Would Nebraska (Omaha) support
- Thread starter Catch50
- Start date
I think if any of the big 4 professional leagues chose to expand to Omaha that it would receive the necessary support. It'd be the only top 4 professional show in town and depending on the sport (hockey or basketball), it'd be the only one anywhere close. The closest would be Denver for hockey or basketball while baseball or football would of course have KC.
I can say with 100% certainty that should an NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL team set up shop here that I'd become a season ticket holder as soon as possible.
I can say with 100% certainty that should an NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL team set up shop here that I'd become a season ticket holder as soon as possible.
I don’t know a lot about hockey. I work a lot of UNO hockey games, and that’s my main exposure to hockey in the last few years.
I think the chances of an NHL team succeeding here would be less than 50/50.
There are plenty of hockey fans in Omaha, however, a lot of those hockey fans are involved in youth hockey, which runs the same months. So weekdays you’d have practices and weekends you’d have out of town tournaments. So there’s a potential for massive conflicts for some of the most rabid fan base.
The friends I know who have kids playing youth hockey want to go to Mav hockey games, but they just can’t make it to very many over the weekend, let alone during the week.
Now finances. What does an NHL ticket cost? There’s be 41 home games. Is there enough people in a metro of about 940,000 that can afford an average single game ticket price of about $100 to fill a stadium? That’s $8200 for two tickets not including playoff games. There’s a lot of money in Omaha, but there’s also a lot of poor.
Now look at venues across the NHL and their capacities for hockey. 21 of 31 NHL teams averaged over 17000 fans a game. The Century Link Center has a capacity of about 17,500 for basketball. When Creighton has a big game and they sell a lot of SRO tickets it can get to over 18000. But, once you configure the floor for hockey, there goes the floor seating. So an Omaha team would be towards the bottom in attendance.
I know a major sports league team would generate an unbelievable amount of excitement, but we are talking big time disposable income here for the 60th largest metro area according to the 2010 census. Even if Omaha/Lincoln we’re to be considered a combined metro according to the stats, there’s still a lot of other metros that would likely get a look for expansion long before Omaha.
Barring a just incredible growth to the Omaha Metro, I just don’t see a major 4 sports franchise coming to Omaha. I think our biggest hope is for KC to get an expansion, and maybe Omaha gets some of their games like the Kansas City/Omaha Kings back in the 70s.
JMHO.
I think the chances of an NHL team succeeding here would be less than 50/50.
There are plenty of hockey fans in Omaha, however, a lot of those hockey fans are involved in youth hockey, which runs the same months. So weekdays you’d have practices and weekends you’d have out of town tournaments. So there’s a potential for massive conflicts for some of the most rabid fan base.
The friends I know who have kids playing youth hockey want to go to Mav hockey games, but they just can’t make it to very many over the weekend, let alone during the week.
Now finances. What does an NHL ticket cost? There’s be 41 home games. Is there enough people in a metro of about 940,000 that can afford an average single game ticket price of about $100 to fill a stadium? That’s $8200 for two tickets not including playoff games. There’s a lot of money in Omaha, but there’s also a lot of poor.
Now look at venues across the NHL and their capacities for hockey. 21 of 31 NHL teams averaged over 17000 fans a game. The Century Link Center has a capacity of about 17,500 for basketball. When Creighton has a big game and they sell a lot of SRO tickets it can get to over 18000. But, once you configure the floor for hockey, there goes the floor seating. So an Omaha team would be towards the bottom in attendance.
I know a major sports league team would generate an unbelievable amount of excitement, but we are talking big time disposable income here for the 60th largest metro area according to the 2010 census. Even if Omaha/Lincoln we’re to be considered a combined metro according to the stats, there’s still a lot of other metros that would likely get a look for expansion long before Omaha.
Barring a just incredible growth to the Omaha Metro, I just don’t see a major 4 sports franchise coming to Omaha. I think our biggest hope is for KC to get an expansion, and maybe Omaha gets some of their games like the Kansas City/Omaha Kings back in the 70s.
JMHO.
First off the closest NHL team to Omaha is the Minnesota Wild, the distance from my house in northwest Omaha to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul is 360 miles. Next closest is St. Louis then Denver.
While I have no doubt that there would be a lot of fans the ticket prices would be a big issue. My season tickets for the MN Wild for their first season in 2000 (upper level side) were $2,600 for a pair, for the 2018-2019 season they will be just over $4,700 for the pair. The lowest price ticket in St. Paul will be $32 per seat for upper level ends (for full season plan of 44 home games). Rinkside seats in the first couple of rows will cost around $26,000 for a pair of season tickets.
Hockey is not a cheap event to attend even if it is a lot of fun. While I'd love to see NHL hockey in Omaha I just don't think the money is there to support this plus you'd have to have a very strong ownership group.
Link to MN Wild Arena and Ticket map -
http://wild.io-media.com/web/index.html
While I have no doubt that there would be a lot of fans the ticket prices would be a big issue. My season tickets for the MN Wild for their first season in 2000 (upper level side) were $2,600 for a pair, for the 2018-2019 season they will be just over $4,700 for the pair. The lowest price ticket in St. Paul will be $32 per seat for upper level ends (for full season plan of 44 home games). Rinkside seats in the first couple of rows will cost around $26,000 for a pair of season tickets.
Hockey is not a cheap event to attend even if it is a lot of fun. While I'd love to see NHL hockey in Omaha I just don't think the money is there to support this plus you'd have to have a very strong ownership group.
Link to MN Wild Arena and Ticket map -
http://wild.io-media.com/web/index.html
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Omaha's biggest drawback is that it's a relatively small TV market. The Omaha/Council Bluffs Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks 59th in the nation, below cities like Salt Lake, Birmingham, Rochester, Grand Rapids, Tucson, Tulsa and Fresno. That doesn't mean a major sports franchise would never come to Omaha, but it would have to be willing to take a skinny local TV deal compared to nearly every other team in its league. The NFL is the exception, because it splits TV revenue evenly. But for the several-games-per-week sports, this is a big obstacle.
I think the NBA would be the most likely to get the most support. Like has been stated, TV market will be a drawback.
Creighton and Nebraska basketball would both suffer reduced attendance if a NBA team were to come to Nebraska.
Creighton and Nebraska basketball would both suffer reduced attendance if a NBA team were to come to Nebraska.
A business associate who has tickets to Golden State Warriors told me that he had to pay a $175,000 fee to be able to buy the tickets. He gets that back when he sells the tickets, but no interest on it - so basically an interest free loan to the team. He then pays about $125,000 per season for his tickets (two seats 3 rows back at the baseline). IMO, there are not enough people within driving distance to Omaha who have that kind of money - or perhaps more accurately, enough people who can afford that kind of money who would part with it for NBA tickets - to support an NBA team in Omaha. It was tried with the Kansas City - Omaha Kings when the cost was comparatively less than lower bowl CU basketball tickets today, and it failed. Heck, for that matter, Kansas City is many times larger than Omaha with a much bigger tv market and many times more people who could afford to support an NBA team, and it couldn't keep a team (Even with Tiny Nate Archibald, who everyone loved). Would we really want a pro team that struggled near the bottom of the league year in and year out because it doesn't have the financial support/ability to put a competitive team on the floor? If any of our billionaires were pro sports junkies, like a Mark Cuban, who didn't require a 12% return on investment on a pro team, we might have a shot. Absent that, I don't see it.
I for one would rather watch college basketball than the NBA.. Don’t even pay attention to the NBA till the playoffs start.. Style of play is not what it once was and way too much traveling.
I haven't looked but have Oklahoma and Oklahoma State seen attendance declines since the Thunder started playing in Oklahoma City? I will say this I do not like NBA basketball at all so I would have no interest in a team here in Omaha so I would just continue to keep my season tickets for Nebraska Basketball.
I think there is enough money in Omaha, but not enough people who would be willing to spend the premium to go pro instead of Mavs. Similar to football- there aren't enough people who would spend more for pro than Huskers, and two games in a weekend is a bit much.
Is there enough hockey interest around here? I would do whatever I could to get tickets for an NBA team, but I wouldn't even consider NHL because I just have no interest in hockey and don't really know many people who like it enough to get season tickets.
I would think you could do NHL or NBA in Omaha without too much trouble. As with anything, if the team is good people will go.
I used to get invited to Blackhawks games for free back before they started winning cups and there would be empty seats. These days its' a much tougher ticket.
I used to get invited to Blackhawks games for free back before they started winning cups and there would be empty seats. These days its' a much tougher ticket.
CHI Health Center Omaha. This is gonna create some confusion for out of towners. Sounds like a hospital not an arena
Thanks for all your results. I should have asked the question more about the hockey aspect as opposed to the economics. We had a heck of Stanley Cup this year.
We had the "Omaha Aksarben Knights" a fully professional team in the AHL some ten years ago. They lasted 2 years and played in the old barn known as the Civic Auditorium, while UNO played just a few blocks down the street in the shiny new palace known as the Qwest Center. I had season tickets for the two years they were here and attendance started to pick up as we moved thru year two, but Calgary wasn't patient enough and moved the team to the Quad Cities (as the Mallards), now that team is located in Stockton, California (I don't know the team name) and I cannot imagine they're a very big draw there at all.
Because I hate rotating corporate sponsor naming rights, I have petitioned all of my friends/family to give the place a different name we could all call it and never have to utter the corporation paying money for you to say their name. I suggested we call it "Sawbone Arena" or "The Sawbone" for short. I am gonna make this happen damn it! It is now the Sawbone.
Isn't that something like the OWH did for a while when it was being constructed? Refused to print "Qwest Center"?
Could be I don't know but I did see that Michael Kelly has a column about the name in his column in today's editions of the World Herald. In addition the OWH ran an editorial about not for profit organizations getting into the naming rights business for arenas. As I said at work the other day (and I work for a non-profit) the optics on this are really bad.
Thankfully I'm in good health and haven't had to be in the hospital in over 40 years but I'll sure think about my bill if I ever have to use a CHI facility. The CEO (or someone connected to CHI) stated the other day that money for marketing is put aside all the time and that this is a very minor amount in the grand scheme of things. Marketing money is not money that is donated to them, it comes from revenue produced by operating that business which means that those who have used (or will continue to use) CHI hospitals in the area are paying for that name on that building.
Here's a link to the OWH editorial published on Friday, June 22nd:
http://www.omaha.com/opinion/editor...cle_ed65705e-dab2-5e9b-b562-bc4ab9f74dc7.html
Thankfully I'm in good health and haven't had to be in the hospital in over 40 years but I'll sure think about my bill if I ever have to use a CHI facility. The CEO (or someone connected to CHI) stated the other day that money for marketing is put aside all the time and that this is a very minor amount in the grand scheme of things. Marketing money is not money that is donated to them, it comes from revenue produced by operating that business which means that those who have used (or will continue to use) CHI hospitals in the area are paying for that name on that building.
Here's a link to the OWH editorial published on Friday, June 22nd:
http://www.omaha.com/opinion/editor...cle_ed65705e-dab2-5e9b-b562-bc4ab9f74dc7.html
Thanks for this post!
I saw the marketing remark in the original (non-opinion) article the other day. When I read the part of it "just coming from the marketing budget", that popped out to me as well. To a degree it makes it worse. Like they are trying to say "look, this is under the veil of a 'different pot of money'", even though it's all the same money.
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I say not. If, a big IF, any major sports league was looking to expand, they'd pick Kansas City well before Omaha. KC metro has over a million more people than Omaha metro.
Expansion in major league sports won’t happen for a while. Major reason is there isn’t enough talent to support more teams in each of the major sports. Look at the teams at the bottom of each major sport who are only winning 20 to 30% of their games and not making the playoffs. Can Omaha fans who pay $100 plus for each game go 5 to 10 years only winning 30% of their games? Also Omaha doesn’t have the number of TV sets to support a professional team. It’s about the TV revenue that makes a professional team financially stable.
I think Omaha could support the NFL, NBA and NHL in terms of fan support and attendance.
The question is if there is enough corporate dollars to support the franchises. That is a big pot of money you have to have to make it in the professional leagues.
The question is if there is enough corporate dollars to support the franchises. That is a big pot of money you have to have to make it in the professional leagues.
I disagree. This was tried before (sort of) with the Nighthawks at Rosenblatt. Sold out their first few games, but by the end of the season and they hit a slide, the stands were not very full. Moved to TD Ameritrade, and poor attendance remained.
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Edit: I bring up the following items somewhat outside of your point but to establish that you can't just point to them and say those are successful, so a professional sports franchise will be as well.
Creighton basketball is at a good price point for the city. It will continue to be supported because they are consistent from year to year with the occasional high and low, have developed a fan base, have a pool of students with a connection during and after their time at the school, and aren't going anywhere.
CWS, swim trials, etc., are events that parade the best through the city for a week-plus. It's also a "window into our world" that people want to put in the best light. Same for Volleyball regionals/final four and basketball first- and second-round and regional games.
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I don't think there would be sustained interest for a professional sports franchise among the four major sports. It would turn into a situation where people have tickets just to see other teams come through town, and there aren't enough local TV sets to justify remaining in the market. Teams that are losing money move for greener pastures, or sell and move for greener pastures.
As @Native Nebraskan pointed out, there are some top-heavy leagues where contraction is more likely than expansion (specifically the NBA).
That second-tier soccer league, maybe. I think there was an article about it a few months ago.
This statement can be said about a lot of cities Omaha's size.
Speaking of contraction the NFL needs to consider it but Im sure they wont. They need to get rid of two franchises and offset it and make the NFLPA happy by allowing 5-10 more players on the roster and another 5-10 more on the practice squads. The level of play would noticably increase and there would be more parity and less "blah I wouldnt watch this game if the only other choice was bowling" matchups. imo.
As far as Omaha no they couldnt have a pro team and thats ok.
I do think KC could house an NBA or NHL team, but those leagues definitely shouldnt expand.
As far as Omaha no they couldnt have a pro team and thats ok.
I do think KC could house an NBA or NHL team, but those leagues definitely shouldnt expand.
The same was said if Nashville and Oklahoma City. There is no comparing minor league football to one of the big four.
I don’t know if it would be supported. I just think the success or failure of minor league franchises isn’t necessarily an accurate predictor for the success of a major league franchise.
I don’t know if it would be supported. I just think the success or failure of minor league franchises isn’t necessarily an accurate predictor for the success of a major league franchise.
The NHL expanded to Las Vegas this past year and we all know how that went, and the NHL will be expanding to Seattle in 2020-2021. So there is still expansion going on in the pro ranks.
Yes, exactly, the NHL will pick Seattle soon. It's a done deal/
Bingo. Once the Key Arena reno deal was finalized, it was a done deal. Already sold out deposits on season tix too.
I agree that minor league sports isn’t a great barometer of how it would do. I think Nashville isn’t a great comparator of cities but OKC is. I think OKC’s success is a great deal of good fortune. You had 3 of the top 10 players in the league as part of there franchise in the last 10 years. I think just about any moderate major city could have good attendance and success with some combination of Harden, Westbrook, and Durant. Even Westbrook by himself is one of the most exciting players to watch in person or on TV. If you put Hornets, Hawks, Kings etc roster in OKC, I think it is much different story. The problem for Omaha there is better options that don’t have teams. I think Seattle getting a team again will be the first option for the NBA if change happens.
