(05-25-2015 12:56 PM)Stammers Wrote: It seems that Memphians are such fair weather, bandwagon fans, that there won't be enough demand to find 15,000 fans for 18 home games.
This part seems a little unfair for a variety of reasons, nevermind it's bad form to smack your own fanbase.
1. Montreal is MUCH larger than Memphis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal (1.6M proper / 4M metro)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis,_Tennessee (650K proper / 1.34M metro)
2. There is no comparable franchise to the Canadiens in all of the Quebec region (and that will remain true until Quebec City gets its deserved expansion team). To be fair Ottawa is 2+ hours away.
Teams that are similar in type to Memphis Tigers BB that are <3 hours away (for the Ottawa comparison):
- Memphis Grizzlies (competing for same dollar)
- Mississippi State
- Ole Miss
- Vandy is exactly 3 hours via google maps
More competition for the sports dollar for BB in Memphis than hockey in Montreal.
3. Add to that, isn't everyone in the Province a Canadiens fan (and a French Canadian separatist to boot
)? Not everyone in Memphis is a Tigers fan. It's the most major city near a lot of SEC schools, so the city is very infested with MissSt/OleMiss/UTk/etc types that dillute the fan bases reach.
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In short, slow your roll man. The Canadiens are a franchise with no competition, in a city 3 times as large. It's not apples to apples and it's borderline rude to kick a city without being a little more circumspect.
I defend out of town fans (as one myself), but this goes after the city, which means a lot to some of us (I was born there and my entire family still resides there). This is a crap comparison and you know it.
Besides you want to get into sports fandom and loyalty to a team?
Look at these empty seats...