By all accounts, this is going to be a very miserable year to watch the Calgary Flames. They should be a very bad team this year, and if everything works according to plan, they should end up with a top-10 draft pick this season.
And while tanking should benefit the team in the long run, in the short-term the team still needs to fill the Scotiabank Saddledome. NHL teams derive the greatest percentage of their revenue from ticket sales out of the big four sports leagues in North America. 44% of the league’s revenue comes from fans in the stands and other purchases made on game day compared to 26% for the NBA and 17% for the NFL. Not filling the Saddledome is a major financial concern for the Flames.
However, the Flames have been able to sell tickets through rebuilds before. The team averaged over 19,000 tickets sold per game every season from 2005–06 to 2015–16, right through the post-Iginla era. However, over the last three years, the team has seen attendance numbers around the 17,000 mark, which is a sizable dropoff, and with the team expected to be worse than last year, it’s going to be harder to try and convince the typical Flames fan to go and watch a game.
However, there are a number of avenues that the team should explore to try and get people out to games. Here’s how they should do it.
Be open and honest about the future plan with Calgary Flames fans
While the team hasn’t gone so far as to officially call this a rebuild, the writing about their plan is very much on the wall. This is a team that is going to be bad for an indeterminate time to get younger, faster, and more skilled before becoming competitive again.
However, Flames fans deserve to know what the plan really is. Are we entering a decade of darkness like the Edmonton Oilers went through through the 2000s and 2010s or will this be more of a re-tool on the fly like the Los Angeles Kings did for a few seasons in the early 2020s? For the Flames, is this going to be a one-year, two-year, or three-year spell of being bad before they try to be good again and if it’s not a time-bound answer, what are the signs that the rebuild is over?
The Flames’ brass has been coy about this, skating around the question every time it gets brought up, but for ticket buyers and particularly season ticket holders, if you want people to come and support a hockey club and spend their hard-earned money on tickets, you need to be more candid about the plan.
Actively bring up young players and maintain an exciting brand of hockey
Look, I understand that sometimes there are circumstances where you cannot (or choose not to) disclose everything about your plan, and for the Flames, the reason behind this likely has to do with a certain billionaire living in Switzerland, and if that truly is the case, the Flames need to produce an on-ice product that is worth spending money to watch.
The economy isn’t great right now and unlike in the early years of this team, fans have many entertainment options to spend their disposable income on. The Flames need to make sure that the product on the ice is worth people spending their money on.
That starts with the stylistic approach to the game. The Flames should adopt a fast, loose brand of hockey that is exciting to watch for both the new fans as well as for those with more discerning tastes. Further, nothing gets the crowd going like big hits, and having Ryan Lomberg and Martin Pospisil on the ice throwing those is great fun for those in the arena. Even if the Flames lose every single game, as long as the game is fun, fans will come and watch.
More than that, the Flames need to develop buy-in on their future core, and that means really showcasing the exciting prospects coming to Calgary. Giving Zayne Parekh a nine-game audition will bring fans to the dome to see the most exciting prospect this team has had since Matthew Tkachuk. Showcasing the skill of Dustin Wolf in net, Jeremie Poirier on the blueline, and Matt Coronato up front will help bring people to the Dome and help build excitement around this team’s future.
The pieces are there for the Flames to be competitive in a few years, but the team needs to show them off to fans in order to get them to come out and watch games.
Price tickets accordingly
This one should be pretty intuitive—if you want people to come and watch Flames games, the ticket prices should remain reasonable. The Flames do have lower-than-average ticket prices relative to other markets in the league, but with the cost of everything going up, the Flames should do their level best to keep ticket prices reasonable.
It is hard to justify going to a game when you know the team you are supporting isn’t going to be great, and unless a team that is actively worth watching is in town (Toronto Maple Leafs, Washington Capitals, etc.), the ticket prices should be kept reasonable.
Actively pursue partnerships with underrepresented communities to grow the fandom
And by extension, this is a great time for the Flames to actively work to grow the game. The Calgary population has grown at the fastest rate of all major cities in the country, and there are thousands of new potential Flames fans to attract.
While intraprovincial migration makes up a good chunk of those who have recently moved to the city, thousands of people have moved to Canada for the first time, many of whom are coming from countries where hockey is not popular. Now is an optimal time to engage new Canadians in our national winter sport.
With the on-ice product being less desirable than when the team is really good, and the ability to use future stars to get new fans engaged in the game, now is an optimal time to try and promote hockey to new fans. The NHL has been talking about the need to grow the game to new countries and new markets, but there are entire new populations for the team to target right here in the city, and now is the perfect time to do so.
Host multiple theme nights
This is the perfect time to host many many theme nights. Filling the arena to watch the Flames on the ice is not going to be fun unless the team massively outperforms expectations or the opponent on the ice is worth watching. However, for the snowy February nights against the Saint Louis Blues or dreary Tuesday nights against the Minnesota Wild, the team will need a new strategy to bring fans into the dome.
This is where theme nights work really well. The Flames were really effective at hosting them last year including doing fun themes like an 80s night or more cultural nights like South Asian Night, the team has already started moving in this direction. Continuing this push will be imperative to getting fans to leave their homes and spend money to go to a game.
On top of that, theme nights are just fun. Fan experience matters so much today with so many entertainment options in the city. The Flames are the best sporting experience in the city (with due respect to the other sports offerings), but that won’t be enough to sell 19,289 seats each and every night. Plus, the kids love theme nights and that’s what it’s really about.
What to expect next season for the Calgary Flames?
The Flames are unlikely to be good on the ice. They will probably lose more games than they win for the next season and likely even seasons beyond that. However, they still need to fill their arena with fans even though they won’t be good.
Perhaps what they need to do most of all is fill Flames fans with hope of a brighter tomorrow. The NHL is littered with examples of teams that went through rebuilds that simply did not work out because the team either exited too fast or drafted very poorly. Fans need to be reminded that there is a future that will be brighter than what there is on the ice now. The first signs of it are there, particularly in the Wranglers, but they are going to need to bring that talent to the big club at the Saddledome and have fans see it with their own eyes this season.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
