Can Selling Hope or Hype Keep The Big Appleezsms Winter Franchises Brigh.

It's another dark spring in New York. Save for the Devils, there is no postseason at Madison Square Garden, the Izod Center or Nassau Coliseum, so the attentions and the dollars of the casual sports fan can shift fully to baseball, and maybe a bit to soccer as spring fully arrives. Now the lack of postseason for the Knicks, Nets and Islanders, and now again for the Rangers, is always a cause for concern. However as Don Nelson, now the winningest coach in NBA history, said once, you sell two things in pro sports…winning or hope…and for another year, the world's largest media market will look to again sell hope…and a good amount of hype. Will it work agai.

Well for the Knicks, sellin. “cap space” like it is an actual athlete who can deliver the team back to the promised land has resulted in fans continuing to show up in droves and renew early for 2010-11 with the idea that this current crop of free agents will be able to supplant those on the roster now and help Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni turn the corner. There was not a great deal the fans learned this year about Al Harrington or Billy Walke. or many others on the current team, while they did learn to like Danilo Gallinari and by default, really enjoyed and followed All-Star David Lee. However all the push has been made to the future…renovated building, the arrival of stars want to turn the fortunes of the team around etc etc. Will it wor.? That is the key in the drama. It is an unknown, but an unknown that fans apparently were willing to bet on for next year. If it doesn’t work and the free agents and wins don’t follow, the cycle toward rebuilding can start again…but for now the hype and the hope has worked. Then there is the Nets, who are leaving the IZOD Center for Newark and then for Brooklyn. The hope for the fan is more than a little different than for the Knicks. If you have hope and live in New Jersey, but the time the hope arrives you may have to treck across two bridges and a city and a half to see it. So the Nets this year sold the experience…the experience of the NBA, of their opponents, of supporting the worst team in the NBA of supporting players who genuinely cared about the community…and the coverage they received for each experiential sell was substantial. Now whether that experience translates into anything for ticke. sales for the future is not as material as it is for the Knicks, who will be staying and trying to renew very high ticket prices in the very immediate future. The ability to keep brands engaged for New Jersey was probably more important than filling seats with paying customers this year, although the long term success for the franchise will have to be both. Regardless, what the Nets lacked in box office draw they made up for in brand awareness this year.

On the ice, the Devils, despite again not allowing their players very much leeway on community events, made some solid strides in brand building through social media and cultivating their core fan base, who will be rewarded with a playoff run. The Isles continue the limbo they are in until a clear path for a new arena works out, and have to continue to cultivate a deep fan base that remains far enough from th Bright Lights of the Big City to be solid and potentially impactful again. The Rangers near miss for the playoffs came as the team made a valient late season run to get back into contention, and again that fan loyatly, combined with the late season hype, will once again buoy a brand whose core following remains solid regardless of on ice success.

So as the lights go out in all but one arena in New York for the spring, the hope of every franchise is again being pitched…hope for new arenas, new value, new players, new seasons, new opportunities…and it is that pitching of hope which all those franchises believe will keep dollars coming in through the summer until the balls and the skates come back out. Will it continue to work in this challenged econom. The one thing each team has going is that there is really no one to come in and pirate those dollars with great on ice or on court success. Every team is almost in the same boat. So what is needed by each one is added value and the cultivation of a loyal and solid fan base which believes that their team has sold in the best plan for success. We shall see which one or ones will be the winners, both on the field and in the branding and sales world.