Honestly, it sounds identical to the Blue Jays here. This was a baseball town, through and through, when the boys were winning; don't forget Toronto set the MLB attendance record two years in a row, and was the first team to top four million fans in a season.

But when the ownership went south, the team started sucking and a labour stoppage forced people to look elsewhere for entertainment, the stadium wound up sitting practically empty for several years. It got so bad, they were considering demolishing the SkyDome and building a new, smaller park.

Thing is, things do turn around. It's slow going, but it's been about two years of solid ownership and a good on-field effort from the Jays now, and people are slowly going back. That's what will happen in St. Louis, too; it won't be instantaneous, it will take a while, but slowly and surely the fans will return.

Kanuck wrote:Honestly, it sounds identical to the Blue Jays here. This was a baseball town, through and through, when the boys were winning; don't forget Toronto set the MLB attendance record two years in a row, and was the first team to top four million fans in a season.

But when the ownership went south, the team started sucking and a labour stoppage forced people to look elsewhere for entertainment, the stadium wound up sitting practically empty for several years. It got so bad, they were considering demolishing the SkyDome and building a new, smaller park.

Thing is, things do turn around. It's slow going, but it's been about two years of solid ownership and a good on-field effort from the Jays now, and people are slowly going back. That's what will happen in St. Louis, too; it won't be instantaneous, it will take a while, but slowly and surely the fans will return.

The difference would be that St. Louis had a rabid hockey fanbase that filled or nearly filled the buildings for over 35 years before Laurie's bullshit. The fanbase is there, it just felt burned and is pissed off.

Really? Had no idea. Of course, this whole thing shows that sports fans take a fairly short amount of time to change or break their habits. So whether we're talking a dozen years' worth of rabid fans like the Jays had, or three times that for the Blues — or even longer for, say, the Mets — once the fans' habits change, they're changed. There's little nostalgic effect. And once you've lost that momentum, it's really, really hard to get it back.

Kanuck wrote:Really? Had no idea. Of course, this whole thing shows that sports fans take a fairly short amount of time to change or break their habits. So whether we're talking a dozen years' worth of rabid fans like the Jays had, or three times that for the Blues — or even longer for, say, the Mets — once the fans' habits change, they're changed. There's little nostalgic effect. And once you've lost that momentum, it's really, really hard to get it back.

http://www.stlouisblues.com/history/all ... story.html

Even in the lean years they still got 13,000 on average.

The numbers are REAL stout since 1989-90, considering the lack of success the team has had once it got into the playoffs year after year.

Wow. Yeah, things really have fallen off. And honestly, it could be tough to ever recapture those glory days.

I found a really interesting article about the Jays, actually.

http://www.sportsbusinessnews.com/_news/news_347460.php

Says their eventual goal is a steady 2.8 million or so per season. That's considered lofty ambition; funny thing is, ten years ago when they only put that many people into the SkyDome, it was considered a team in a state of collapse. Amazing how times change... I can't even begin to think of a Toronto where the Jays were a hotter ticket than a Leafs team that started one season with ten straight wins. Also illustrates quite well why everything around the dome, up until very recently, was a desolate wasteland of empty storefronts and failed bars.

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