Nashville Predators enjoying success on and off the ice

Just think what happens if Nashville gets to face a Detroit or San Jose for the Conference Finals. Would be awesome.

I remember discussing with a friend their marketing back around Year 5 when Leipold’s Playoff Pledge was made, and how the Preds marketing was either ineffective or not aimed at good target groups. One thing I think has been very useful is the use of the electronic billboards around town. With this, they get to change the sign up for each game specifically, instead of a static one of a player that stays up for months with just the 770-PUCK number.

It can’t be understated the impact that local ownership has had and what the marketing approach has been since the transition. Bringing back the Smashville moniker was perfect, and their use of technology (Facebook, Twitter, texts, email) has been successful. All this helps to improve their bottom line, as demonstrated above, that there are more purchased tickets and fewer comps.

All that said, this playoff run has had people come up to me to initiate Preds talk, whereas before it was me doing the “hockey evangelism”. People are watching the games and the Predators are garnering a lot of ‘mindshare’ at this time. Great crowds and atmosphere at the Bridge have helped stir up these games as places you want to be!

The mantra of “Get them to the Arena by any means, get them hooked, and they’ll want to come back” would appear to be working.

If you ask me, the most important thing here is that comps were down overall for the year.

A certain good-looking reporter and his matchstick-chomping colleague talked to Jeff Cogen at the beginning of the season.

From that as-yet-not-award-winning reportage:

Cogen isn’t afraid to admit he’ll give away tickets to get people in the door. Papering the house is a common and long-standing practice in sports and entertainment, but one almost nobody will admit to. Cogen doesn’t see the risk. He says comp tickets will be up 10 percent this year over last.

The way he sees it, if he gives away 20 tickets, five people might come back to another game and one of those might buy season tickets. Those 20 free tickets just turned into 41 paid tickets.

The main shift I’ve seen with new owners is that they concentrate their efforts on the FANS WHO COME TO THE GAMES!!From the season ticket holder to the the single game fan, everyone is treated special. The constant entertainment of the promotions/skits at the game have been wonderful. The Bridgestone has been busy this year between Hockey/Non Hockey events. Yet everytime the building is open for business the place is clean for the next event. No sticky floors or toliets that don’t work. By having a clean building, constant entertainment they are making sure the fan is having a good time. A winning team plus a positive experience equals more fans going to the games. The new executive team has got us to do the relational ship marketing by talking and taking our family and friends to the games. They quit trying to attract fans who didn’t care(and still don’t) for hockey.

I’m surprised you used paid attendance instead of “announced attendance” in your analysis.

(Insert sarcasm emoticon here)

It is such a great time to be a Preds fan! I have had co-workers coming up to me all morning saying “what about those Preds”. These are some of the same people that would normally wear their Titans jerseys around.
    Great job by everyone this year! Absolutely great job! This is without a doubt the best team that Nashville has ever had. When I say team I am not just referring to the players. From Poile all the way down. I am so excited about our team!
The cool thing is that we have a ton of our players signed for next year and for once do not have to be concerned with signing a player from somewhere else. If we can get Weber and SK74 signed then we will be able to build our young team up for yet another year of great hockey! Just think, we still have Cube and Lombardi to come back to this team next season. With a pool of now experienced young talent underneath all of what we have already. We are set for a while now boys! As long as we can always keep that Preds work ethic and never give up mentality, we have the talent and what it takes to be a top team for a few years to come. I am very interested in seeing what our starting line up will look like on opening day next season. But I am even more interested in seeing how long this team takes us on this ride! GO PREDS!!

For one, I’ve seen less and less of other fans around the league harping about relocation for the Preds, especially northern and Canadian fans. Fan support and attendance is HUGE to them. They jump all over some southern markets like Phx, Atl, and Fla…but NEVER mention the Isles, Dallas, Anaheim, Columbus, etc…with falling attendance numbers. I think they’ve come to accept that Bettman actually got a southern market right in Nashville and we can thank a winning team, committed owners, corp. sponsorship rise, and of course us fans. I just attended my 1st games this season (16 and counting) because I was living in SF since the Preds landed here. I’ve rooted for the Preds from SF and went to games when they played the Sharks, but since I’ve moved back, I’ve taken several friends to games for their 1st time and they loved the game experience and vowed to come back. I for one, even though football is my 2nd sport of choice, wouldn’t care if there is a lock out and NFL season canx. Maybe some more of the football fans would buy tix to the Preds and discover hockey.

I’d like to see the Preds branch out to a more regional base. Playing some pre-season games in Knoxville, Huntsville, and/or Memphis. Knoxville is one of the farm teams after all. Maybe trade a pre season game with the Grizzlies since they are an up and coming team considered to be in our market share. Doing some work outs and player appearances in those cities, or even at Ober Gatlinburg, would go a long ways to expand regional interest since the Preds are already on cable TV in those areas. I’ve read or heard that fans from Paducah, Bowling Green, and Huntsville organize tour buses to come to several games per season. Until EVERY game is sold out and the Preds no longer have to have tix promotions they should dig under every rock in the Mid South to sell tickets.

Bargain-basement lineup? This season, the Preds actually ranked 21st out of 30 NHL teams, with spending of $50.9 million, which puts them squarely in the middle of the salary cap range, not the bottom (figures per Capgeek.com). The basic idea, however, is quite correct – that this spring represents a chance for the Predators to break into new territory.

NHLNumbers.com shows our current roster as #22 in salary spending right now. Even #21 (as CapGeek.com lists) would put us in the bottom 1/3rd of the league – hardly “squarely in the middle”.

Most notably to me, we are the only team who’s season ending roster was in the bottom 1/3rd of the league who made the playoffs.

So yes, it is a bargain basement roster. And that’s a good thing.

Our old “friend” Mr Leipold is now running the Min. Wild and they are losing money hand over fist. The fact that Poile & team know their limits and are setting the franchise up for success is huge. This team needs to be in the bottom 3rd of the salary range, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be successful.