NHL Tries to Win Back Fans With Incentives

NHL teams are back in the hockey business and will spend a frantic month reshaping their rosters, and possibly their destinies, but the first item on the to-do list will be damage control.

For the next month, fans who have been without their sport for 10 months can expect to be deluged with apologies, ticket-price rollbacks and glittery events at which they’ll get the chance to meet the players.

The Mighty Ducks acted quickly, unveiling price cuts on season tickets, although the news was buried under the announcement last month that Brian Burke would be the club’s new general manager.

The Kings say they plan to offer their deepest regrets to fans in a full-page newspaper advertisement, with ticket-price cuts expected to follow.

The New York Rangers have scheduled a Monday event, with the first 1,000 fans receiving a voucher for two tickets for a regular-season game.

The New York Islanders announced 3,000 tickets would be available at $10 for 10 first-half regular-season home games.

From California to New York, NHL teams are lining up to beg forgiveness.

“If you don’t communicate with your fans and if you’re not sincere and don’t appreciate them, nothing else you do matters,” said Dean Bonham, chief executive of the Bonham Group, a Denver sports-marketing firm.

That was the underlying theme to news conferences held by the union on Thursday, after the players had ratified the contract, and by the league on Friday, after the board of governors had rubber-stamped the deal.

“We consistently throughout the process have apologized to fans for having to go through this,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said when asked Friday if the fans were owed an apology. “There is no shortage of regret at having been through such a difficult process. I’m glad it’s over with and glad we accomplished the objective that had to be accomplished. We couldn’t have operated another season the way we were.”

Bonham’s company has done three studies for the NHL in the past, although none since the lockout was announced Sept. 15. He said the league would have little trouble drawing fans back into arenas.

“The research I have done, fans have responded positively,” Bonham said. “They told us they understood the issues and that it needed to be fixed and if it was fixed they would come back and support the NHL.”

Some team officials are ready to accept that opinion.

“From my perspective, fan loyalty is a lot stronger and a lot deeper than the so-called experts claim,” said Burke, who spent the previous six seasons as Vancouver’s general manager. “They follow the game passionately.... It will rebound stronger and quicker than people expected.”

Still, there are fans, especially in non-traditional hockey markets like Southern California, who are angry.

“I’m upset with both sides that they couldn’t get this done earlier,” said Bob Rauchfleisch, a King fan who lives in Woodland Hills. “They shafted fans out of an entire season of hockey. At this point, I will probably watch games on television, but that is about as much as I will do this season.”

Rauchfleisch, who attended eight King games during the 2003-04 season, represents the occasional fan the NHL wants to lure to arenas more often. He has been a King fan since moving from Chicago six years ago but will be difficult to win back.

“Back in 1994, I was a die-hard Cub fan, but when the strike ruined the season, I stopped,” Rauchfleisch said. “This will have the same effect with hockey. I’ll watch from afar for a while. Time heals all wounds, but it will take some time to get over this.”

Bonham said he expected core hockey fans to return to the fold more easily than baseball fans did, provided the NHL makes efforts on their behalf. But the first thing the NHL must do is offer “a gift to fans, and the hope is for lower ticket prices.”

The Ducks will roll back prices on 14,000 season tickets an average of 5.28%. The Kings are expected to announce price cuts and a marketing strategy at a news conference Monday.

“The three main things fans care about are winning, affordability and access,” King President Tim Leiweke said. “That doesn’t come from some crazy guy writing crazy checks. We now have a system that makes that possible. We paid a hell of a price to get to this day, and I hope we can move the game forward.”

That, to many teams, means rolling back ticket prices.

Columbus, Minnesota, Vancouver, Calgary and the Islanders are among the other teams that have already announced cuts in season-ticket prices, although none of those approach the 24% rollback in player salaries. Phoenix, however, will give each season-ticket holder two tickets for the price of one.

Bettman said that the league has not mandated ticket price cuts, saying Friday that the league was “coming out of a deal where we were losing hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Ticket prices in Detroit, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto, cities where hockey enjoys strong support, will probably remain the same. The Rangers have cut prices on all tickets 10%, but that offer was made before the lockout, a rebate promised by owners should the team not make the 2003-04 playoffs.

In Montreal, where the Canadiens average a league-high 20,000 fans a game in 21,273-seat Bell Centre, team officials have said they will not lower high-end ticket prices.

They will, however, offer discounts of more than 10% on 4,500 tickets per game, 500 tickets in the family zone will be sold at less than $10 and 500 tickets will be handed out free on 17 Tuesday night games.

“I think the NHL has to embark on an aggressive re-branding strategy,” Bonham said. “They need to change everything, from the way the game is on the ice to the way they market the league. They have to find a way to make the NHL more viewer friendly so they can enjoy higher television ratings and be the recipient of the kind of [television] revenue we see in the NBA.”

The NHL has started revamping the game, with rule changes designed to boost scoring. A slogan, “A Whole New Game,” has been introduced, as have rough-sketch ideas on how to improve the game on television: players and coaches wearing microphones, more behind-the-scenes access and different camera angles.

“We will be unveiling a variety of marketing and fan-friendly activities as we get closer to the season,” Bettman said. “As August unfolds there will be a variety of initiatives aimed at re-connecting with fans.

“We will do everything in our power we can to reward their devotion. We know it has been a terrible time for everyone associated with the game. We pledge to our fans to do everything we can to make it up to you.”