It is no secret that the Dallas Stars are a franchise operating with one arm tied behind their back until they find a real owner. Their management, however, is still responsible for the decisions they make--and need be held accountable when those decisions insult the faithful.
The management has made the decision to treat all pre-season games as 'full price admissions' this year--even for those fans who had already bought a game package with some...hope, if not expectation, of a pre-season game promotion to be included, as in years past.
When dealing from a position of strength, any retailer can dictate terms: car dealers can charge above sticker for in-demand models, clothing stores for hot designer labels--and winning sports franchises for the glorified practices call 'pre-season games.' The emphases there should be on 'position of strength' and especially 'winning'--because it has been too long since the Stars dealt from either.
Let's recap: their sport and it's professional league, the NHL, still hasn't recovered from a lost season, lacks a real US national television presence, and struggles to remain the fourth of the 'big four' against such interests as soccer and mixed martial arts; the team has, in consecutive seasons, dispatched the only two recognizable faces they still boasted in the broader DFW community then failed to retain their only real star player; and when last seen on the ice, was blowing a gift opportunity to redeem a late season collapse and make the playoffs (playoffs they haven't otherwise sniffed in years). That ain't strength.
So their plan to try to address this negativity and build some buzz and momentum for 2011-2012 is to see how empty they can make the American Airlines Center in pre-season? And then--what? Hope all those empty seats generate phantom enthusiasm from MIA fans to come back for the real games?
One of the problems with sales tactics like jacking up prices for hot cars, designer clothes and pre-season games even when dealing from strength is that it is classic 'short term gain at long term cost:' even the buyers who pay it know they are being had, and may not be so interested when time to make a routine purchase from that same seller comes along again--and those who are sufficiently put off or offended not to pay it in the first place get turned, in a moment, from ally to adversary.
If even the short-term gain isn't being had by such management decisions...
The Stars need an owner. Yesterday.
One hopes one of the first things that still-imaginary person does is take whomever is making these management decisions to the woodshed, for the willful devaluing of his hockey team...
Thanks for killing the buzz before game one for a team everyone expects to struggle even if everything goes well, management. I suppose that's why they call it 'management' instead of 'leadership.'
I will still be cheering my Stars. Just from home, where they can't hear me. And from where I am unlikely to get sufficiently caught up in the experience that I make returning a priority. Which, of course, is why they call such courtesies as free pre-season games extended to ticket-package buyers 'promotions'...