Madferret
7-29-05, 3:28 PM
Leipold blames Canada for Nashville?s bad rap
By Mark McGee, Sports Correspondent
July 29, 2005
As a member of the NHL?s negotiating team during the recent lockout, Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold spent more than 300 days helping to put the NHL back on the ice. In day two of an interview with Mark McGee, sports correspondent for The City Paper, Leipold talks about the 2005-2006 season.
CP: In a previous interview you stated that you didn?t think fans were waiting around for the Predators to reduce ticket prices. Yet that is one of the main prongs of your three-prong business attack to attract fans. Is this drop in prices enough to bring fans back?
Leipold: This is the beginning of a ?wow? proposal here. We want to give every single person in Nashville no reason not to come to a game. Tickets are low-priced. The food is low-priced. The entertainment is going to be great. And we are going to have a good team. We have everything coming together. We want this to be a statement that the Predators are back in town. We are opening up in October so come out and have a great time.
CP: The biggest promotion for most teams is winning games. You have mentioned the Predators will up their payroll to between $26 million and $28 million. With reduced ticket prices and an uncertain market in terms of fans, how will a $4 million to $6 million increase in payroll work?
Leipold: That?s the purpose of the revenue sharing program. That number is going to be somewhere around $7 million to $8 million per team. Plug that into our economics and we feel pretty good. The money comes from the top-10 markets which will be supplementing the money to the smaller markets. Those teams at the mid-point or below in terms of payroll will have access to the full amount of the revenue sharing pot. The biggest pop for us is making the playoffs again and going deeper this time. I have no problems whether we get an ?A? player with a gigantic name on the downside of his career or two ?A-plus? players who may not have the celebrity factor but are young enough for us to keep them for two or three years to get us to the next level.
CP: Even though you admit you have heard many positive statements from fans, and that 70 percent of your season ticketholders stayed with the team during the lockout, the players and owners have some apologizing to do. Which side needs to apologize the most?
Leipold: I think we both do. This has been a difficult battle. Unfortunately, the bystanders, the fans were the ones that got hurt in this. We both owe the fans something. I know the players are going to be much more accessible to our fans. We want to make sure that our fans know we apologize for the lockout that occurred. We feel bad about losing the season. We recognize we have hurt them, and that we may have hurt our relationship with them. Now we have to work hard to get their trust back.
CP: From the early days of this franchise you have been known for your accessibility to fans, and the players have always been active in the community on a variety of levels. How much more can the players do in the area of public relations?
Leipold: We have to continue to get out to the sports call-in shows. We have to be available to reporters. We have to go to the malls, the hospitals and the schools. We have to do more in the arena like being available to sign autographs before and after games. From a business perspective, I fully anticipate players to go with me when I go out to sell a suite or a corporate sponsorship. They get 54 cents of every single dollar we generate as a business. They are making more money off the dollar than the team or the owner makes.
CP: Not to dwell on the negative, but how frustrating was it to constantly have the Predators mentioned as a team that might be lost because of possible contraction when you were involved in almost all of the meetings?
Leipold: Canadian reporters were always talking about it. All of the bad raps against us are contributed to somebody in a Canadian market. Let?s face it. Canada is still upset that Nashville has a hockey team. That?s just the way it is, and we have to live with that. Logic, common sense says I would not be on the executive committee, the audit committee or the negotiating committee if anybody was thinking that Nashville would be contracted. It was never discussed. It was a non-possibility. It was frustrating because I know where ground zero of where those rumors always started. If the sun shines, you can?t have hockey. I?m a little bitter about that. I?m tired of hearing about it. Dallas is accepted as an NHL franchise. They are successful on the ice with a good program. That is what we are trying to do here. San Jose is not discussed. Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup. I think there will be stability in that market. Once we have some winning seasons and the fans stay with us like they did the first couple of years this market is going to be one of the best in the National Hockey League.
Nashville was 27th in fan attendance last season (2003/2004).
Source (http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance?year=2004)
By Mark McGee, Sports Correspondent
July 29, 2005
As a member of the NHL?s negotiating team during the recent lockout, Nashville Predators owner Craig Leipold spent more than 300 days helping to put the NHL back on the ice. In day two of an interview with Mark McGee, sports correspondent for The City Paper, Leipold talks about the 2005-2006 season.
CP: In a previous interview you stated that you didn?t think fans were waiting around for the Predators to reduce ticket prices. Yet that is one of the main prongs of your three-prong business attack to attract fans. Is this drop in prices enough to bring fans back?
Leipold: This is the beginning of a ?wow? proposal here. We want to give every single person in Nashville no reason not to come to a game. Tickets are low-priced. The food is low-priced. The entertainment is going to be great. And we are going to have a good team. We have everything coming together. We want this to be a statement that the Predators are back in town. We are opening up in October so come out and have a great time.
CP: The biggest promotion for most teams is winning games. You have mentioned the Predators will up their payroll to between $26 million and $28 million. With reduced ticket prices and an uncertain market in terms of fans, how will a $4 million to $6 million increase in payroll work?
Leipold: That?s the purpose of the revenue sharing program. That number is going to be somewhere around $7 million to $8 million per team. Plug that into our economics and we feel pretty good. The money comes from the top-10 markets which will be supplementing the money to the smaller markets. Those teams at the mid-point or below in terms of payroll will have access to the full amount of the revenue sharing pot. The biggest pop for us is making the playoffs again and going deeper this time. I have no problems whether we get an ?A? player with a gigantic name on the downside of his career or two ?A-plus? players who may not have the celebrity factor but are young enough for us to keep them for two or three years to get us to the next level.
CP: Even though you admit you have heard many positive statements from fans, and that 70 percent of your season ticketholders stayed with the team during the lockout, the players and owners have some apologizing to do. Which side needs to apologize the most?
Leipold: I think we both do. This has been a difficult battle. Unfortunately, the bystanders, the fans were the ones that got hurt in this. We both owe the fans something. I know the players are going to be much more accessible to our fans. We want to make sure that our fans know we apologize for the lockout that occurred. We feel bad about losing the season. We recognize we have hurt them, and that we may have hurt our relationship with them. Now we have to work hard to get their trust back.
CP: From the early days of this franchise you have been known for your accessibility to fans, and the players have always been active in the community on a variety of levels. How much more can the players do in the area of public relations?
Leipold: We have to continue to get out to the sports call-in shows. We have to be available to reporters. We have to go to the malls, the hospitals and the schools. We have to do more in the arena like being available to sign autographs before and after games. From a business perspective, I fully anticipate players to go with me when I go out to sell a suite or a corporate sponsorship. They get 54 cents of every single dollar we generate as a business. They are making more money off the dollar than the team or the owner makes.
CP: Not to dwell on the negative, but how frustrating was it to constantly have the Predators mentioned as a team that might be lost because of possible contraction when you were involved in almost all of the meetings?
Leipold: Canadian reporters were always talking about it. All of the bad raps against us are contributed to somebody in a Canadian market. Let?s face it. Canada is still upset that Nashville has a hockey team. That?s just the way it is, and we have to live with that. Logic, common sense says I would not be on the executive committee, the audit committee or the negotiating committee if anybody was thinking that Nashville would be contracted. It was never discussed. It was a non-possibility. It was frustrating because I know where ground zero of where those rumors always started. If the sun shines, you can?t have hockey. I?m a little bitter about that. I?m tired of hearing about it. Dallas is accepted as an NHL franchise. They are successful on the ice with a good program. That is what we are trying to do here. San Jose is not discussed. Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup. I think there will be stability in that market. Once we have some winning seasons and the fans stay with us like they did the first couple of years this market is going to be one of the best in the National Hockey League.
Nashville was 27th in fan attendance last season (2003/2004).
Source (http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance?year=2004)