Today I read an article by Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail - http://bit.ly/ZyrfA3 - that posed an interesting question: Are the Leafs risking seriously damaging their fan base in the medium to long term by making it so hard for average fans to get tickets? I think this is a good question to ask. My gut-instinct is to answer no to this question, as I believe the Leafs can pretty much continue to make a lot of money far far into the future by catering to the Toronto Financial community and hard-core Leafs fans.When I consider this question, I think it is "Leafs fans" (feel weird calling myself one, because I am pretty passive with my engagement with the team) like myself who are the one's that they risk losing (or perhaps have already have) by making it such an ordeal to get to see a game. I will describe my situation to illustrate:
I am a pretty big (professional team) sports fan. I watch sports on TV, go to games that I can afford/want to see, listen to sports podcasts, read blogs, etc. Breaking it down further, here are the two sports I am primarily engaged with: 1) Basketball, and 2) Baseball. Hockey, soccer, golf, and football are sports I will watch under the right circumstances, but my engagement with them is far less than with the two B-ball sports. In addition to this, I will say that this list can be further classified, since basketball is the one sport that I will watch even if there isn't a team playing that I have a rooting interest for, whereas in the other five sports I won't watch unless there is a team playing that I have a significant level of engagement with. Basketball is unique in this regard as I played the sport competitively for ten years of my life when I was a kid. For this reason, I have a special appreciation and interest in this sport that I don't think I will ever have with any of the other sports. When you look at the other sport that I am primarily engaged with, baseball, the reason that I so passionately follow it, is I am really engaged with the Toronto Blue Jays as a fan. If my interest in the team waned, baseball would definitely fall out of the top tier on my list.
The reason I bring this up, is that I think I am one of the types of Toronto sports fans that the Toronto Maple Leafs lose out on having engagement with by making it so hard to get to see the team play live. I have as much of an appreciation and joy in watching a hockey game that i have a real rooting interest in as I do a baseball game of this sort. The difference between the two is just that I am much more engaged with the Blue Jays than the Leafs. I think that a big part of why I am such an engaged Blue Jays, and Raptors fan as well, is that I go to games regularly. Over the last four years that I have been living in Toronto, I would say that I go to an average of 4 Raptors games a year, and 10 Blue Jays games. During this same period of time I have gone to 0 Leafs games (I went to one exhibition game at the ACC a few years ago but that was only because a who had a free ticket invited me, but this doesn't count in my books). The two main reasons for these numbers are the relative difference in price and ease of getting tickets between the Leafs and the other two major league Toronto teams. Leafs tickets are so expensive and so difficult to get that it isn't just that I don't go to games, I don't even think about going to a game as an entertainment option for me.
In this day and age where people can consume sports content in any number of ways (TV,internet, smart phones) it may seem like going to a game is less essential to being a fan of a team than it once was. From the perspective of the teams, they are able to make revenues from these other outlets, making them less dependent on gate receipts. However, I still think that when it comes to fan engagement with a team, it is still really important that an individual can go to see the team live in the home venue at least a few times a year. For whatever reason paying some money to see your team perform in front of you and cheering along with the tens of thousands of other individuals in the venue does something to build your commitment to the team. This live experience is especially important for teams that are not playoff participants with a serious opportunity to advance deep into the post season. The experience you get during the playoffs of watching important games at home with friends or in bars does very much duplicates what the live game experience does to help the non-core fans identify with the home town team.
For me, I think that the figures I mentioned for my live attendance and their association with my engagement with the teams in question is significant because over the last 4+ years none of the three Toronto teams I have mentioned have been either a playoff or "contender" team. Also, I doubt that I am alone in this regard. I recognize there are a significant number of people for which hockey is in their top position when it comes to sports watching (like basketball for me), and will likely be loyal Leafs fans no matter what. I do however have a number of friends around my age who like me would - if things were different - associate themselves with the Leafs, but who are much less engaged with the team than they are with either the Raptors, Jays or both.
So, I do think the Leafs do risk losing out on engagement with the type of Toronto sports fans who are similar to me. That being said, I don't think they are really concerned about this, nor should they necessarily be. The Leafs make enough money off of their relationship to the financial district (expensive tickets and boxes) and hardcore fans (the rest of the seats, as well as tv viewership) that losing out on fans like me isn't that big of a deal. However, as Blair's article points out, the Toronto pro hockey situation would change a lot with a second NHL team. I think if there was a new team that really made an effort to make attending a hockey game a few times a year a realistic (and not overly tricky) prospect for the majority of Toronto-area sports, this team would be able to convert a significant number of less engaged Leafs fans - like myself - to fans of the new team. Though this would likely detract a bit from the Leafs overall fanbase, I think they would continue to get enough support from the Bay Street crowd, and the die-hards to continue to make solid profits far into the future.
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