The push for a new Islanders arena needs more cowbell

If Alexander owned the team -- or someone else owned them both -- I could see Hosuton working.

They have a big corporate base that could sponsor the team and buy the high priced season tickets.

The oil companies are doing well.

The population is big. And it's a nice, new arena.

But, being second banana in an arena doesn't usually work.

 

You mentioned a lot of things that are important. One thing you didn't mention will fans attend? And will fans pay proper NHL prices to attend?

 

Saying the TV markets overlap is being very generous. Vancouver cable systems have Seattle over-the-air stations, and some Seattle-area cable systems have CBC, but that's the extent of it.

 

They don't, the Canucks would have no concerns about a team moving to Seattle.

 

Personally, I think they would. If hockey works in Dallas -- and it has for a very long time -- it should in Houston. You're not exactly introducing a foreign sport to the city like the NHL has with some other franchises.

 

I would imagine the income levels in Houston would be more than enough to support a team. I'd be curious what their season ticket base would be after, say, three years, though.

 

Like anything else, it all depends on ownership and management, unless you are in Toronto. If you have a committed owner who markets the team properly and lets hockey people run the on ice product and they put a competitive product on the ice, I wouldn't think they'd have a problem putting butts in the seats. maybe not a sellout every game, but certainly better than Phoenix, Long Island and Miami. They support the AHL fairly well, they should be able to support the NHL. The market is there.

 

The Islanders would put butts in the seats if 1. They were winning and 2. if they had a new arena.

Problem is, they've sucked so long, except for a brief period a few years back when they were mediocre, that fans have stopped coming.

 

Makes total sense. That's the way it was in Chicago up until just a few years ago.

 

People would come out at first. It would be the new, hot thing in town, and folks in Houston are pretty trendy.

Enron Field/Minute Maid Park was pretty full when it opened.

And, Houston has the discretionary dollars.

Long term success would depend on how well the team does and how well it's marketed.

 

Solid.

 

More seriously, didn't Atlanta have pretty much the same peripherals as Houston does? Big corporate base, plenty of transplants, lots of high-income people (who are very trendy), somewhat of a hockey heritage too? The NHL didn't work there. In fairness, they didn't have ownership that let the hockey people run a hockey organization. But over the long haul, I'm still not convinced it would have worked. Lousy pro sports town in an overwhelmingly CFB market. Houston strikes me the same way.