superstars and attendance was teemu selanne was leaders dean j falcione posting from jrmst pitt edu writes i wrote when the pens got mario granted there was big publicity etc etc and interest was immediately generated gretzky did the same thing for la however imnsho neither team would have seen a marked improvement in attendance if the team record did not improve in the year before lemieux came pittsburgh finished with points following his arrival the pens finished with and points with a couple of stanley cups thrown in it was at this point the pens attendance was near capacity out of sellouts yet they hadn t made the playoffs since how do you explain a th place team breaking attendance records when they haven t been to the playoffs in years mario lemieux is the explanation imho you could make a case that the expectation of an improving team that would make the playoffs is the reason funny you should mention it this is exactly the case i was going to make but i think the reason is lemieux had a point season and was the first non gretzky to win the hart and ross since people turned out to watch him play i will grant that a star like mario will draw fans even if the team sucks but this is short term only i still do not think the attendance increase will last unless the team is a winning competitive improving butt kicking one pittsburgh was still getting better so people continued to support them if they suddenly dropped to say points you d have knee surgery for some of the people jumping off the bandwagon also the following year the pens had points not ok my numbers came from the nhl guide and record book they made the transaction to try and build a winner around mario that is true but the improvement in attendance came before they started doing this coffey late in and before they even had a playoff bound team a doubling of attendance occured in from the previous year an increase from points to points is not going to do that the arrival of mario lemieux is what did it you can give the credit to mario since he deserves it but my point is that it wasn t mario himself but it was the expectation of things to come i e a winning team that he created by being the next great hockey superstar and before anybody jumps in and says i m nit picking and mincing words go back and read from where this thread started it might help to think about what would go through a fan s mind who suddenly found an interest in mario and the pens was it gee mario lemieux is amazing i ll go watch him play or was it gee now we ve got a kick ass guy on our side i ll go watch him play i think it was the latter similar thing happened in l a before gretzky s arrival about per game after constant sellouts they are still selling out every game despite showing little or no improvement since gretzky s first year there how do you explain it people are going to see gretzky they certainly aren t going to see a winner they haven t got a winner they ve had much better teams in their past history than they currently have yet they didn t draw as well then i don t think this is accurate the tickets sell but people don t go to the games i think this thread has already been discussed season ticket holders in la don t always use their tickets so in effect after the kings initial success following gretzky s arrival to points same source and corresponding attendance jump there has been an effective drop in attendance even though ticket sales may not have changed much whether or not the kings are a winner is debatable i claim that since gretzky s arrival they have at the very least been competitive i also claim that mcnall has made a stupid move in trying to reassemble the oiler dynasty but that s another story and included only because i don t like mcnall anyway mcnall did do some heavy marketing around gretzky and that undoubtedly was also responsible for the attendance and merchandising sales etc but as i said when the kings have been in there little tailspins over the past couple of years there have been empty seats at the forum even if the tickets were sold i think in the case of a lemieux or gretzky the player can transcend winning as the major drawing power for the short term imo although i think that it s inevitable that the team will improve with a player such as lemieux or gretzky simply because they make people around them better but winning sure as hell helps well at least we are in full agreement here this does not make roger s point any more valid but the jets aren t so are you saying roger has ever had a valid point couldn t resist getting a huge jump in productivity yet they are getting a huge jump in attendance this is due to the emergence of teemu selanne they have the th best record in hockey it sure as hell isn t because they are winning yes but they are doing no worse than last year i think the same type of reasoning i applied to a new pittsburgh fan applies to all the extra people showing up at winnipeg games it s difficult to predict but do you think that if the jets miss the playoffs next season that in the year after they will maintain their attendance levels i seriously doubt it because in that case the expectation of an improving team would be gone with or without selanne i did provide the example of rocket ismail and the toronto argonauts of the cfl did you leave it out because you don t know much about the cfl if that s the case then fair enough but if it isn t the case then i m curious to hear your explanation
