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Melnyk has been the owner of this team since 2003. He's done a lot for the team and city, including spending to the cap, giving us some solid playoff runs, he's brought in an All-Star Game, Draft, and likely an outdoor event in 2017. He upgraded the jumbotron to one of the nicer ones in the league.
But, with that being said, I think he's screwing over Sens fans for his own selfish reasons. It's not secret information that Melnyk went through a divorce and took a hit financially because of it. He's looking to gain that money back through another source of income. Plan A was the soccer stadium, which failed after the city didn't want to help fund it. Plan B was the casino in Kanata, which is where it all went wrong. The city wanted to put the casino at the Rideau Carleton Raceway, Melnyk wanted it right near the Canadian Tire Centre. After insulting everyone who works/lives around the Raceway area, the city still didn't give him the casino he wanted.
I believe Melnyk has a lot more money than he claims to have, and isn't losing nearly as much as he says he is. Ticket prices went up last season. A game against the Red Wings on December 1st had tickets starting at $105 in Row R of the 300 level. Concession prices went up. Ticket giveaways went down.
In the lockout shortened season, the average fan attendance was 19,408. In the 2013-14 season, the average fan attendance was 18,108. It's important to factor everything in. You have one season where the tickets were cheaper, the on-ice product was a lot better and more enjoyable, if you wanted a drink or a snack it wasn't as expensive. The next season, it was more expensive everywhere and the on-ice product was worse. They also gave away less tickets. I don't have the official numbers, but I'd argue that 18,108 with more expensive tickets and higher priced concession stands is generating more revenue than 19,408 with cheaper tickets and less expensive concession stands.
Now you look at the new television radio deal the Sens got from Bell. This is where the huge money comes in. The old deals would be paying Ottawa $13.3M per season on average - $6.3M for the national rights and $7M for the regional rights. The new deal? An average of $33.3M from Bell for the Senators regional rights, and another $17-$20M go to the Sens from the huge Rogers national deal. It's a difference of $13.3M and $50-$53M.
So, despite a pretty terrible on-ice product last year, the Sens got a decent number of fans in the seats. Cyril Leeder actually said revenues were up last seasons compared to the season before, and a big reason was because of the less giveaways. So they're making more money from the fans alone, plus add in the extra ~$40M a year from television/radio deal improvements. Also add in that Melnyk owns the Canadian Tire Centre and generates revenue off any concert or event that goes on at the Canadian Tire Centre. Oh, and he also owns Capital Tickets which means he gets all the service fees from when you buy a ticket to a concert or sporting event.
So despite all of this, we have a pretty low budget and are losing quality players to free agency and relying on entry-level contracted rookies to replace them. If you look at the team like a business, an entertainment business: you pay a pretty hefty price for a ticket for entertainment. I know it's not Toronto level, but it's still pretty expensive. You go there for entertainment. With the team we're icing based on our budget isn't very good, you're not going to be entertained a lot. You can call this fair-weather fans, or even fickle fans like Melnyk did, but a lot of people don't want to fork out premium money to see a bad team play. I wouldn't be surprised if the attendance declines because of this and I think it would be a good wake-up call to Melnyk.
But, with that being said, I think he's screwing over Sens fans for his own selfish reasons. It's not secret information that Melnyk went through a divorce and took a hit financially because of it. He's looking to gain that money back through another source of income. Plan A was the soccer stadium, which failed after the city didn't want to help fund it. Plan B was the casino in Kanata, which is where it all went wrong. The city wanted to put the casino at the Rideau Carleton Raceway, Melnyk wanted it right near the Canadian Tire Centre. After insulting everyone who works/lives around the Raceway area, the city still didn't give him the casino he wanted.
I believe Melnyk has a lot more money than he claims to have, and isn't losing nearly as much as he says he is. Ticket prices went up last season. A game against the Red Wings on December 1st had tickets starting at $105 in Row R of the 300 level. Concession prices went up. Ticket giveaways went down.
In the lockout shortened season, the average fan attendance was 19,408. In the 2013-14 season, the average fan attendance was 18,108. It's important to factor everything in. You have one season where the tickets were cheaper, the on-ice product was a lot better and more enjoyable, if you wanted a drink or a snack it wasn't as expensive. The next season, it was more expensive everywhere and the on-ice product was worse. They also gave away less tickets. I don't have the official numbers, but I'd argue that 18,108 with more expensive tickets and higher priced concession stands is generating more revenue than 19,408 with cheaper tickets and less expensive concession stands.
Now you look at the new television radio deal the Sens got from Bell. This is where the huge money comes in. The old deals would be paying Ottawa $13.3M per season on average - $6.3M for the national rights and $7M for the regional rights. The new deal? An average of $33.3M from Bell for the Senators regional rights, and another $17-$20M go to the Sens from the huge Rogers national deal. It's a difference of $13.3M and $50-$53M.
So, despite a pretty terrible on-ice product last year, the Sens got a decent number of fans in the seats. Cyril Leeder actually said revenues were up last seasons compared to the season before, and a big reason was because of the less giveaways. So they're making more money from the fans alone, plus add in the extra ~$40M a year from television/radio deal improvements. Also add in that Melnyk owns the Canadian Tire Centre and generates revenue off any concert or event that goes on at the Canadian Tire Centre. Oh, and he also owns Capital Tickets which means he gets all the service fees from when you buy a ticket to a concert or sporting event.
So despite all of this, we have a pretty low budget and are losing quality players to free agency and relying on entry-level contracted rookies to replace them. If you look at the team like a business, an entertainment business: you pay a pretty hefty price for a ticket for entertainment. I know it's not Toronto level, but it's still pretty expensive. You go there for entertainment. With the team we're icing based on our budget isn't very good, you're not going to be entertained a lot. You can call this fair-weather fans, or even fickle fans like Melnyk did, but a lot of people don't want to fork out premium money to see a bad team play. I wouldn't be surprised if the attendance declines because of this and I think it would be a good wake-up call to Melnyk.
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