Falcons drawing outside interest |
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By Chris Maza
Reminder Assistant Editor
SPRINGFIELD -- The Falcons want to stay in Springfield beyond this season, but as the season gets closer, it's looking more and more like Springfield isn't reciprocating those sentiments.
Falcons president and general manager Bruce Landon told Reminder Publications there are "about 15 different inquires" made about taking over full or partial ownership of the team and none of the serious inquiries have come from parties within the Greater Springfield area.
Landon added that only one potential investor from the area "kicked the tires," but nothing further was done.
"There's no secrets we're looking for potential investors to either come in with this group (Springfield Hockey, LLC) or buy the whole thing completely," Landon said. "I've been optimistic that we could find something at the local level. Unfortunately, nothing at the local level has surfaced over the last several months and the interest in the franchise is all from outside groups."
Landon admitted that if the Falcons do not receive any legitimate offers from within the local market, from a business aspect, they would have to entertain the outside offers, which could result in the relocation of the team.
"With that there's always the concern that if something serious is put in front of us, we'd have to consider it and go from there," Landon said.
Season ticket sales remain a large part of what keeps the team afloat and those sales continue to drag as the regular season quickly approaches. The Falcons' first home game is Oct. 9 against Providence.
"We're right in the bottom of the league in terms of season tickets," Landon said. "We're lower than a team like Binghamton, N.Y., which is a much smaller market. We do very well in our corporate sponsorships and with our group sales, but going into a season with the very, very low season ticket base, it makes it very difficult to lean on your walk up sales and your group ticket sales to get you to the number you need."
Landon added that he has thought that if the team could sustain 500 new full-season ticket sales every year, it would put the team "a hell of a lot closer to where we need to be."
However, at this point, the budget for season ticket sales is lower than last year.
One of the major differences between the Falcons and Landon's example of Binghamton has been the recent success of the franchises.
The Falcons have not had a winning season since the 1997-98 campaign, when they finished first in the New England Division. At the end of last season, the Falcons were the only team in the American Hockey League that didn't have at least 30 wins and fans had suffered through a 17-game winless streak.
Binghamton plays in the powerful East Division, which has produced three of the last five Calder Cup winning teams. Still, the team has managed a winning record each of the last three seasons, including a 41-win season two years ago.
Still, Landon would not speculate if a strong season by the Falcons, which is now equipped with new personnel through the new affiliation with the Columbus Blue Jackets, would be enough to save the team.
"That's a very good question and that's a question I can't answer, honestly," Landon said. "I don't know how the people are going to respond. If you're a competitively strong hockey team, then you hope that translates into more people. If that translated into more people, obviously, it solves more of the issues."
Landon said that if nothing happens on the ownership front this year and the team performs well and "creates a buzz," that will weigh in on the ownership's future decision making. He also indicated, however, the current ownership group will not wait to see if the team's performance turns things around.
"This has been very public for several months now, that ownership would look at other options if they are presented to us," Landon said. "If we're in November and the season's basically just underway and something gets presented to us, we'll look at it. We're not going to wait and see how the season goes. We'll look at any offer that comes our way, whether it be locally or from outside the area."
Landon knows it's unrealistic to expect to sell out the MassMutual Center, which holds over 6,500 seats for hockey games and said the team doesn't need to put nearly that many in the seats to maintain a successful franchise. However, things must improve from the 3,644 average attendance from last season.
"We don't need to be drawing 5,000 people a game. We'd love to, but we need to get the average back up to that 4,200 or 4,300 range," Landon said. "If this area can't support [the team] to the tune of 4,200 or 4,300 a game, then certainly a lot of questions have to be asked."
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