Why do the Vancouver Canucks not market their team in the Seattle area?

Question

Marketing stops at the border, which is nuts since Seattle's only 2½ hours from Vancouver and they have two WHL teams in the metro area.

I've met people from Alaska and Montana who come to see the Mariners play at their games, but I've rarely met people from Washington state at Canucks games. What are these Canadian people thinking? The don't even broadcast games in the Seattle area!

This is part I of II, by the way.

Answer 1

I have grown up with the Canucks and they have ALWAYS been that way. Hell, they have never really marketed them all that well up here. Promotions--what's that? There are none.

It's the Canadian mentality. Marketing is a concept that escapes most Canadian companies let alone sports teams.

The Canucks sell out now as the team wins. You should have seen what happened when we had a losing team in the '80s. You think they'd want the building full but nooooo. They do finally have a select few (like one game a month) where you can buy single seats at half price.

Answer 2

I read the Seattle Times On-line daily and in there hockey section, they've got the Canucks as the main team.
But I guess it would be because of Television broadcasting. As far as I know Washington does not receive Sportsnet or TSN, which will make it harder to draw interest in the market.

From an article and poll I read a few months ago on the Times, people in Portland would rather dump the NBA team and get an NHL team.
So I think if that were to ever happen, you'll see the Portland team get coverage in Seattle.

Answer 3

The Canucks have the luxury of being the big draw in town sports wise. We lost the Grizzlies to Memphis and since then, there's only the WHL Giants & CFL Lions that can even try to draw an capacity audience, but don't.

Because of this "monopoly" so to speak, and also it being Canada (hockey crazy country afterall) the Nucks are sold out game after game, especially since the team's been performing the past few years.

That, and as someone else said before, the US doesn't care about hockey. I read in a Bill Simmons (the Sports Guy) article that a SoCal Women's softball game garnered higher ratings than one of the games of the Stanley Cup finals this year. Now that's prob just SoCal demographics they used, but nevertheless, the pinnacle of the NHL season, and the ratings are lower than a college softball game...that's just sad, and it also says a lot about the draw of the NHL in some parts of the US.

(some sports you just don't need to market, hell, I go to about 4 Seahawks games a year and I will for as long as I can, and that's w/zero advertisement of the NFL game up here, well, national tv coverage aside that is...)

Answer 4

I live in Vancouver. There is no need to market the team - AT ALL. Every game is sold out, their merchandise flies off the shelves in Vancouver, and the team is popular. I think that the ownership figures 'why bother' when they've already got such a good economic situation going. More interest in the Canucks would just raise ticket prices for Canucks fans living IN VANCOUVER.

Answer 5

It's not a matter of the team broadcasting the games.
The league signs contracts with broadcast companies, as for Canada the games are mostly shown on CBC, TSN and Rogers Sportsnet.

As for the US, the games were shown on OLN nationally and Fox Sportsnet in specific hockey markets.

OLN can't simply broadcast a specific market because their contract was national, I believe they could only broadcast Canadian teams when they were playing in the US since Canada has the monopoly on the Canadian games with the 3 broadcast companies mentioned above.

Answer 6

The only thing I can think of is that they spend most of their money just on the Canadian fanbase. Considering Canada is where hockey is king, I guess they want to rake in as many fans from there without worrying about a city that is 2 1/2 hours away in a country where hockey is the #4 sport at best.

Answer 7

The whole point of the losing team getting a point in OTL and switching to 4 x 4 is that for those 5 minutes, there is nothing to lose, resulting in a fast paced 5 minutes with a high chance of scoring. Plus everyone hates a tied game. Thats why they got rid of them... If you had to risk losing a point that you would otherwise get for the game being tied, then the players for your 10 min 4 on 4 OT would just play defensively like they did for the other 60 minutes of play... rather then going all out as they do for the current 5 min 4 on 4 OT.

Answer 8

you're talking about 2 different countries here!!! i'm not sure i'd support an american team if i lived in canada, i'd support something from my own city, unless off course they're rubbish, and since canadian teams are principally better hockey players then americans (forget the stanley cup for the last 4 or 5 years), so therefore i woukld indeed support a canadian team. but you get the picture i guess,... i't's a different country and that's probably the reason --> you won't find many swedish jerseys and merchandise just across the swedish- finnish border on the finnish side,.... will you?!!

Answer 9

Excellent observation. Often when I have been in Seattle to watch Blue Jays/Mariners baseball, the Seattle fans will ask me how the Canucks are doing. Seattle /Portland is more a natural hockey area than Florida.ARE YOU LISTENING GARY BETTMAN!

Answer 10

Probably because many Americans don't have interest in watching hockey. Why? I don't know, it just seems that way. ESPN no longer shows NHL games during the season and hockey barely got any recognition among other sports last night at the ESPY's.