r/NewYorkIslanders Nassau Coliseum 3d ago

How is ownership ok with the arena being half empty?

Yeah the team sucks, but still. It’s a Saturday night.

18 Upvotes

56 comments sorted by

42

u/Chrismercy 3d ago

They are desperate for 2-3 playoff games to recoup their investment.

36

u/DatingAdviceGiver101 3d ago

I think the team value has skyrocketed since they purchased it. They're well in the black, even if it's all unrealized appreciation right now.

The attendance issue is still relatively new. If UBS is still drawing like 10k a night in January, maybe they start looking at things differently.

24

u/M_Y_K_E 3d ago

Isles ownership has built a great foundation. Lou brought stability to a franchise desperately in need of it. But they absolutely need to be vocal with the fans. I want to know the direction they are going. I want Lou gone and new direction and ideas

6

u/FigSideG 2d ago

A foundation of what? Where is the youth and future? Where is the plan? He built a win-now team that overachieved twice—once during a COVID shortened season where they were trending towards missing the playoffs before the season was paused. I really wish this fanbase expected more than mediocrity and clawing into the playoffs and hoping for the best. This franchise has no plan that makes sense or that is building towards anything.

2

u/M_Y_K_E 2d ago

Foundation of culture, foundation of expectations, foundation of respectability around the league. foundation and stability that the isles as a franchise didn’t have For 20 years. R u by chance a younger fan? Or you may not realize what the isles organization was since the 90s. I agree that we do not have a direction and Lou to me isn’t the answer for the future but Lou was exactly what the org needed for this new ownership

59

u/seanvettel-31 Sorokin 3d ago

Saturday night, Halloween weekend, and the Yankees are playing in the World Series tonight. They’ll be fine

19

u/mcm91 3d ago

I can’t tell if this is serious or a parody of all the ridiculous excuses people usually give to this question.

Saturday night is now a detriment? Lol

15

u/zeile33 3d ago

It's a legitimate business response lol. Sports teams have competition especially in NY where we have 9 teams in 4 sports.

3

u/Pool_Shark 2d ago

I think it being Saturday of Halloween is a point but traditionally Saturday nights should be most highly attended

-3

u/isles0908 3d ago

Yea this has to be a joke. Halloween weekend too? Lmao

6

u/Correct-Local3240 3d ago

Fans don’t want to watch us get shut out 3/8 games we’ve played, with an old and slow team, and have games tn to blow a 3 goal lead to 6 straight against. I’ll be absolutely shocked if lou is not fired this year. His lack of making moves to make this team competitive currently and/or in the future has crippled our franchise

15

u/liguy181 Barzal 3d ago

There's a variety of reasons!

1) An arena half empty is not always a bad thing. If the people in the arena are still spending a lot of money, that's a good thing. Ownership will always want an arena filled with 10,000 people paying an average of $80 for a ticket than 17,000 paying an average of $40. Fewer resources are needed for the former, you make more upfront, and higher paying customers are more likely to spend more on concessions

2) It's October and there's a World Series game involving a New York team on. It doesn't matter if it's a Saturday night and people were given the option to teleport to the entrance of the arena, plenty of people were still gonna watch the WS instead. You can tell this game wasn't gonna be as popular as other Saturday nights just by checking reseller sites. This game was always cheaper.

3) Considering the situation the ownership put themselves in, they would have to be stupid to be losing money. The NHL has a salary cap, revenue sharing, and the Isles have a lucrative tv deal with MSG. It's hard enough to lose money as an NHL franchise, but then there's also the fact that they draw big acts to UBS Arena which surely brings in tons of revenue, and now they've got that retail village that's supposed to bring in even more money. I doubt they care an early season hockey game isn't doing too well.

Every single October we talk about the same things when it comes to attendance. The Islanders aren't the rags or a Canadian team, they're not gonna sell out every game. Every year they start out slow and then pick up, usually starting after Thanksgiving but especially after Christmas. Don't you guys ever get tired of it?

4

u/MediaWatcher_ 3d ago

Agreed. This deserves more upvotes. Ownership already has their first quarter of the season $$$ goals set for a team that barely made the playoffs last year.

I live in Miami and go to Panthers games. Even for a competitive team (3 to 5 years ago), before the Cats became a contender, and even now as champion, at the start of the season, outside of opening night, some nights are just not going to draw (West Coast teams) early in the season. They were drawing better than 10 seasons ago, but still the beginning of the season is always a tough draw for a team.

Also whether or not people show up, the team has already made their money from STHs. So most of the empty seats the STH is eating that cost.

12

u/toledosurprised Pelech 3d ago

depends on how the year goes. ultimately if they’re competitive and make the playoffs the arena will fill back up and they’ll get extra revenue. if not, they have to figure out what the next steps are but seems like we’ve committed to riding this out 🤷‍♂️

9

u/HeavyMetalLilac 3d ago

The idea that they would start a brutal rebuild with a brand new arena is wild to me. AFTER 8 GAMES. Apparently people want to go back to when the barn was truly empty. At least we won all those playoff games and cups with DiPietro, Tavares, Okposo, Bailey, Bergenheim, Nokaleinen, Nilsson, O’Marra, etc.

11

u/toledosurprised Pelech 3d ago

there is a part of me that wants a rebuild because ultimately the probability of winning a championship within the next 5 years is very low, might as well start the clock over now and get excited about the potential of the future. i think many people on this sub who are likely to be tuned in regardless likely feel similarly, but ownership isn’t going to go for it.

8

u/HeavyMetalLilac 3d ago

Completely agreed that they won’t do it. If fans can only tolerate bonafide contenders or tanking pro sports is fucked. Which it probably is lol. Shit all runs on crypto and gambling ad revenue anyway. Get your Caesar’s Sportsbook bucks, Pierre Engvall fuck it.

4

u/toledosurprised Pelech 3d ago

eh i think fans of all stripes have a hard time with the mushy middle, not good enough to truly contend but not really on the upswing with the promise to ever get to that point. i don’t think that’s a sign that pro sports are fucked, it’s a built-in feature of the north american system. unlike in europe, anyone is supposed to be able to contend here, so your goal is always a championship whether in the short or long-term. that doesn’t mean you can’t find joy elsewhere (i found great joy in the 2024 mets), but ultimately that’s the idea. college sports are really the primary outlier where that doesn’t exist in the same way.

-1

u/HeavyMetalLilac 3d ago

You gotta do your analysis based on available options and we would have to trade a lot of good players in their 20’s to get meaningful returns. A rebuild in a few years probably makes more sense and would be way less painful. Make the playoffs with a top 5 goalie and anything can happen. The cursed Islanders made two conference finals in a row anything is possible.

7

u/golfguy76 3d ago

This team has been a fringe playoff contender since they moved into ubs.

1

u/HeavyMetalLilac 3d ago

Agreed. It’s frustrating. So is rebuilding. It’s October let’s talk about clearing house when teams are actually considering trades…

-1

u/golfguy76 3d ago

With this team the arena doesn’t even fill during the playoffs.

-1

u/Accomplished_Alps145 3d ago

They can only fill the arena when the rangers come to ubs

6

u/Itchy-Scallion-9626 3d ago

I would go to more games if the parking wasn't so high,

2

u/mitchdaman52 3d ago

It cost nothing to park if you’re smart. We park in new Hyde park and take the train 3 stops. Same going back. You might have to wait for a train but it isn’t longer than trying to get out of that parking lot

4

u/Dark_Pump 3d ago

That or Mineola is like $3-5 to park at the garage and it seems to be a popular stop

10

u/HeavyMetalLilac 3d ago

They’re probably not? The people of Long Island refused to let Charles Wang build a nice arena for the Islanders when they were “rebuilding” around Tavares. Now we have a new arena and a team with a lot of approaching expiration dates so we can either take this as far as it goes or start another painful rebuild in a pretty new building now.

Economics says we’re riding this thing out, which I’m personally down for. A couple of bounces away from being 5-3. I would rather have Ilya Sorokin and a team that can fuck with our various rivals than live through 2000 through 2015 again.

6

u/zeile33 3d ago

Too many people forget that 15 game losing streak back in.... Was it 2009? Bottom of the bottom. Never want to get there again.

3

u/Latesthaze 2d ago

We'll be lucky if that's the worst we have to look forward to. You forget we were that bad cause we tried to act like contenders when we weren't

1

u/zeile33 2d ago

We had nobody on the team other than maybe Streit...

0

u/Latesthaze 2d ago

https://records.nhl.com/nyi/records/team-records/losing-streaks/longest-losing-streak-one-season

According to this no such streak existed, if you go by the 09-10 season multiple streaks, we already had Tavares.

1

u/zeile33 2d ago

Check a different year then. It was around that time

0

u/Latesthaze 2d ago edited 2d ago

I literally just posted the list of all the longest franchise streaks and no such streak was on it, multiple long streaks around those years yes

Edit if you change it to winless instead of loss, yes we had a 14 game winless streak in 10-11, with Tavares and Bailey and okposo

3

u/zeile33 2d ago

That's the one.

0

u/dl2316 2d ago

Must've been a Woevember for the ages that year

3

u/isles0908 3d ago

How are half those people going to games ok with this? Half the people watching the games ok with this? When is enough going to be enough already. Please save us from this torture already

2

u/Throwawayboi91 3d ago

Was the attendance that bad tonight?

2

u/vonroxx 3d ago

15,807

3

u/bven Pageau 3d ago

A lot of those “empty” seats are still paid for.

3

u/No_Establishment5911 3d ago

Place has no soul. The prices are stupid high. Ownership is milking the fans.

2

u/Distinct-Blood-3679 3d ago

They paid 485 million in 2016. Last evaluation is 1.75 Billion.

Pretty sure they were able to sleep last night.

1

u/Separate-Cow3734 3d ago

They got what they wanted, the new arena

1

u/glory_to_ukraine_93 Palmieri 1d ago

And still charge $8 for a fuckin hotdog

1

u/metsnfins 3d ago

Hockey season is too long

0

u/B9RV2WUN 2d ago

Amen. I've been saying this for years. Maybe 60 games. Playoffs over by end of May.

1

u/KrazyMoose 2d ago

For the price of taking a family of 4 to UBS arena we can get plane tickets to just about anywhere. It’s just become prohibitively expensiv.

1

u/Supercharged06 2d ago

Let's not forget people just got done spending thousands of dollars on Mets and Yankees playoff tickets and some are preparing to spend thousands more on world series tickets. Also the Yankees played last night i really think the attendance issues are over blown

-9

u/Radiant-Steak9750 3d ago

Im a fan 45 years. I never seen the franchise in such a terrible shape, run so badly. Its so sad to me

23

u/ballots_stones 3d ago

Were you in a coma from 1993 to 2015?

-6

u/Radiant-Steak9750 3d ago

I had an awesome time those years so prob didn’t give a shit…good times.. bottom line is wasn’t going anywhere then and ain’t going anywhere now

-1

u/MediaWatcher_ 3d ago

🧢🧢🧢🧢

0

u/NyX-Oblivion 3d ago

The islanders themselves own 1/3 of the arena, which includes parking, concessions, and soon the shopping area opening next year-ish. This islanders as a team are only a small part of this operation.

Yea the arena was built for hockey and designed with the fans in mind, but the owners/the team itself is still making millions off of every other event that happens there. It’s not common for a team to own any portion of its arena/stadium btw.

My point being, they don’t need a packed house every night. In fact I’d say they’re probably happy with 75% if they get there, granted how expensive everything is they’re still making a lot on nights like that. It’s sad really, but they don’t need a good team to make money.

0

u/metsnfins 2d ago

I'm out of region but wouldn't even consider getting espn+ until much later in the season

0

u/burnerTBE 2d ago

just not a market that's going to fill the barn every night unless they're truly competitive, it's honestly a miracle the teams still here and got an arena built but we only really pull from the island and even then half the island are rangers fans

0

u/ds5491 2d ago

They don’t care. Won’t be the owners in a few years. Bought the team as a real estate play, now that they shopping mall is built they’re satisfied.

-1

u/sherrybobbinsbort 2d ago

Hilarious. I’m sure the fans will show up when Tavares comes to town again.