Struggling Winnipeg Jets face less demand for tickets
The Winnipeg Jets’ sellouts at MTS Centre may not be 100 percent full.
According to a story from the Winnipeg Free Press, the Jets call sellouts even if the team hasn’t sold all available tickets to the 15,294 seat building.
Said True North Sports and Entertainment (the parent company of the Jets) spokesman Scott Brown to the Free Press, "If we get over 99 percent sold, we — as any other building in all of sports — just list attendance as a sell out."
Per the piece, as of 1 p.m. on Monday there 376 unsold seats available to Thursday’s game against the Nashville Predators, along with 554 tickets available on seat exchange where season ticket holders sell their tickets they can’t use. For Tuesday’s home game against the San Jose Sharks, there were 197 unsold tickets and 416 available on a seat exchange.
Since the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, the Jets have played to at least an announced 100 percent capacity every year. Their playoff tickets last season – the first time this incarnation of the Jets made the postseason in Winnipeg – sold out in “seconds.”
When the organization embarked on a ticket drive for 13,000 deposits to prove it could sustain an NHL team again, it sold tickets in under seven minutes. The original Jets moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes in 1996. These Jets moved to Winnipeg in 2010-11.
When the option for season ticket renewal came into play, the Jets fans bought season tickets again at a 96 percent rate.
Winnipeg has made the postseason once since the NHL returned to Manitoba’s capital city and there are questions as to whether the team’s momentum in the community has slowed.
This year the Jets are in last place in the Central Division and Winnipeg has dealt with contract-related drama involving defenseman Dustin Byfuglien, forward Andrew Ladd and young blueliner Jacob Trouba. Byfuglien and Ladd are pending unrestricted free agents and Trouba is a pending RFA.
Asks the Free Press:
So what happened? Is the bloom coming off the Jets rose? Has this town grown frustrated with an underachieving team that appears to have taken a depressing step backward this season after having taken such a promising step forward in reaching the playoffs last season? And, more importantly, if you can always — or at least almost always — get tickets to a single Jets game these days, what is the continuing motivation for season ticket holders to ante up thousands of dollars every year to buy an entire season?
According to Brown, "It’s always been a misconception in this community that you can’t buy a ticket to our games. And, in the last year, we’ve recognized that we have to make more of an effort to let people know that."
The most recent Forbes valuations ranked the Jets at 20th amongst 30 NHL teams with a value of $350 million. According to the piece, Winnipeg's gate is worth $50 million.
The last year the team played in Atlanta, the Thrashers played to an announced 72.6 percent capacity.
With the NHL looking to potentially expand into another Canadian market that saw an NHL team depart in the mid-90s (Quebec City), Winnipeg's situation could merit some observation.
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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper
