[1]Budweiser Gardens in London, Ont., home base of the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights, has the highest average attendance for OHL games. Photo via stadiumjourney.com [2]
By Sean McIntosh [3]
BELLEVILLE – With the news of the Bulls [4] leaving Belleville, experts are divided in trying to determine what makes an Ontario Hockey League team successful.
On March 12, owner Gord Simmonds sold the Bulls [5] to Michael Andlauer, the owner of the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs [6]. Andlauer announced at the same time that the former Bulldogs had been sold and would move to St. John’s, with the Bulls taking their place in Hamilton next season.
Simmonds had been the majority owner of the Bulls for 10 seasons prior to the sale, and had spent a lot of that time trying to get the city of Belleville to upgrade the Yardmen Arena on Cannifton Road, the team’s home base since 1981. The city had intended on giving major upgrades [7] to the Yardmen in 2017.
The possibility of the team moving due to the arena’s condition was brought up by Simmonds as far back as February 2014 [8].
The aging arena was “untenable,” he said in an interview with QNet News [9] after the sale.
Some sports-marketing experts argue that a quality arena is what will bring people to the games. But others say an arena does not matter when it comes to the success and popularity of an OHL franchise.
Kim Grimes, a professor of sports and entertainment sales and marketing at Loyalist College, agrees with Simmonds, saying a poor facility was the main reason for the Bulls moving.
“If you look at the facility, it’s not acceptable,” Grimes said. For one thing, there weren’t enough places for fans to buy food at the arena, she said.
“Nobody really addressed the facility as they needed to. And they kept thinking it was a Belleville Bulls problem, when it wasn’t.”
The OHL’s London Knights were in the same position as Belleville prior to changing arenas, she noted. The Knights have been the most successful team in the league in terms of attendance every year since at least 2005 (the farther back that current statistics go), according to the website hockeyattendance.com [10].
In 2002, the Knights left their old arena, the Ice House, and began to play in Budweiser Gardens [11], formerly known as the John Labatt Centre. The team had struggled to reach 1,500 people in the Ice House, Grimes said.
Budweiser Gardens can hold 9,090 people for hockey games and 10,000 for concerts, and has 38 private luxury suites, according to its website.
For Knights games, the average attendance was 9,018 last year, which is 99 per cent of the arena’s capacity.
[12]The average attendance of the London Knights in comparison to the average for OHL teams. Graphic by Sean McIntosh
In comparison, the Bulls had a league-worst 2,340 people per game in the 2013-14 season. The Bulls haven’t been above the league average for attendance in the last 10 years. The Yardmen at maximum capacity – 3,257 people – cannot reach the league’s average attendance per game, which last season was 4,041.
[13]The average attendance of the Belleville Bulls in comparison to the average for OHL teams. Graphic by Sean McIntosh
Grimes said she doesn’t believe a consistent winning team is a major factor in getting people to come out to games.
“It’s not just winning, and it’s not just star players that put people in the arena,” she said. “There’s a whole bunch of factors.”
Geoffrey Hare, the director of marketing for the London Knights, said that a new facility can bring a lot of attention to an OHL team.
“It stimulates the overall demand for fans to attend. They want to look, and enjoy a new facility. They like the comfort of clean, new-feeling modernized assets with restaurants (and) bars. And it all stimulates activity in and around the area that it’s built in,” he said.
Some off-ice activity by the team helps its success, Hare added: “Making sure that you partner with a lot of your local, regional corporate partners; making sure that your community and your fan base is around you and supporting local charity.”
However, a great product on the ice is one of the key factors for popularity, he added.
But some experts argue that a modern facility is not the most important factor in a team’s success.
Justin Chenier, executive director of business operations for the Kingston Frontenacs [14], said a new arena doesn’t necessarily bring in more people.
It “isn’t going to sell you more hockey tickets. It might make your game more relevant to this generation of fans in terms of giving them technology and the in-game experience that’s similar to (a National Hockey League) game, but it’s not going to sell hockey tickets for you,” he said.
The Frontenacs have played in the Rogers K-Rock Centre [15] for the past six seasons. The first season saw an increase in attendance, but the size of the crowds slowly declined in the following seasons, according to Chenier.
The decline stopped when the team brought in more forms of entertainment, such as in-game contests and emcee announcements.
“We put a lot of effort into game operations,” he said. “We spent the last three seasons business scouting, going to (American Hockey League) and NHL teams, looking at how they sell tickets, looking at how they create a fan atmosphere that’s fun and entertaining, bringing things in that are relevant, creating that ultimate entertaining package and just finding ways to sell tickets.”
Like Hare, Chenier said it isn’t just off-ice operations that will bring in crowds: “It’s a mixture of a team that plays well on the ice, is competitive, is always a threat to win hockey games, as well as something that’s of value to the fans, where they want to come back and buy tickets.”
The Bulls aren’t the only OHL team on the move next season after struggling with attendance. The Plymouth Whalers [16], which had the league’s second-worst average attendance in 2013-14, will be moving to Flint, Mich. [17], at season’s end.
The Sarnia Sting [18], another franchise that has had issues [19] with attendance, was sold this year [20], but the team will not be relocating.