Pro what?

[calihockey]

Ok, I have a problem with people calling their new league a pro league or talking about pro players in the same sentence with their league. Do I knock the attempts at a pro league? No, I do like the idea that there is interest, but I think that some of the ideas are crazy. First of all, if you want a pro league to work, you have to treat it like a product. How do you make your product known? By advertising and presenting a product worth interest. Remember, you do need to earn some kind of capital to stay afloat and pay your players. I will tell you that I have read some of the ideas of these leagues and talked to some of the guys in charge of the leagues and it seems very few actually have a good plan on how to get the league marketed and popular. I would say that Inline Hockey America does have some backing that knows what to do; they just need the support to get things done. I know I make comments over and over about pro leagues, but I know I make a decent point. First of all, you need to get a team in the major media markets in the country (eventually Canada needs to be involved because duh it?s hockey and Canada has a lot of talented players). Then you get teams in markets that are local enough to the big markets that it will help cut down travel costs. If your team only travels at the most 4 hours or so for a majority of the away games, this will be a lot easier to pay for than coast-to-coast trips all season. The next thing to do is to get a working agreement with the NHL. Why? Only because they obviously have the largest hockey fan base in North America. Allow the NHL teams to give half off coupons to their fans. Yes, it would mean you get 4 dollars instead of 8, but would you rather have the 4 dollars or an empty seat? At first, selling out arenas will be difficult, but by getting the advertisement that the coupons or other deals might bring, you increase the public awareness. Have the season begin just after the Stanley Cup finals and end just as training camps start. Why? Because everyone will be worked up over hockey from the playoffs, might as well use that enthusiasm to your advantage. Why would the NHL like this? First of all, it would allow their teams to have promotions that cost less and would also help their public image. Remember, when you talk professional sports, it is a product. They will also be able to feed off of your season. Hockey fans would have hockey year around. The next step is to get a television deal. After RHI who would give you a deal? Well with an agreement with the NHL comes legitimacy. This will help you get your foot in the door. What you do is offer an agreement that will give your league a smaller cut of the media pie for 5 years. You do this because if your league succeeds, the network or networks that you are contracted with will make money. This will make them want to present your league in a more positive light. Anyone in America knows what good media coverage can do. This now gives you the NHL and a network or networks that will stand to make money if you do well. Sounds like a much more stable environment. The next thing to do is to work a deal with NARCh to have a NARCh break so that the pros can play at NARCh. This will keep you in touch with possible corporate sponsors and allow the original roller hockey fan base to be a part of everything. Now after your 5 year agreement is up, you can re-arrange the deal so that you can get more TV income and start turning a profit hopefully or start getting closer to profit. This leads to my most important bit of advice to anyone starting a pro league. If you do not have backers and owners that are going into your league ready to lose money for 5 years before they make gains, you are doomed to begin with. Walt Disney had a difficult time even getting Disneyland finished because of money, but now Walt Disney Corp is a massive empire. My point is that you need to be prepared for people not to come at first. You need to be ready for loses at first. It is going to be a tough road because RHI did a lot of damage to the image of the idea of a Pro roller hockey league. You may think I have no clue what I am talking about, but I do work for the management company of an arena that is home to an NHL team and a former home to one of the best RHI franchises around. If there ever is anyone that does realize what I have said and has the ability to do what I have said, by all means contact me. I would always offer my services to any league that had a true chance of making it. Like I said before, I do not knock ?The Cage?, MLRH, MPRHL or Inline Hockey America for their attempts. In fact, the hope you guys all prove me wrong, but I doubt it. No one seems willing to work together (IHA actually does but it takes more than one) so you will all find you doom eventually. I hope no one takes this as an attack, but take this just as an idea from an informed person who has been around roller hockey for years. I hope there are many replies to this as that would show there is interest for a true pro league, which is something I have wanted for a long time. In closing I would like to thank Bill Rue, Jim Matte, the founders of ?The Cage? and Benny Gulakiw for at least caring enough to take a shot at this. I also call on all of you to work together to come up with something great.

[SpeedDemon]

Just a constructive suggestion, edit your post and try to add some spacing and paragraph (thought) separation. I did make it halfway through the post but it was hard on the eyes to read, and I suspect you won't get nearly the amount of readership you desire unless you make it easier to read.

[calihockey]

Ok, I have a problem with people calling their new league a pro league or talking about pro players in the same sentence with their league. Do I knock the attempts at a pro league? No, I do like the idea that there is interest, but I think that some of the ideas are crazy. First of all, if you want a pro league to work, you have to treat it like a product. How do you make your product known? By advertising and presenting a product worth interest. Remember, you do need to earn some kind of capital to stay afloat and pay your players.

I will tell you that I have read some of the ideas of these leagues and talked to some of the guys in charge of the leagues and it seems very few actually have a good plan on how to get the league marketed and popular. I would say that Inline Hockey America does have some backing that knows what to do; they just need the support to get things done. I know I make comments over and over about pro leagues, but I know I make a decent point.

First of all, you need to get a team in the major media markets in the country (eventually Canada needs to be involved because duh it?s hockey and Canada has a lot of talented players). Then you get teams in markets that are local enough to the big markets that it will help cut down travel costs. If your team only travels at the most 4 hours or so for a majority of the away games, this will be a lot easier to pay for than coast-to-coast trips all season.

The next thing to do is to get a working agreement with the NHL. Why? Only because they obviously have the largest hockey fan base in North America. Allow the NHL teams to give half off coupons to their fans. Yes, it would mean you get 4 dollars instead of 8, but would you rather have the 4 dollars or an empty seat? At first, selling out arenas will be difficult, but by getting the advertisement that the coupons or other deals might bring, you increase the public awareness. Have the season begin just after the Stanley Cup finals and end just as training camps start. Why? Because everyone will be worked up over hockey from the playoffs, might as well use that enthusiasm to your advantage. Why would the NHL like this? First of all, it would allow their teams to have promotions that cost less and would also help their public image. Remember, when you talk professional sports, it is a product. They will also be able to feed off of your season. Hockey fans would have hockey year around.

The next step is to get a television deal. After RHI who would give you a deal? Well with an agreement with the NHL comes legitimacy. This will help you get your foot in the door. What you do is offer an agreement that will give your league a smaller cut of the media pie for 5 years. You do this because if your league succeeds, the network or networks that you are contracted with will make money. This will make them want to present your league in a more positive light. Anyone in America knows what good media coverage can do. This now gives you the NHL and a network or networks that will stand to make money if you do well. Sounds like a much more stable environment.

The next thing to do is to work a deal with NARCh to have a NARCh break so that the pros can play at NARCh. This will keep you in touch with possible corporate sponsors and allow the original roller hockey fan base to be a part of everything. Now after your 5 year agreement is up, you can re-arrange the deal so that you can get more TV income and start turning a profit hopefully or start getting closer to profit.

This leads to my most important bit of advice to anyone starting a pro league. If you do not have backers and owners that are going into your league ready to lose money for 5 years before they make gains, you are doomed to begin with. Walt Disney had a difficult time even getting Disneyland finished because of money, but now Walt Disney Corp is a massive empire. My point is that you need to be prepared for people not to come at first. You need to be ready for loses at first. It is going to be a tough road because RHI did a lot of damage to the image of the idea of a Pro roller hockey league.

You may think I have no clue what I am talking about, but I do work for the management company of an arena that is home to an NHL team and a former home to one of the best RHI franchises around. If there ever is anyone that does realize what I have said and has the ability to do what I have said, by all means contact me. I would always offer my services to any league that had a true chance of making it.

Like I said before, I do not knock ?The Cage?, MLRH, MPRHL or Inline Hockey America for their attempts. In fact, the hope you guys all prove me wrong, but I doubt it. No one seems willing to work together (IHA actually does but it takes more than one) so you will all find you doom eventually. I hope no one takes this as an attack, but take this just as an idea from an informed person who has been around roller hockey for years. I hope there are many replies to this as that would show there is interest for a true pro league, which is something I have wanted for a long time.

In closing I would like to thank Bill Rue, Jim Matte, the founders of ?The Cage? and Benny Gulakiw for at least caring enough to take a shot at this. I also call on all of you to work together to come up with something great.

[calihockey]

do you understand how much it costs to build the arenas? it is very costly. The jumbotron at the GM Place is Vancouver, BC cost more than their old arena cost. That's right, the whole arena was less than the new jumbotron. It takes a lot of work to get an arena in. Usually the county that the arena is being built in must come up with a good part of the funding for it. This could require a increase in taxes. How many counties are going to allow a tax increase to build an arena for a pro roller hockey team? not many, if any. At our arena, we have events where we only sell the bottom bowl of the arena. our fight night events do this. it reduces the cost of the rental and helps make even the cheapest seat a good seat. trust me, i know what the budgeting is like for pro teams. in interact with the nhl team's staff atleast 3 or 4 times a week. I also know a few who were involved with our old roller team. I also report to the ticket office manager so trust me when I tell you I am well aware of cost of renting an arena. The thing that would really hurt a pro league is travel. You can always find an arena and make an arrangement. From our standpoint (arena management companies) we do not have events every night. We do still have to power the arena and the more events the better. we have had some really off the wall events, but if someone is willing to work out a lease, we are always willing to listen and try to work hard to reach an agreement. Obviously it would cost us way too much to give away the arena for the games, but remember we do well when we put people in the seats too. I urge you to contact the general manager of your local arena and ask about this topic. The costs for an arena can be worked out.

[MDE3]

Obviously you are well versed on the difficulty of marketing seats for arena event sales. And yes this hits at the heart of the future of any Professional Inline Hockey League. There is a chicken and egg situation faced by all the leagues and team owners - if we have a place to seat 4000 people - can we fill the seats?

I suggested in a different post that several teams in a local region might use the same arena - based on having these teams in an area that already has the demographics to support an existing arena of appropriate size.

As in north/central New Jersey and the greater Philadelphia area - there are I believe 8 MLRH teams. Two larger arenas could possibly serve all the games played - leaving the practices at the current "local" arenas.

I dont believe that too many "local" fans would be lost because many fans who might come already percieve these games as a "non event" due to the lack of seating or lack of serious format of presentation. IE trying to be a "professional" league while holding games in an arena never designed to seat anybody. Only diehard relatives, friends and girlfriends come to see these games. Much of which is due to the credibility gap of playing a "professional sport" in a totally "fan unfriendly" or "non pro-image" environment. The credibility of the games themselves - which ARE entertaining and worth paying to see, is seriously impinged by the lack of any creature comforts for the fans. A perception is held by the fans that this must not be a serious venture if it is being hosted in such a "mickey mouse" environment. Remember we are already conditioned as fans to judge the popularity or credibility of a sport by how many other people come to watch.

Of course filling a "half rink" arena is much easier than a whole rink. And in order to do so marketing plans must be made and implemented and of course money committed - just like any other venture. Without serious arenas in which to play - I do not see this league going beyond it's current stature. Having centrally located shared arenas for the short term at least is the "best bang for the buck" that I can see. Having teams already located in geographically/demographically convenient areas (also in Virginia I believe) could become the guideline for selecting league growth.

This is not to demean the current efforts which are already tremendous, and a really the only way to start, but to reach the next level and still keep costs manageable this may be the only viable alternative. ( It would also be handy if there was a useable temporary floor that could be rapidly installed over an ice surface).