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Ottawa Senators’ sales tactics could affect Ottawa 67′s during Scotiabank Place stay
At this writing, the splash page on the Ottawa Senators' team website features a picture of first-round pick Cody Ceci in his Ottawa 67's uniform and one of the main articles is about the junior team's schedule. If one looked no farther, one would assume the nation's capital's big-league and major junior teams are co-existing very well as they head into (at least) a two-season stretch of sharing Scotiabank Place.
No one, least of all 67's owner Jeff Hunt, has expected anyone to believe that moving to suburban Kanata during long-overdue renovations to the Ottawa Civic Centre is a perfect solution. It's a disruption of a 45-year-old routine of junior hockey in the city's downtown on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. There was some expectation the team would lose its traditional time slots, but with the release of the OHL schedule this week, it might be worse than anticipated. It's not that it's impossible to thrive while side-by-side with a NHL franchise, but what if that team also has challenges filling their building like the Senators consistently do, even with a team which regularly makes the Stanley Cup playoffs? (As a Canadian NHL team? Imagine that.)
From Alex Quevillion:
Typically, the 67's have had the entirety of their home matchups scheduled for Friday nights and Sunday afternoons with the rare exception being made for a Saturday afternoon or Holiday Monday game. Sharing a building with an NHL team has effectively put an end to this, though. The Senators, competing with six other Canadian NHL markets, have started their own habit of hosting teams on Friday nights. As such, with the pro team taking precedence, the 67's had to work with what they were given.
As we found out, the 67's home schedule sees them playing just eight home games on their usual Friday nights. They play host to four Saturday afternoon games and seven Sunday afternoon games. During the week, fans will have to make the trek out to Kanata for three Monday games, four Tuesday games, five Wednesday games and three Thursday games. (OHL Writers)
In other words, there's a trickle-down from the challenges the Senators face due to their building location and competition for the hearts and minds of hockey consumers from century-old hockey traditions in the nearest two big cities, Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs. This is one instance where junior actually does compete with the NHL for the fan dollar. More often than not, junior hockey's actual competition is any other leisure activity a family can do for about $25-30 per head.
For the most part, Hunt has done well at living side-by-side with a big-league team. Only Ron Toigo and the WHL's Vancouver Giants have fared better as a junior team in a NHL city which is not a subsidiary of the big-league club like the Calgary Hitmen or Edmonton Oil Kings. They have been creative at finding ways to get a decent turnout at the 9,800-seat Civic Centre, which has long had the largest seating capacity in the Ontario League. (The Budweiser Gardens in London, formerly John Labatt Centre, holds 9,500. The Kitchener Memorial Auditorium is now above 7,000.)
However, there's a curious phenomena with the team's attendance. Crowds are often smaller in the first round of the OHL playoffs than the regular season, but in Ottawa it's especially pronounced. Group sales and other promotions cannot be planned, plus the team is no longer playing on weekends. Crowds often drop from the 7,000 range to a more hardcore gathering of 4,000. Now a team that plays in the urban core is going to be in a location that's tough to get to by foot or public transit.
As Quevillion put it:
Consider the poor attendances that generally come with playoff games in Ottawa. Not used to weekday games, they only managed to sell 6,500 tickets for the deciding seventh game vs. Barrie [in the second round]. That was Ottawa's highest attendance for a weekday home game in the post-season. Are those numbers good in comparison to a number of OHL teams? They are, but it causes concern for what we may see next season.
If travel and the number of weekday games aren't enough of a worry, consider that the Senators are also re-vamping their marketing schemes and, in some cases, are actually selling tickets that would be cheaper than their Junior counterpart. Senators CEO Cyril Leeder is tired of visiting fans taking over 'The Bank', and is willing to lose profits to sell cheaper season's seats to Ottawa fans who will drown out opposing supporters. How far is Leeder willing to budge in order to sell his team's product to hometown fans? Down to the point where you can buy seats for $15.
Granted, very few tickets for the professional squad will be sold at the eye-opening low rate of $15, but there will still be some available to the public. By comparison, the cheapest ticket you can buy for a 67's game currently goes at $18.
If you don't think that the Senators brass is serious about their plan, consider personal experience as proof. In my family's household, there is not a single Senators fan. However, having used Capital Tickets (owned by Senators owner Eugene Melnyk) we received a letter asking if we'd like to become Senators season ticket holders, the offer of "tickets as low as $15/game" still intact.
(NHL season ticket packages that are cheaper per game than face value for a junior ticket? Well, what else would you expect in the town where Tom Green filmed his Undercutters Pizza sketch?)
Again, this isn't meant as anything negative, just to spread awareness that Ottawa's attendance will be an ongoing story. Of course, a NHL work stoppage could offer some temporary relief.
Hunt, who's a partner in the group which is helping redevelop Lansdowne Park and has a conditional CFL franchise set to kick off in 2014 or '15, had to take decisive action. Moving the 67's was a strong message to the city that time was ticking to begin work. Two years of small crowds won't make or break the franchise and the payoff will be a refurbished rink.
But the 67's marketing staff surely has its work cut out for it, barring the boon of a NHL lockout.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
