 19th century (even his own Hamilton Accies have been around since 1874). MLS is a 15 year old league and TFC are 4 years old, he's comparing apples to oranges.

Hamilton is a suburb of Glasgow, as is Motherwell. They are a small club with a small following, so again i don't see the relevant comparison. Generations of Hamiltonians will have grown up in the shadow of the Glasgow giants while their hometown club languished in the lower leagues, it's only natural alot of people changed their support to the bigger clubs. In a Hockey context it's like expecting someone in Whitby to be a Dunlops fan instead of a Leafs fan. Now if a Celtic or Rangers fan switched to Man Utd for glory hunting purposes that's a better comparison.

Toronto FC are owned by MLSE, the same people who have ruined the Leafs for multiple generations of Torontonians. Of course there's going to be anger when another of their teams appears to be headed down the same road.

[Richard]

MLSE is accountable to its shareholders to whom dividends are payable. As long as its sports team's games sell out and they have a season ticket waiting list, all is well. It is a balancing act for MLSE, if they can increase revenues without alienating too many ticket-buying fans then all is well in the world of business... we should never forget that professional sports whether in Toronto or Glasgow, is first and foremost a free enterprise, for profit business.

[narduch]

MLSE is accountable to its shareholders to whom dividends are payable. As long as its sports team's games sell out and they have a season ticket waiting list, all is well. It is a balancing act for MLSE, if they can increase revenues without alienating too many ticket-buying fans then all is well in the world of business... we should never forget that professional sports whether in Toronto or Glasgow, is first and foremost a free enterprise, for profit business.

That's a ****ty way to look at sports.

May as well follow the stock market if that's the case.

If it wasn't deeper than 'its a business' why should anyone care?

[narduch]

In a similar vein, how many of the vaunted "waiting list" are STH that wanted to expand their footprint? Will they buy the additional tickets now?

I think the waiting list is filled with people who want cheap season tickets but are unwilling to shell out for the tickets that cost $1000+

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

The thing is, the Accies are the very definition of the harvest brand - 130 years of stability, you know what you're getting.

Actually you don't and that can be one of the beauties of it. Finishing 7th in the SPL last season stood in marked contrast to the way things were when I first saw them play. Even relative success for a club like that is way sweeter than anything a fan of Man United or a Bayern Munich experiences where victory is expected and failure is treated as the end of the world. One side of my family supported the Accies on the other it was Rangers so I can compare and contrast on that quite easily. If MLS manages to maintain a reasonable level of competitive parity and expands to well over 20 teams then winning MLS Cup will probably tend to be a once in a generation thing for most teams. That's the way it should be, in my opinion. Something really special to be savoured when it does arrive like getting promoted to the SPL for a club like Hamilton Accies.

As for all the price has doubled stuff did anybody seriously think that $11 a game was anything other than an introductory price? That's less than the cost of a beer at BMO Field and I see plenty of people drinking those in the southend at games despite the exorbitant price. There's a lot of posturing going on by people who can easily afford to pay and would probably have no problem doing so if TFC were looking like Canada's answer to Man United where the MLS standings are concerned. Have some sympathy for the complaints about MLS Cup not being an opt out but I suspect it may be the first and last one to be held in TO for climate reasons and the potential for interesting weather conditions also may be why MLSE are very keen to ensure a sellout.

[jpg75]

MLSE is accountable to its shareholders to whom dividends are payable. As long as its sports team's games sell out and they have a season ticket waiting list, all is well. It is a balancing act for MLSE, if they can increase revenues without alienating too many ticket-buying fans then all is well in the world of business... we should never forget that professional sports whether in Toronto or Glasgow, is first and foremost a free enterprise, for profit business.

Actually, no it's not Richard. In North America sports is a tightly controlled Monopoly that has somehow talked its way out of being bound by Anti-trust laws. If sports business was truly free enterprise and bound by the laws of supply and demand then the Toronto hockey market would have multiple NHL franchises to capture the pent-up demand of the local populace. Instead it doesn't, the NHL central office has stifled attempts to bring in another club to the Toronto market to provide competition for the Maple Leafs and increase supply to a market with astronomically high demand for the product. They're artificially restricting demand Richard and that's not good for the NHL's stakeholders or the hockey loving public of Toronto who want an alternative to the product being offered by MLSE.

[Richard]

It's still free enterprise business with the corporations accountable to their shareholders which in the case of MLSE if I remember correctly is the Ontario Teachers Union whose members would be unhappy if dividends didn't materialise regularly, dividend paid out of the business profits. The restrictions to which you refer are self imposed by the industry itself to ensure profitability. Supermarket chains won't build multiple outlets in a market if they think their overall marketshare will decline, why should the sports entertainment business be any different?

If ticket sales for TFC and the Leafs took a nose dive and the trend continued you can be sure that MLSE and the respective leagues would sit up and take note. But as long as people shell out their hard earned dollars and flock to the games enthusiastically, owners are rubbing their hands together with glee.

Of course I am taking a rather narrow view here and naturally these businesses have concern for the quality of the product they sell (the games on the field of play) but the sports entertainment business is not very different from any other kind of enterprise, they need profit to survive. Even in Europe where nowadays some clubs are bought and financed to a ridiculous degree for a time by multi-billionaire playboys as an avocation, eventually reality bites and basic business principles come into play as they always do.

[El Hombre]

They did. Never shut up about it. I remember it well, if you don't. But maybe you don't read other Toronto forums?

Never shut up about it? That seems a little much. I remember lamenting the fact that Huckerby wouldn't sign because of the Field Turf but I don't remember complaining much further than that. Of course, I was only on the usector board around that time.

[jpg75]

The restrictions to which you refer are self imposed by the industry itself to ensure profitability. Supermarket chains won't build multiple outlets in a market if they think their overall marketshare will decline, why should the sports entertainment business be any different?

Actually the restrictions are imposed to ensure the political agenda of Gary Bettman is adhered to, his vision for hockey to succeed in markets it has no business being in.

If a supermarket had a store in an economically depressed location where it was losing excessive amounts of money and had the opportunity to move it to another location where the economy was thriving wouldn't it be to its advantage to move the store?

[Richard]

Gary Bettman serves at the pleasure of the board of governers or whatever body represents the team owners I suspect, so if they don't like his policies they can replace him when his contract expires or sooner if they please.

As for the supermarket, not if having the store at that location was important to the chain's overall long term business plan. It is not uncommon for a chain to support a lossmaking location in order to maintain a presence in the market, sometimes for no other reason but to keep out the competition. Bettman can only keep a money-losing NHL team in a market if a) the team owners are willing to absorb the losses or if the NHL covers those losses or assumes control/ownership of the operation.

[jpg75]

Gary Bettman serves at the pleasure of the board of governers or whatever body represents the team owners I suspect, so if they don't like his policies they can replace him when his contract expires or sooner if they please.

As for the supermarket, not if having the store at that location was important to the chain's overall long term business plan. It is not uncommon for a chain to support a lossmaking location in order to maintain a presence in the market, sometimes for no other reason but to keep out the competition. Bettman can only keep a money-losing NHL team in a market if a) the team owners are willing to absorb the losses or if the NHL covers those losses or assumes control/ownership of the operation.

Oh please getting rid of Bettman and his snake oil sales act is not as easy you make it out to be. He's emboldened by the backbreaking of the NHLPA in the last lockout and has more than enough political capital with the owners that he could take a dump on the board of goverors table, light it on fire and still not get fired.

Having a long-term vision and sticking to it is admirable, but only when it is correct or makes sense. Bettman is trying to force feed his product to a geographic location that is just not buying it and that is ultimately hurting the NHL by heaping 10's of millions of $'s on the league and the owners of a few clubs in the Southern belt. Sometime you just have to know when to cut your losses, case in point a market that has had the recent success of winning a Stanley Cup still can't sell-out their building (Tampa, Carolina). Those who can't see the signs are blind to (market) reality.

[Richard]

No matter, clearly Bettman serves the interests of enough of those who employ him - it IS that simple. You may or may not agree with his policies yourself, but you can be sure that if enough people who mattered (his employers, be they team owners or players) were dissatisfied with his job performance he would be gone in a flash one way or another. He is an employee of the NHL and serves at the NHL's pleasure like any other corporate chief executive.

[Grizzly]

I wish more people would get on BBTB's ignore list, then he might actually stop posting here...

Yes, I love how he always refers to getting on his ignore list as if most people would consider that a bad thing. A better idea would be for him to make a sign up list so we could all voluntarily join.

If Grizzly were Dante, the descent into hell would consist of watching a TFC-Manchester United friendly while seated between Richard and BBTB. Around the 40th minute (4th circle) Richard would sit down and enlighten me as to the business aspects of the game and the juvenility of its fans. BBTB would enter at the 80th minute defending the actions of various incompetent and corrupt soccer officials all the while decrying those fans who demand success/competent management for their team.

[Gordon]

...and, so what? That's where the sense of entitlement enters the equation. I followed a team called Hamilton Accies when I was growing up. They have never won a major trophy in over 130 years of existence and probably never will. The fact they lost more than they won didn't stop me from having some good times watching them as a kid. It's almost comic reading all the angst from some people about a lack of success after just four seasons. Oh the calamity! It's painfully obvious at times that a significant portion of the TFC fanbase see the consistent success that a very small group of top European clubs tend to achieve as being the norm when supporting a club because they have been introduced to the game by watching one of these clubs regularly on cable. It's not.

I suspect that if the Hamilton Acies were pulling in the same revenue, or greater, revenues as Rangers, their fans would not be so content with the occasional foray into the top flight.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

I suspect that if the Hamilton Acies were pulling in the same revenue, or greater, revenues as Rangers, their fans would not be so content with the occasional foray into the top flight.

And? My original point was only that despite the fact that they lost more than they won I still had some good times watching them play. People who make their support contingent on winning regularly and act like losing a game or missing the playoffs is the end of the world are missing out on what it really means to support a club, in my opinion. If you hang in there through the bad times (and how bad have things actually really been for TFC this season with the Motagua and Cruz Azul games as part of the mix?) the good times are all the sweeter when they arrive in a way that supporters of clubs like Rangers don't experience because domestic trophy victories are hollow ones to a large extent given the mismatch in resources available to Scottish clubs.

The lesson from the NASL of the dangers of having another New York Cosmos emerge (i.e. a North American version of Rangers) was learned when MLS was setup. Hence the measures to enforce competitive parity. I hope that never changes. MLS is not a league where the same tiny clique of clubs are likely to win season after season in the monotonous way you see in most European leagues nowadays. Look at DC United, briefly a dominant franchise but now very much an also ran, or Columbus, very much the laughing stock of the league back in 2007 when TFC first played them but now a team to be respected.

[foreverthursday]

Oh please getting rid of Bettman and his snake oil sales act is not as easy you make it out to be. He's emboldened by the backbreaking of the NHLPA in the last lockout and has more than enough political capital with the owners that he could take a dump on the board of goverors table, light it on fire and still not get fired.

Having a long-term vision and sticking to it is admirable, but only when it is correct or makes sense. Bettman is trying to force feed his product to a geographic location that is just not buying it and that is ultimately hurting the NHL by heaping 10's of millions of $'s on the league and the owners of a few clubs in the Southern belt. Sometime you just have to know when to cut your losses, case in point a market that has had the recent success of winning a Stanley Cup still can't sell-out their building (Tampa, Carolina). Those who can't see the signs are blind to (market) reality.

+ 1

Exactly!

[Richard]

"Those who can't see the signs are blind to (market) reality."

And I suppose that includes all the owners who are certainly better informed about their multi-million dollar investments than anybody in this forum. Now remind me what this has to do with MLSE and TFC?

[jpg75]

"Those who can't see the signs are blind to (market) reality."

And I suppose that includes all the owners who are certainly better informed about their multi-million dollar investments than anybody in this forum. Now remind me what this has to do with MLSE and TFC?

Yes Richard, i'm sure Jerry Moyes appreciated losing $300 Million in an 8 year period and then being forced to sell his club to the NHL at a lower price then to Balsillie. Free market at work....

Check this list, see any pattern?:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/31/hockey-values-09_NHL-Team-Valuations_Rank.html

Rank Team Operating Income ($mil)

18 Tampa Bay Lightning -2.2

21 Carolina Hurricanes -4.6

26 Florida Panthers -13.6

27 Nashville Predators -5.7

29 Atlanta Thrashers -1.8

30 Phoenix Coyotes -18.5

What does this have to do with TFC and MLSE? I don't know Richard, i recall mentioning that people in this city are pretty pissed at MLSE for ruining the Leafs and that they see the same things happening with TFC. Fans are sick of getting gouged by the monopolistic sports conglomerate in this city and they're looking to fight back. You sway in with your free market nonsense and i'm arguing that it isn't free market; it's controlled and they are constricting demand. Stick another Hockey team in this city and you'll quickly see MLSE change its tune, and eventually fans might stop directing their anger towards them.

[e_2]

From MLSE's perspective, we don't know what the numbers are. So even if they lose some season ticket holders, they probably make a lot more profit from the more expensive seats, especially if those people spend more on concessions.

Having said that, if that is their strategy, they are completely overestimating the support that exists for TFC.

The number one reason for TFC's success is that BMO has been the "cool place to be" for TFC games the last couple years. Just like the SkyDome was once upon a time. Those were not 4-million Blue Jay fans at the Dome that were talking on their cell and waving at the camera and watching the roof open and close. The real Blue Jay fans were about the 10,000 that are there for some games this season.

And a major part of the hype and making BMO the cool place to be, has been the cheap seats and the atmosphere created. They really are playing with fire.

Somebody mentioned MLSE's marketing success, that's not true. The Leafs sell themselves, they've done a horrible job with the Raptors and Marlies.