The Winnipeg Jets might need to build a new arena to keep their franchise

The population of the city of Winnipeg sits just over 764,000 people, making it the smallest market in the entire league, and that by a big margin. Can an NHL team remain in such a small city for that much longer? The team already left the city in 1996 when they relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, so anything is possible again.

One major problem that has been leading to attendance issues in Winnipeg recently is the cost to attend a game. The average cost for a family of four to attend an NHL game is $313.68. The lowest Canadian team cost is for the Ottawa Senators, at $328.92. How much does it cost for Winnipegers to attend an NHL game you might ask? It comes in around $370 per game, as Winnipeg has the third highest average ticket prices in the NHL, at $82 per ticket.

True North Sports and Entertainment chairman Mark Chipman was asked why ticket prices are so high in Winnipeg, and he explained that it is due to the fact that the MTS Centre, which is the arena that the Jets play out of, is one of the smallest in the league at roughly 15,000 seats, therefore in order to maximize profits seeing as less people can attend games, they need to charge more. This model doesn't seem sustainable any longer, as attendance numbers in the city are plummeting.

Chipman also mentioned that the team would not be spending all the way up to the salary cap, and they would prefer to remain in the mid-range between 10-20th place. That means that fans cannot expect them to spend big dollars on acquiring superstars. The team is going to remain very average at best, which will further limit fans from wanting to spend money to go to games.

It appears the only solution here would be to have a bigger arena built in Winnipeg, in order to allow more fans to attend games, which would lead to lower ticket prices. Perhaps then the team would be willing to spend more on players once they make more profit from all of the extra ticket sales in a bigger arena.

The biggest question that needs to be asked is, what guarantees can the NHL and True North Sports and Entertainment give the Winnipeg Jets hockey fans that they won't face the heartbreak of losing their team to relocation again...

Source: Spector's Hockey
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