by Scott Swail
Based on the recent comments by Jets Chairman Mark Chipman, there is a new hysteria in Winnipeg about the potential of the NHL franchise pulling up its stakes and leaving town. Last spring, the organization launched a campaign to drive up season tickets sales. Unfortunately, they inadvertently lit a fire under the fans with campaign video showing the last Jets game in 1996 before they flew south for the next 15 winters. That was the first push to what one Winnipeg columnist called a “veiled threat.” The same columnist called Chipman’s comments this week “removing the veil.” As Chipman commented: “I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t say, ‘We’ve got to get back to 13,000’ This place we find ourselves in right now, it’s not going to work over the long haul. It just isn’t.”
These comments were in stark contrast to what Chipman said in April 2023: “I don’t want people to be alarmed or concerned. That is the last thing that this is. I know (that kind of reaction) is unavoidable and I know that the history is deeply ingrained, but we are not going anywhere.”
“We are not going anywhere,” he said.
This is why Chipman’s comments caused such an uproar last week because after a failed marketing move last year and the backtracking of language, they basically did the same thing last week. Perhaps the NHL is asking the Jets to put some kindling under the seats of corporate Manitoba and the ticket-buying community. This only a few days before a well-publicized visit by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on Tuesday. The purpose of the visit is to talk with ownership and corporate clients, and even Jets’ fans in a carefully orchestrated town hall at the arena. Expect Bettman to start with laudable comments about the team and about Winnipeg and how proud they were to welcome Winnipeg and owners Mark Chipman and David Thompson back into the league in 2011. From that, he will turn the podium into a bully pulpit and start suggesting that Winnipeggers better get into formation or there is a real possibility that the team will be relocated for the second time. Good cop bad cop. That is Bettman’s role and perhaps it is needed.
There are many challenges to the finances of the Winnipeg Jets. We’ve been told that Winnipeg has the lowest percentage of corporate support in the league, hovering around 15 percent compared to an average of somewhere around 40 percent for other NHL teams. Understand that these are approximations because the official data are unavailable. Even finding the cost of season tickets can seem like a clandestine operation. And this is part of the problem. The club is (rightfully) complaining that they can’t fill the seats and maintain budget. But they are also completely opaque about the mathematics behind the call out.
Winnipeg is a great NHL city. But it is also the smallest community with a very weak corporate climate. One block of Bloor Street in Toronto probably has 10 times the corporate wealth of all of Winnipeg. Winnipeg has a lower income average than any other Canadian NHL city in the league and lower disposable income. It is likely it has the lowest in the entire NHL. Beyond Great-West Life and IG Financial, there aren’t a lot of deep corporate pockets in Winnipeg. Third on the list is Winpak, a large packaging company. That’s what the Jets are working with and it is a far cry from a walk down Bloor Street.
Second is the affordability factor. Manitoba has the lowest per capita disposable income in Canada, with the exception of Nunavut. While people like to compare Winnipeg with Edmonton or Calgary, Manitoba’s disposable income is 25 percent less than Alberta’s and 15 percent less than Ontario’s. Forget about gross income; the most important indicator is disposable income, and Manitobans have much less of it than anyone else.
When the NHL came back to Winnipeg in 2011, people ate up season tickets even though they were a fairly high price at the time. Winnipeggers were simply happy to have the team back. Fast forward 13 years and people realize the weight that season tickets have on their wallets. The chart below provides a comparison between costs in 2011 and today.
In 2011, the highest priced season ticket was $5,808 for P1 sections and the lowest was $1,700 for P7 sections (upper deck, ends). Comparison is a little difficult because the club has created 27 pricing sections from the original seven. Thus, the numbers aren’t apples to apples, but they are close. In 2024-25, the top tickets will run someone $9,628 and the lowest $2,249. This is an increase of 66 percent for the best seats and 28 percent at the lowest (but still nose-bleeding) sections. The lowest ticket price in 2024 is an average of $51/game (season ticket). An individual ticket for yesterday’s home game against Jets 1.0 (Arizona) ran $74 Canadian loaded up with taxes and fees.
| 2011 | 2024 | Difference | |||||
| Description | Section | Season | Ticket (AVG) | Season | Ticket (AVB) | $ | % |
| Center Ice Lower | P1 | 5805 | 132 | 9628 | 219 | 3823 | 66% |
| Blue line and Below lower | P2 | 5130 | 117 | 8782 | 200 | 3652 | 71% |
| Ends Lower | P3 | 4230 | 96 | 5753 | 131 | 1523 | 36% |
| Ends second level | P4 | 3555 | 81 | 5149 | 117 | 1594 | 45% |
| Side second | P5 | 2880 | 65 | 6187 | 141 | 3307 | 115% |
| Corners Upper | P6 | 2430 | 55 | 2466 | 56 | 36 | 1% |
| Ends Upper | P7 | 1755 | 40 | 2249 | 51 | 494 | 28% |
Then there are the other costs associated with attending the game. Want a beer? $14 during the game. One fan sent me info from a recent game where he spent $44 for a burger, onion rings, poutine and two cokes. Add on another $10 to $20 for parking. He paid $78 for top row seats (back against the wall) in the upper deck (season ticket prices).
Now do the math and you can see why this is an issue. For two people to attend a game, in the cheapest seats available, expect to spend about $225 to $300 inclusive of tickets, food/beverage, and parking. That’s a lot of coin for a one-night hockey game; especially in a blue-collar town. People have become used to spending a chunk of change for a favorite artist to come in concert every once in a while. But to spend that kind of money 44 times a year?
I always think about finances in a pre-tax manner. Thus, if I spend $225 on a hockey game, that is actually about $400 of earned income. For average season tickets, two seats will run you $11,000 before parking or food or beverage. That is $17,000 in pre-tax dollars based on 35 percent average tax rate (43 percent marginal rate).
This is why corporate support is critical for the NHL and especially the Winnipeg Jets. The league is still an attendance-driven league. Every time the salary cap increases, people should understand that there will be a reciprocal increase in ticket prices. And prices will continue to escalate. Expect an average increase of 4 percent per year for tickets, which is typically almost double CPI (the high rates of the last two years have been an anomaly). Thus, while the cost of everything increases, and assuming salaries increase at inflationary rates (they don’t), people still won’t keep up to rising ticket prices. Disposable income will decrease over time.
Whether Mark Chipman should have sounded the alarm or not last week, it is a real alarm. They haven’t wanted to “alarm” anyone, but now push has come to shove, and Gary Bettman is coming to town to shove. Unless Winnipeg can move their corporate sponsorship from 15 percent of tickets to 25-30 percent of tickets, Winnipeggers are going to have a difficult time keeping up. Essentially, beyond the entertainment value of the Jets, season ticket ownership becomes akin to a donation to keep the team in town. That is the mindset that Winnipeggers will have to consider.
How much do Winnipeggers love professional hockey?
We’ll find out.
Slapshot.biz 