Remaining competitive key for Jets

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This article was published 27/02/2024 (568 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mark Chipman is searching for the best way to navigate a delicate situation, fully grasping the gravity of the subject matter.

Seated at a table inside the Director’s Lounge at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday afternoon before heading out for a fireside chat with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and roughly 500 fans prior to the game against the St. Louis Blues, the chairman of True North Sports and Entertainment has taken time to clarify a couple of points that have come to light of late.

“The hard question I’ve been unable to answer are what are the right words? How do you convey this without making people feeling anxious? I’m hyper-sensitive to the sensitivity because I felt it and I know what it feels like,” said Chipman. “I really do know what it feels like. I had a front-row seat to one of the greatest heartbreaks of our lifetime. I’m really sensitive to that.

“That’s why we were so cautious when we were going about acquiring the team because we didn’t ever want to get anybody’s expectations up and then not be able to deliver on them. That’s why we were so fanatical about keeping everything quiet in that journey. So that’s kind of the lens that we see it through.”

The future of the Jets’ franchise has been a hot-button topic throughout the course of the last week and Chipman realizes he raised a few eyebrows in a recent interview with Chris Johnston of The Athletic.

So he took an opportunity to expand his thoughts on a few fronts.

“I really do know what it feels like. I had a front-row seat to one of the greatest heartbreaks of our lifetime. I’m really sensitive to that.”–Mark Chipman

When Chipman was speaking about the Jets going from 13,000 season tickets with a waiting list of 8,000 to roughly 9,500 without a waiting list, he made it clear the status quo couldn’t continue.

What specifically did he mean and how dire is the situation?

“We feel like we need to get back to 13,000 and the reason for that is that it’s not an issue of do or die — or viability or not, it’s long-term health and competitiveness is dependent on a healthy season ticket base,” said Chipman. “We’ve been a (salary) cap team now for several years and there’s not a direct correlation between dollars spent and winning. In other words, spending to the cap doesn’t guarantee you win the Stanley Cup but spending well below the cap pretty much ensures that you won’t.”

The Jets have been a team that spends to the cap ceiling for multiple years, but after several years of a mostly flat cap, that ceiling is going to be rising in 2024-25 and beyond.

That’s why restoring the season ticket base is so important.

“It just doesn’t allow us to be healthy. What do I mean by healthy? It doesn’t give us the ability to continue to invest in payroll, to continue to invest in the building. To keep up, because the cap is going to spike,” said Chipman. “It’s coming quick and that’s a reality, in terms of many, many millions of dollars in increase coming in the cap. We just want to be able to keep up at the competitive level of this league. I don’t want to fall behind.

“What we’ve got that I’m really proud of is the core of our team. We’ve got a very good group of guys and that’s been hard to do. My responsibility is to make sure that we keep that and build on it.”

Just like NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said earlier in the day in an interview with the Free Press, this isn’t about relocation.

“It’s not about we’re ever going to lose this team. First of all, the team left because the model didn’t work at all. Didn’t have a building that worked and the model didn’t work back in 1996. Those days are long gone. It’s not a matter of it working or not working. It’s a matter of being healthy, so that you can remain competitive,” said Chipman. “To the extent we’ve made mistakes, I’m more than happy to be held accountable for that. We’ve tried our best and are continuing to try our best. If people think this is a relocation discussion, I would ask them to consider how long we’ve been doing this, how long it took to get in (to the NHL), how much we’ve had to invest to get where we are, what we’ve done peripherally in our downtown.

“What we’ve got that I’m really proud of is the core of our team. We’ve got a very good group of guys and that’s been hard to do. My responsibility is to make sure that we keep that and build on it.”–Mark Chipman

“I can’t even fathom (the thought of relocation). I’m just trying to make sure that this is healthy because we’re the smallest market, (have) the smallest building, we have to punch above our weight to be successful. That’s all this is.”

For those wondering about the timing of bringing the issue to light, Chipman had an answer at the ready.

“When we have some pretty significant attrition in one of the most significant revenue lines in the business, I have to address it,” said Chipman. “We can talk about all of the different reasons why that is and I’ve got a pretty good sense of what we’ve done right and done wrong. It’s now about how we move forward here.”

The Jets corporate support represents roughly 15 per cent of the season tickets, a number that lags far behind most NHL teams.

For the sake of comparison, the next lowest corporate base for a Canadian team is 45 per cent, with multiple others comfortably sitting in the 50 per cent range.

One of the reasons the Jets corporate number is so low was that individuals and groups snapped up the season-tickets in the original offering back in 2011 and the gap has not since been bridged.

“One of the things that’s been validated or verified or whatever is what I knew to be the case was how vulnerable we ended up being, in terms of the make up of our season ticket base. What I mean by that is we knew we had a disproportionate number of accounts that were held by multiple parties and for years, I thought that was our strength — and it was,” said Chipman. “It was like, ‘This is fantastic because it represents a really big, broad buy-in. And that worked for a long time, until it didn’t. And it kind of unwound very quickly.

“If we had a do-over, we would have done it differently. We wouldn’t have gone on sale the way that we did. But we didn’t have a choice at the time. We were in a real hurry-up mode. It was just a torrid pace we were going at back then.”

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly took questions along with Bettman on Tuesday afternoon and shared some thoughts on how the Jets organization is viewed around the NHL and in its head office.

“What I’d say is this is a team that’s widely regarded around the league as a model franchise,” said Daly. “Well-run from top to bottom, puts a competitive hockey team on the ice, spends to the cap. But also invests, as Gary (Bettman) said, in the community and all their charitable initiatives and their investment in the city. We wish we had 32 of these.”

When it comes to what the Jets are doing to try and win back some of the fans who have given up their season tickets for a variety of reasons, Chipman has started the process of making contact with individuals by phone and taking feedback.

It’s clear the organization recognizes that some missteps were made over the years and that’s led to a lot of introspection.

“Where we’ve made mistakes and if we’ve made a mistake and it’s obvious, I apologize. I say, ‘Hey, I’m really sorry. If we’ve let you down somehow, I apologize and I’d like a chance to make it up to you,” said Chipman. “I follow up so they’ve got my email and if there’s something I can do, I tell them I will do it.”

Chipman shared that one of the concerns a fan mentioned to him was related to the sound system being too loud in certain areas of the arena.

“I can’t even fathom (the thought of relocation). I’m just trying to make sure that this is healthy because we’re the smallest market, (have) the smallest building, we have to punch above our weight to be successful. That’s all this is.”–Mark Chipman

That issue will be addressed this off-season, when the public address system will be replaced and upgraded.

The cost of that renovation will mean that the number of capital improvements made to the building is now equal to what it cost to build the arena in the first place, according to Chipman.

A recent example of what the Jets are trying to do on that front took place on Monday as Josh Morrissey and Mark Scheifele accompanied Chipman to the home of Doug Hemmerling — a former season ticket holder — and interacted with a group of kids at an outdoor rink.

“Obviously our job is to worry about wins and losses on the ice and that’s what our focus is, but at the same time it was just an opportunity to interact with some kids and their family who love the Jets,” Morrissey said after the morning skate on Tuesday. “It couldn’t be any more, in my view, Canadian than that. An outdoor rink across three front yards with trees in the middle of the ice and stuff. It was pretty awesome. It was just fun to go and interact with some people. I think that’s something I’ve always valued about the Jets organization and Mr. Chipman is their commitment to the city of Winnipeg, their love for the city of Winnipeg.

“That’s just another example of him trying to get players in a situation to interact with some of the great fans and be a part of this community. It was a lot of fun.”

The Jets recognize the hard work is merely beginning.

“We’ve spent so much time, so many years getting here and then building it,” said Chipman. “We want to make sure it’s in safe harbour and it’s protected.”

ken.wiebe@freepress.mb.ca

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