From: "Glenn Meadows" 

The lease on the arena states that after 5 years, then if in 2 successive
years the Preds average under 14,000, then the organization can pull a
"bail" clause on the 30 year lease, and if they then fail to
average 14,000 in the next year, they can leave paying 18 million to the
city.

The problem is that there will be a fight over the "consecutive
years" clause, since there was the 1 year lockout in the middle of the
2 years.

Of coursed, the city attorney says that this year is the first year of
"consecutive years", so they can't easily leave for at least 2
years, and only if over the next 2 years the average attendance is under
14,000 in both years.

Yes, it's a current lack of corporate support that's hurting.

--

Glenn M.
"John Beamish"  wrote in message
news:op.tszwttwpm6tn4t{at}dellblack.phub.net.cable.rogers.com...
> Wikipedia says the arena holds 17,113 for hockey, their average attendance
> was 13,589.
>
> The killer stat, from my perspective, is the near total absence of
> corporate involvement (1,800 companies with season tickets) makes it a
> tough slog.  OTOH, moving to Cambridge isn't going to be much help in that
> regard.  RIM can't buy unlimited numbers of tickets (they're publicly
> traded), Cambridge has a Honda (or is it Toyota) assembly plant.  There
> aren't a lot of large businesses so corporate sales are going to be ones
> and twos for the most part.  The Maple Leafs have access to a large number
> of large corporations -- so much that they can charge premium prices for a
> substandard product and still have people clammoring to get tickets.  If
> the franchise is moved to Cambridge then I expect the same results as in
> Nashville:  initially a good corporate support (Nashville got 4,000 season
> ticket sales initially) but a subsequent fall off (they're now at 1,800).
>
> As for NBC cutting away ... it's worse than that.  They were getting the
> playoff feed for free (which royally pissed off the CBC which had paid
> major bucks to get the Canadian broadcasting rights).
>
>
> On Fri, 25 May 2007 14:05:08 -0400, Rich Gauszka
>  wrote:
>
>> Hopefully the new ownership will give the Nashville fans a chance. Hockey
>> has had a hard time coming back after the strike even here in Detroit. In
>> the midst of the playoffs there were over a thousand empty seats at the
>> Joe
>> Louis arena. You also know hockey's in deep trouble when the network
>> (NBC)
>> cuts away from an overtime playoff game for pre-race horse racing
>> festivities at the Preakness
>>
>>

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