The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of few sports franchises that can raise ticket prices before expectations and still claim one of the most loyal fan bases in sports.
So paying the most expensive tickets—and rising—in hockey to see a team lose regularly is not only crazy, but it doesn’t give the organization the sense of urgency that they would need to fill the 18,800 seats at the Air Canada Centre.
The Leafs are hockey’s most valuable team at $521 million, according to Forbes magazine. That’s $281 million more than the league average of $240 million.
Of course, everyone knows you just can’t buy a successful team. Look at the mighty New York Yankees of baseball in 2011. With a league-leading payroll of close to $200 million, they topped the 2011 World Series champions St. Louis Cardinals in player salaries by close to $100 million, but still failed to make it beyond the first round of the playoffs.
To illustrate the callousness of the Leafs organization, season-ticket holders for the 2009-10 season saw a 3.5 per cent increase in their packages. They finished last in their division that season.
The last time season ticket holders saw a cut in prices was when the league resumed its season after the lockout that saw the NHL close-out its players due to unsuccessful negotiations over player salaries in 2005. In its aftermath, season ticket prices dropped by as much as five per cent.
The NHL held the priciest tickets in professional sports in 1999, with guess-who leading the pack at an average of $100 a stub. Of course, this can be attributed to the Leafs’ relative success in those years.
Now, your chances of getting a “golden ticket” over the counter at the ACC is equal to your chances of getting a “golden ticket” over the counter at the Chocolate Factory from Charlie himself.
Because of this mad fandom, the secondary sales market for tickets is given a major boost, according to Steve Wolosewich of the Bleacher Report. Scalpers can make a killing by marking up the prices of tickets to ludicrous amounts and fans will still pay.
Despite reports of fan un-appreciation for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment—the company that owns the Maple Leafs— and its CEO Richard Peddie for their willingness to forego any moral reasoning behind escalating ticket prices and the team’s basement-dwelling-worthy performances, the Maple Leafs, as of November 2011, have the most expensive tickets in the NHL at $123.77 a seat (not premium seats), according to Chicago-based Team Marketing Report. To put that into perspective, an average ticket for a Phoenix Coyotes game in 2011 is $36.15—the cheapest in the league.
I’m not saying the Leafs are totally hopeless—in fact, they may even make the playoffs this year! (I’m banking my hopes on the Toronto Star’s study of NHL teams making the playoffs based on whether they are in a playoff position by U.S. Thanksgiving—success rate is 77.3 per cent.) It’s just that the price tag does not match the product.
People will watch anything blue-and-white: pre-season, regular season, and golfing season.
Fans even pack team practices—indoor and outdoor!
And this isn’t even counting traveling Leafs fans for road games.
The Leafs are also in an exclusive club of professional sports franchises unfortunate enough to have a largely unstable fan base, with every loss followed by calls for the head coach to be burned at the stake, and with every win followed by demands to shut down Yonge Street and begin the cup parade.
Montreal is a club member, known for their patented playoff riots—even when they win.
It’s hysterical.
The Leafs haven’t made the playoffs in six years and haven’t won the cup since ‘67. Yet we, Leafs Nation, will still go to our beloved Leafs games regardless of the outcome, or even the totally predicable ones (think Boston Bruins this season).
We will give the team a standing ovation in their last game on home ice only to jeer them next season (like I’m doing now). We know the team will largely remain the same, but we will pay more every year.
Some argue that raising ticket prices is beneficial, despite salary cap restrictions. While the salary cap restricts team spending on players to a certain amount each year, it is beneficial to have more money to take advantage of loopholes in the system. These include: reducing payroll by sending players to the minors and front-loading contracts—paying the bulk of the contract in the starting years—since payrolls are based on average annual contracts, according to Forbes staffer Mike Ozanian.
But with rising ticket prices, underwhelming performances, and more than $81.8 million in operating income last season—as compared to the $41.4 million made by the New York Rangers, the league’s second most valuable team—it isn’t reasonable.
The Rangers are second on Forbes’ list with a valuation of $507 million, while the Montreal Canadiens round out the top three at $445 million. Both teams made the playoffs last season.
Shawn Brookes, director of operations with FanXchange, a website that connects buyers with sellers, said it best to the Hamilton Spectator.
"In the past, they always said it didn't matter what the Leafs produced on the ice because people will still pay top dollar."
