Em› Frozen de Blog marcar de um vencedor em Washington, “o mercado bom do Hockey”

É grande olhar maravilhoso, mas agora os tampões' são um vencedor bem parecido. Washington loves nothing so much as a front- runner, and a Caps’ ticket sales staff that for years had to pitch an at times far-off seeming future can now point to a present that includes things like sweeping the Ottawa Senators and vying for first in the Southeast division. Paid admissions this season, McDermott told me, will be up 15-20 percent over last season.

And if winning weren’t enough, the team’s sales staff gets to market a set of young stars catching the notice of the entire hockey world.

“We are fortunate to have what we call our four young guns,” McDermott told me, alluding to Alexanders Ovechkin and Semin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green. “You can honestly and very objectively sit back and say that for the next 10 years this is a team that’s going to compete for the playoffs, this is a team we hope that will compete for the Stanley Cup,” he added.

So the Caps are not only winning but doing so with young star power. It’s a fantastically appealing headlining quartet — a Rat Pack on skates — and a core of the team positioned to play together many years. Who wouldn’t be lured in by that? Hence, Gang Green, Ovie’s Crazy 8s.

And to this already potent marketing mix management has added the immensely quotable and feel-good story of hockey perseverance in Bruce Boudreau. He dresses a bit oddly, he’s chock full of fabulous tales, he never fails to deliver a money quote after games, and from his gaudy stint of winning in Hershey he’s vested in most of the Capitals’ young core. He just seems the right guy for the part.

Home crowds here typically start out discouragingly small in October and November, no matter the team’s forecast or its early season success. Then, come January, after the Redskins’ season is completed, there’s long been a healthy improvement in puck patronage. But there’s something different about this season’s mid-winter attendance improvement: its vastness.

Ovechkin in Caps shirt - photo by Sovietsky Sport The Caps’ three most recent home games have all seen attendance solidly above 17,000 — and for two of those dates, the opposition came from the Southeast division, long a yawning bane to HockeyWashington’s Old Guard who feasted on the high nutrition fare of Patrick Division foes for years. Last Friday night, fully 45 minutes before the Caps squared off against Carolina, the number of tickets available to F St. walk-ups for seats in the 100 and 400 levels was zero.

Nada.

As if Hanna Montana was in the house.

Perhaps even more interesting was a new demographic among them: college students. No fewer than 2,300 area collegians took part in the Capitals’ Student Rush program last Friday night, by which they can access tickets at admission rates even college kids can afford: $25 for seats in the lower bowl, $10 upstairs. How did the Caps lure thousands away from campus keggers on a Friday night? With winning, but also with aggressive and well-placed branding, particularly in social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

“Our street teams have actually been on the campuses,” Van Stone told me, alluding to Caps’ staffers who this season have regularly been out promoting the team at Metro stations, area businesses, and now college campuses, distributing t-shirts, pocket schedules, and even hot dogs to promote $1 Dog Night.

Verizon Center as the world’s largest frat house? You have to admit, the Friday night atmosphere in there has changed — and for the better — of late. And while college-budget-friendly admission rates to see Alex Ovechkin are inducement indeed, the hordes of collegians may also be responding to the team’s youth: in their ages, the likes of Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Mike Green, among others, are their peers.

The swell in popularity isn’t restricted to game attendance, either. According to McDermott, Comcast viewership for Caps’ broadcasts is up 37 percent this season over last. That viewership is virtually certain to increase during the stretch run, too, particularly if the team remains in contention for the Southeast title.

It was predictable that the team’s winning ways would garner some level of interest from sports Washington, but not to be overlooked in the equation is the perhaps redefining, landscape-altering, sublime performance of Hart Trophy candidate Alexander Ovechkin. The Caps and this city simply have never seen his likes in the team’s sweater before. Nor for that matter has the rest of the league.

Sunday afternoon a camera broadcasting a feed to Verizon Center’s state-of-the-art, high definition center-ice scoreboard honed in on Ovechkin on the Caps’ bench. Ovie being Ovie, as soon as he realized he was on camera, he beamed that gap-toothed grin of his and the arena erupted. Of course soon thereafter he scored a goal, and the team came back from a 2-1 deficit and prevailed in overtime against the Rangers. Ovechkin’s hold on HockeyWashington — which is expanding — is irrefutable. And thanks to Caps’ management early in 2008, that courtship will endure past next decade. Van Stone and McDermott confirmed for me that fans are purchasing ticket plans for this season — as well as putting down deposits for next — while citing the new deal for Ovie as a reason.

So with the arena virtually full, revenues up all around, and the team in first place these days, the branding work must largely be finished for the Caps, right? Wrong, claims McDermott.

“What I’ve learned is that we have to be prepared for success, to capitalize on it,” he told me. “That means that we can’t ‘go dark’ once the season is over. We have to find a way to connect with hockey fans here even in the offseason. That’s what we’re thinking about now, ideas for doing that.”

“The rebuild is over,” the team’s owner conspicuously claimed at the onset of training camp last fall. Now it appears that Ted’s team — the one on the ice as well as the one off it — is buiding an infrastructure to make Washington a durably built hockey town. Tickets, if you can believe it, are already becoming scarce.

12 Comments

keydet wrote:

Great Post. I’ve been delayed in redeeming my Season Ticket Holder “Holiday Gift” ticket voucher. On Sunday, when I went to pick up tickets, I was informed that they didn’t have any tickets left for the last two games they had available for the voucher. They actually had to make another game available for redemption- February 26 vs. the MN Wild. Same went for ticket trade in for recently unused tickets from my plan. That is a great sign that ticket sales are up.

Oh, and lets not forget that on Sunday, the Verizon Center was packed, but not with Ranger fans for once. That was a great thing to see.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 9:49 am | Permalink
vt caps fan wrote:

While I loved the article, I have 1 fear that was noticeably left out: The Nats.

Caps fans and Nats fans are the same demographic. With the new stadium opening up, does anyone thing that Caps attendance will decrease a bit? I know the Nats are home when the Caps are on the road when baseball starts up, but what if we make the playoffs and the Nats win there first few series.

College kids may decide to go to see the Nats cause they’re only around for a few more weeks, and have been to the Caps games already. Granted the bandwagoners will come out and scoop up those unsold playoff tickets, but will they keep it up?

Remember our last trip to the playoffs, the Caps had an afternoon weekend game that had MAYBE 12k people (I believe it was Easter weekend - which explains a lot), but we had no baseball to compete with.

Could this happen again?

Either way, I’m sorry for the pessimistic attitude. I love this post. I’d love to find out if the Nats win a few series, and the Caps keep winning… We’ll all be happy.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 10:05 am | Permalink
Dez wrote:

I don’t know.. I feel that while the college kids might bail on the Caps when the Nats start up.. (mainly so they can see their local teams, Mets, etc..), I see the suits starting to snap some of those seats up.

I remember that especially being the case back in ‘98 when I was a college student and couldn’t get/afford the tickets left cause the others were gone..

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 10:23 am | Permalink
Bethami Auerbach wrote:

The hometown MSM media coverage still has miles to go, despite Tarik’s efforts. Yesterday (2/11), on Jim Zorn’s Day 1, Post readers learned every scrap of news about the new coach, down to the viola-playing in his past (interesting), but coverage of the Caps’ exciting OT win over the Rangers didn’t even make the front Sports page . . . edged out, below the fold, by a story about a game the Wizards lost. And the published hockey stats still are a joke. We don’t even see teams’ records over the past 10 games or individual stats for Caps’ upcoming opponents, both of which would be at least a step toward more fan-friendly coverage.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 10:43 am | Permalink
DC Sports Chick wrote:

Well, the GW-Catholic faceoff after the Caps game probably had a little to do with the high college attendance on Friday (there were easily at least 300 who stayed), but the marketing efforts are definitely having an impact. I heard a couple of them say that they had never been to a hockey game before and wondered when the next Student Rush event was. Glad things are looking up in Caps land.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 11:50 am | Permalink
The Peerless wrote:

“Caps fans and Nats fans are the same demographic. With the new stadium opening up, does anyone thing that Caps attendance will decrease a bit?”

It might affect actual turnstile counts, but that is almost certainly going to be marginal. Nats STH’s (and I’m a partial plan holder) have alrady sunk their costs into this season.

As far as walkups go, any effect of Nats activity is very likely to be offset by more interest in the Caps as the playoff race heats up/playoffs get underway

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 12:10 pm | Permalink
Dan wrote:

As far as student rush nights go… there are what? Maybe 2 more rush nights left for the year? I don’t think its all students.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 12:12 pm | Permalink
Greg wrote:

Now all that is left is too see how the Caps fans fare on March 9th.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 12:32 pm | Permalink
maruk wrote:

Winning solves everything. Except for the league’s failure to go back to home whites.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 12:50 pm | Permalink
OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki) wrote:

Not to be overlooked is the perfect timing for the Caps’ steady improvement: the NFL has closed its gates, and MLB is about two months away. This relative sports dry season is the ideal time for the Caps (and Ovechkin) to be playing their best and most exciting hockey in a long time. Now let’s hope they continue the upward trend well into the post-season.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 2:02 pm | Permalink
Lisa wrote:

Great write-up. I’ve had season tickets to the Caps for years. Last week, someone in my office mail room walked up to me all excited to tell me that he and a friend had bought a four game plan. The man had never watched a hockey game in his like (big baseball and basketball fan). He said he had to do it because “I just have to see Ovechkin play; you have to see the greats play if you have a chance.” I explained some basic rules to him so he’d know what was going on on the ice. First game was the Rangers game. He came to my office yesterday to tell me how much he loved it, and that they would be purchasing at least a partial plan next season. That tells me a great deal about OV’s impact on this market. Woo-Hoo!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 7:05 pm | Permalink
Brendan Sliger wrote:

I had to buy season tickets after going to these Student Rush games. I couldn’t spend that much time away. Too bad my Caps are losing.

Check out my new Caps blog. capslockandload.blogspot.com

Friday, February 15, 2008 at 11:57 pm | Permalink