Diminishing Returns

Good seats are still available. Words that make Mighty Duck executives cringe.

There was a time when all they had to do was open the doors to the Arrowhead Pond and fans would flock. There was a time when, even with a mediocre team on the ice, they would sell out nearly every game.

Not these days. As the Ducks rise in the standings with a team stocked with young talent, they are tumbling at the gate.

Last week, the Ducks hosted the Detroit Red Wings, who have the best record in the NHL. The Red Wings also attract a devout following of Motor City transplants when they play on the road.

In past seasons, an easy sellout. But not anymore.

Not even the horde of red-clad zealots--so large Duck fans couldn’t boo down a “Let’s Go Red Wings” chant early in the game--could help pack the 17,174-seat Pond.

What gives?

General Manager Pierre Gauthier sits among the crowd to hear the reasons. Easy, fans tell him: Tickets cost too much.

Gauthier counters with his standard speech: Players’ salaries are too high.

It’s that simple . . . and it isn’t.

*

From December, 1993, through October, 1996, the Ducks sold out 90 of 93 home games. Before last season, they had only one crowd below 16,000.

But last season, the decline started, and the team lost money--between $4.4 and $8 million, depending on who’s doing the counting--for the first time. In 41 home games there were only 17 sellouts and a game against Calgary on Jan. 13 drew a then-franchise low crowd of 13,542.

This season, the free fall continues. In their last 12 home games, the Ducks have had only one sellout--their second this season--and six crowds of less than 13,000. That includes a franchise low of 12,047 on Dec. 1, when they hosted Tampa Bay.

And that’s taking into account tickets sold, not bodies in the building. There have been games where the estimates from the press box put the crowd of less than 10,000.

Up the road, the Kings are enjoying a renaissance of sorts in a new arena, Staples Center. Having blitzed the market with advertising--bus signs, billboards, newspapers, radio, television--Kings attendance is up 28%. By comparison, the Ducks ran a less-extensive campaign, depending more on mailers with fewer radio and television spots.

“Cycles change and expectations change,” Gauthier said. “We’re not new anymore. We’re not an expansion team anymore. We have become like every other sports franchise. We’ve got to win. . . . That’s the short of it. We start winning, the team gets better and people will be back.”

That theory may be tested soon. After a slow start with the team hovering around .500, the Ducks are 8-5-2 in their last 15 games.

“It’s up to us,” right wing Paul Kariya said. “You have to have a good product to put people in the seats. We can do much more as players to make the game enjoyable. That means winning.”

*

Duck fans have seen ticket prices increase each season, to the point they are up 49% since the inaugural 1993-94 season. The average price of a ticket to a game at the Pond is $46.18, just above the NHL average of $45.70.

“I had season tickets for four years and gave them up this year,” said Hank Lapchak at a recent game. “‘I had four tickets, which cost about $100. Then you add parking, food, drinks . . . “

A family of four can expect to spend an average of $270 at a Duck game this season, according to an annual survey by Team Marketing Report in Chicago. The report said the league average is $254.48.

“I sat up high too,” Lapchak said. “Don’t even talk about sitting in the club level or the lower level. The only reason I’m here tonight is I got freebies.”

His disgust with ticket prices has become an echo.

Brad and Sandy Hall have been season-ticket holders since the Ducks’ first season. They used to own their own, but high ticket prices prompted them to share the cost with others.

“We come to maybe half the games we used to,” Brad Hall said. “We love hockey. We used to go to Kings games, but when the Ducks started, we came here for our hockey fix. Now, it has just gotten too pricey.”

Gauthier passes the buck on skyrocketing costs, blaming the price hikes on escalating player salaries.

He said last season the Ducks lost $6-8 million. A Forbes magazine study of hockey teams said the Ducks lost $4.4 million. Gauthier declined to make an estimate on losses this season, but he didn’t paint a rosy picture.

“It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure things out this year,” Gauthier said. “If revenues stay the same and the payroll goes up 10%, then it doesn’t look like we’re going in the right direction.”

The Ducks’ opening-night payroll was $35 million, up $5 million from a year ago.

“The players are paid too much,” Gauthier said. “All sports teams that lose money do so for one reason: salaries.”

But fans seem to care little about owners complaining about salaries.

“I have two tickets at $37.50 each and I pay for preferred parking, which is another $12,” Jordan Glazer said. “I’m out $87 before I come into the building.”

The Ducks offer 500 $15 seats in the top level’s back rows for each game, but those seats are usually empty. The Kings offer 500 $10 seats each game.

Still, fewer people than ever are walking through the doors at the Pond. And that’s something that has been felt even on the ice.

“Everyone wants to play before a full house,” Duck left wing Jim McKenzie said.

*

Diminishing crowds sound alarms for hockey, which depends on gate receipts more than football, basketball and baseball because it receives much less from its television package.

The NFL has an eight-year, $17.1-billion television contract. The NBA’s is a four-year, $1.75-billion deal, and major league baseball’s is for five years and $1.7 billion.

Hockey is in the low-rent district with a five-year, $600-million deal with Disney-owned ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.

While NFL teams each receive $71 million from television, NHL teams each get $4.5 million.

NHL attendance is down slightly this season, according to league officials, who say crowds always get bigger after Christmas.

“We have every expectation of setting an attendance record this year,” said Frank Brown, the NHL’s vice president for media relations. “There are clubs who are up dramatically and there are clubs who are a little off. Some are more than a little. This is not unusual.”

Brown added that “there is more competition for discretionary money than ever.”

Yet, financial wranglings have never before been a major concern for the Ducks.

This season, that has changed. While league attendance is down less than 1%, the Ducks are off 11%, the fifth-biggest drop in the NHL.

Washington, which is down 30%, handed out free tickets last season, a policy that was stopped by the Capitals’ new owners.

The Ducks’ slide is staggering, considering how far they have fallen. From their inception, they were among the most profitable teams in the league. Duck merchandise ranked in popularity with the Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bulls and New York Yankees.

The Ducks made $11 million in merchandising alone in 1993-94, a hockey official said, a record for a professional franchise. The team’s payroll was $7.8 million that season.

“In our wildest dreams, we never thought we would become the most successful first-year franchise ever,” said Bill Robertson, former Duck media relations director and now the vice president of communications for the expansion Minnesota Wild.

“On the ice, we accumulated 71 points [equaling the most by an expansion team]. On the business side, we captured everyone’s imagination. TV ratings were high and everyone wanted to be associated with the team.

“All areas--broadcasting, sales, marketing--worked together as a unit. There was great chemistry.”

The Ducks also had about 14,000 season-ticket holders their first season, and they had similar numbers as recently as 1995-1996.

Gauthier declined to say how many season-ticket holders there are this season. But, as he is fond of saying, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon . . .

So what happened?

There were some flaws in the marketing plan.

*

The Ducks’ strategy, a former employee familiar with the team’s marketing said, was to focus on kids and corporations.

“The lower level [of the Pond] was for corporate people and the upper level was for families,” he said. “The drive was all about the kids. They are the ones who control the purse strings for the sodas, the hot dogs, the T-shirts.”

But with prices for all of those things having gone up . . .

“The games are too pricey for families now,” season-ticket holder Randy Dumontier said. “Maybe now they will start marketing to real hockey fans.”

Another problem for families: Most Duck games start at 7:30 p.m. and last about three hours.

“Kids should be in bed by 9 p.m.,” said Lapchak, who has three sons, ages 11, 9 and 5.

Meanwhile, the corporate crowd also has thinned considerably, judging by the huge gaps in the Pond’s plaza concourse, where ticket prices range from $75 to $175.

Adding to the challenge of keeping ticket sales up have been a couple of public relations gaffes.

Ron Wilson was fired as coach in 1997, right after leading the Ducks into the playoffs. Fans sided with the popular Wilson and blamed team president Tony Tavares for the move.

Pierre Page replaced Wilson and lasted one season. In between, Kariya was a holdout. Tavares took heat from fans about that, too.

Wilson’s firing was “the start of the demise and dismantling of the Ducks,” an NHL executive familiar with the team said. “It didn’t work out and then things kept chipping away at the glow after that.”

The Ducks seem to have several positive aspects to market. Gauthier arrived a year ago, hired Craig Hartsburg as coach, and the Ducks were back in the playoffs. And the team doesn’t lack star quality. Kariya and Teemu Selanne are two of the best players in the game. Guy Hebert is a quality goalie with a personality that could carry any team’s marketing campaign.

Yet, the Ducks’ “Hockey at the Speed of Light” campaign seems as if it has been buried by the Kings’ promotional blitz.

“Once Disney bought the Angels, they tried to have people do too many things,” the NHL executive said. “They had two teams and one marketing department. You can’t market two teams at the same time. You need two staffs to do that.”

The New York Rangers and New York Knicks, both owned by Cablevision, have separate marketing departments. The same is true in Detroit, where Mike Illitch owns the Red Wings and Tigers, and in Toronto, where the Maple Leafs and Raptors are owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Ltd.

The Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers, both owned by Thomas Hicks, have some overlap, but they have different vice presidents of marketing. Vancouver has one marketing department for the Grizzlies and Canucks, but the Canucks’ attendance is down 12%.

In Colorado, Ascent Entertainment Corp. owns the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche--and is desperately trying to sell both teams--and uses one marketing department for both. While the Avalanche has sold out 203 consecutive games, the marketing director resigned this year and was critical of both teams being marketed the same way.

The NHL has been effective in recent years with its marketing campaigns, including some clever television spots. One featured Kariya at a restaurant, flicking peas with his knife at a father at a nearby table who blames his son while Kariya smirks.

“I think [Disney is] very, very experienced in marketing,” the NHL’s Brown said. “I don’t think you can argue the success or ability of any Disney enterprise from a marketing standpoint.”

Gauthier declined a request for Duck and Angel marketing director Ron Minegar to be interviewed for this story.

“We talk to our fans all the time,” Gauthier said. “We talk to our season ticket-holders and make sales pitches on an individual basis. We don’t use any gimmicks, big slogans or great fancy ticket packages.

“We do the normal telemarketing and mail marketing. We get information to fans.”

The Kings, meanwhile, have used billboards, radio spots, even advertising on the sides of buses, to publicize their team. It helped that the Kings had a new arena to offer.

“There is probably broader audience interest than the Kings have had in a long time,” Rizzardini said. “Probably since [Wayne] Gretzky came here.”

Rizzardini has been through this before. He was the marketing director for the NBA’s expansion Vancouver Grizzlies when General Motors Place opened in 1995.

“I’ve been with a new team in a new arena,” Rizzardini said. “Definitely, you get a honeymoon period.”

Has that ended for the Ducks?

“The fad is gone,” Gauthier said. “But everyone loves our team, they love our players, they love the identity and want us to win.

“People are sitting at home waiting to get out the door and come to games.”

That, it appears, is the problem.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Attendance is down, but prices are up. Mighty Ducks tickets increased by 8.7%, a little higher than the leage average of 6.5%. Biggest increase: 54.4% for the average Maple Leafs ticket. This year’s priciest tickets, plus selected others:

1. Toronto Maple Leafs: $69.92

2. New York Rangers: $65.82

3. Atlanta Thrashers: $62.14

8. L.A. Kings: $49.22

14. Mighty Ducks: $46.18

NHL Average: $45.70

Reported by Chris Foster / Los Angeles Times

Ducks Attendance Heads South

While the Mighty Ducks’ attendance has plummeted this season, the NHL average is down only slightly from a season ago. A closer look at attendance at Duck games:

DUCKS YEAR BY YEAR

Average Attendance Per Game

‘93-’94: 16,989

‘99-’00: 14,012*

* through Dec. 27

*--*

Season Games Total Attendance Avg./Game % of Capacity ‘93-’94 41 696,560 16,989 98.9% ‘94-’95 24 412,176 17,174 100% ‘95-’96 41 703,347 17,155 99.9% ‘96-’97 41 695,867 16,972 98.8% ‘97-’98 40 682,735 17,068 99.4% ‘98-’99 41 647,973 15,804 92% ‘99-’00 20 280,244 14,012 81.6%

*--*

Team By Team Comparison

*--*

Team Games ‘98-’99 ‘99-’00 Chg** New Jersey Devils 19 315,861 269,197 -15% New York Islanders 17 191,679 164,850 -14% New York Rangers 19 345,800 345,800 0 Philadelphia Flyers 20 391,333 390,464 0 Pittsburg Penguins 16 225,677 230,484 +2% Boston Bruins 18 288,500 287,904 0 Buffalo Sabres 19 331,050 327708 -1% Montreal Canadiens 17 349,389 336,127 -4% Ottawa Senators 17 272,826 291,410 +7% Toronto Maple Leafs 23 361,608 438,596 +21% Carolina Hurricanes 17 126,599 215,999 +71% Florida Panthers 17 311,195 263,340 -15% Tampa Bay Lightning 16 167,415 230,524 +38% Washington Capitals 15 267,903 186,234 -30% Chicago Black Hawks 17 284,700 281,796 -1% Detroit Red Wings 19 379,677 379,677 0 Nashville Predators 18 281,644 299,212 +6% St. Louis Blues 20 374,858 347,829 -7% Calgary Flames 16 247,055 235,172 -5% Colorado Avalance 12 192,732 216,194 +12% Edmonton Oilers 17 272,214 258,737 -5% Vancouver Canucks 19 301,259 265,496 -12% Mighty Ducks of Anaheim 20 313,460 280,244 -11% Dallas Stars 16 269,425 272,016 +1% Los Angeles Kings 16 199,570 255,106 +28% Phoenix Coyotes 17 266,409 249,126 -6% San Jose Sharks 20 327,729 342,468 4%

*--*

** from previous season

Source: National Hockey League, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim

Graphics reporting by Chris Foster / Los Angeles Times