The Jets are on a roll in the NHL, but the fans are staying out of the arena. Is Winnipeg in danger of moving?

Good results are one thing, but in today’s sporting world, finances are also a factor. An NHL club is not primarily an organization whose primary goal is to win the Stanley Cup. The primary goal is to prosper so that as many people as possible can benefit. And preferably financially. The Winnipeg Jets are a perfect example.

Even when an organization applies for a spot in the most prestigious hockey league in the world, the question is not whether it will be able to win, but whether it will be able to make a profit. Not only for itself, but if it will also benefit the NHL. Spectator interest in the arena and the sale of television rights are the number one attributes for accepting a new club into the NHL family.

The Atlanta Trashers also moved to Winnipeg once upon a time for economic reasons. The Canadian organization showed the league’s hunger for the best hockey. So if the question in 2011 was whether Atlanta or Winnipeg would be more promising for the NHL, the Jets won outright.

The interest in hockey was incredible in this Canadian city. After Winnipeg came in, they regularly sold out the arena for a decade. No one cared that the 15,225-seat Canada Life Centre was the smallest arena in the league. But now the situation has changed.

Since Covid, interest has dropped, Winnipeg are suffering

The big turning point came during the Covid era, when fans had the doors to the arenas closed for a long time. In Canada, even longer than in the US. While most of the sporting world was able to recover from the effects of the coronavirus, the situation is different in Winnipeg.

Not only have spectators not returned to the Canada Life Centre in their original numbers, but attendance has declined year after year. Over the past three years, season ticket interest has dropped from about 13,000 to about 9,500. This rapid decline is, of course, reflected in the overall attendance.

In Winnipeg, an average of just over 13,000 fans are attending hockey this season, making up approximately 87 per cent of the arena’s total capacity. Only Buffalo and San Jose are worse off in that regard. Except for Arizona, which plays “temporarily” in Mullett Arena for 4,600 spectators, this is the second worst number in the league.

This is despite the fact that Winnipeg is currently one of the best teams in the table. Unfortunately, not everything can be measured by sporting results these days.

There are more suitors in line

And in Winnipeg, they know that the league itself is taking notice of these numbers. If an NHL organization is not functioning from a fan perspective, its position is unsustainable in the long run. Winnipeg Jets chairman Mark Chipman himself admitted in the media that the Jets need to get back to the 13,000 season ticket sales number or it will be fatal to the organization.

There are more suitors in line who are desperate to get into the NHL. In a way, a return to Atlanta could be realistic. The NHL club has already broken away from there twice, but the league’s top brass is still convinced that it is a huge market with great potential.

The location of the arena would be key, they say. But otherwise, according to NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, the problems the league faced in Atlanta could be overcome by now.

Then there’s the other hot bidder. Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith recently sent a letter to the league’s leadership explicitly asking for the league to expand to Salt Lake City. According to him, the city is capable of stepping in at virtually any time, which may appeal to the NHL.

Source: NHL, The Hockey News