On Attendance
Mitch Albom was once the dominant voice in Detroit sports. Back before the internet was widely available, back before there were 24/7 sports radio stations [when Mitch had his “Sunday Sports Albom” program], before SportsCenter came and then went as mandatory viewing, there was Mitch Albom’s columns in the Detroit Free Press.
His ability to draw you in emotionally when covering sporting events, coaches and athletes was a sports club’s dream. People like Bo Schembechler [who was already larger than life], Steve Yzerman, Jacques Demers, Barry Sanders, Cecil Fielder and Joe Dumars all benefitted from having Albom cover their careers. Scotty Bowman, of course, was impossible to soften up to fit into Albom’s artistry. To paraphrase a classic In Living Color line, Scotty didn’t play that.
At some point the sports world moved on and Albom’s coverage seemed a bit…thin. He could still play some nice music with the reader’s heart-strings but with the explosion of sports information, tabloid coverage of athletes behaving badly, and fantasy sports, the sports masses were less inclined to want to hear nice stories. Instead they wanted to know a player’s stats in key situations; who was the latest athlete to “make it rain”, have his love interest burn his house down, or do a beer bong; or find out whether a guy should be in his fantasy lineup or be traded. Oh, and photoshop mashups that make fun of teams and players they despise. So stat wonkery, cynical snarking, and unbridled passion for your team and disdain for your opponents have become the main camps for sports coverage.
The point where Albom jumped the shark was when he wrote the book the Fab Five. It was typical Albom. There were funny anecdotes about how Steve Fisher eventually decided to get married and Mitch even dipped his toe into the dirty waters of college athletes being exploited for being really good at sports. The one minor thing he missed was that Chris Webber was at the center of the biggest scandal [dollar-wise] in the history of college athletics.
All of this is a long way of saying Mitch is what he is: a great writer when it comes to giving you one particular aspect of a story. He’ll never be mistaken for Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. But it’s served him well as his writing style is a very popular form of storytelling. When moving on from covering the Detroit sports scene it shouldn’t be a surprise that the writing style fits pretty closely with the way he’s covered sports. And he’s been hugely successful in those endeavors.
With that being said, Albom decided to call out Red Wings fans for not making it out to fill the arena for the Western Conference Finals.
Before I spend one more word on how good our hockey team played Thursday night, I have to say how bad it looked to see so many empty seats at Joe Louis Arena. Cheaper seats. Expensive seats. Empty clusters. Half-empty rows.
…
This is Detroit, Hockeytown, where every seat should be filled, because these are the conference finals, the bridge to the championship, against Dallas, a team that hasn’t been here for the playoffs in 10 years. That last time was a war that ultimately led to a Detroit Stanley Cup.Remember the Cup? We loved that thing. We felt like we earned it — every step. So what’s the problem now? I know the economy is bad. I’m not telling people to hock the jewelry or find a job.
“I know the economy is bad.”
Could you be more condescending? Mitch has never been very good when it comes to the details, the facts as they were, so let’s give him a little help here.
The housing market in Detroit is in terrible shape and that’s in the midst of a sub-prime mortgage financial crisis. So alot of those loans or re-fi’s people got that had low or no payments when credit was cheap can no longer afford their mortgage payments. Heck, even people with prime loans are being affected. So a large number of homes are being foreclosed. The housing market has been described as being in it’s worst condition since the great depression. That’s not anecdotal, that’s the statistical reality. Is everyone affected? Of course not, but the city and surrounding area is clearly going through some turbulent times.
Just yesterday the labor report indicated that Michigan was once again one of the states with the highest number of job losses during the last week of April. Michigan was one of the top 5 states when it came to net job losses. Again, no anecdote Mitch, just using cold-hard facts to point out how average Michiganders are facing some difficult times in the current economic climate.
There is good news on both fronts. The Detroit housing market has been such crap that there are bargains out there to be had and people are starting to nibble. The big question when it comes to the smaller issue of supporting the hockey club is to gauge whether there is interest and support for the team. This should help to bring the issue into focus.
Well it just so happens that the Free Press ran this article this morning.
Playoff ticket sales are up by about 1,000 per game compared with last year. The Wings were the No. 1 page on freep.com in April and gathered twice as many page views as the Pistons. They even beat the Lions.
And for the first time in five years, Detroit’s FSN affiliate reported an upswing in the ratings. Last year, the station averaged a 3.6 rating during Wings games in the regular season, the lowest in the history of the station. This year, the number jumped 34% to 4.7.
Those stats clearly show that interest in the Red Wings is growing, not shrinking. Facts Mitch. Facts.
I suggested a couple days ago that I was developing the opinion that the team was going through a rebuild when Dave Lewis was coach and during Mike Babcock’s first year at the helm. Those ratings from FSN bear this out. Casual fans tuned out with Shanahan and Yzerman moving on before Hank Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk had become full-blown stars. They are tuning back in because this is an incredibly talented and successful team. And they are easy to like. Nik Kronwall hits like Vladdie used to and Johan Franzen is challenging records held by Mr. Hockey. That would be Gordie Howe, Mitch.
The Wings are to be commended for lowering ticket prices this season due to slackened demand last season. I think the combination of the renewed interest in the team combined with more affordable ticket prices has helped to get more fans to part with their hard-earned cash to buy tickets.
The big question right now is what it will take to fill up the rest of those empty seats.
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Outstanding read Dave. Great stuff.