Tom Stillman recently spoke with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and he answered several questions regarding the team’s financial stability, the trade of T.J. Oshie and what he expects from the Blues in 2015-16. Perhaps the most interesting comments were about season ticket holders and what he believes is fueling their growth.
Via the Post-Dispatch:
When asked about the team’s financial stability:
“We’re much more stable than we were two years ago. We have to continue to grow that for a few reasons. One of them is the salary cap is going to continue to be the rabbit we’re chasing. It’s going to continue to move, we have to continue to grow, to keep up so we can put a really competitive team on the ice.”
When asked about the increase in season ticket holders:
“I think it’s how well the team did, how entertaining the team is, how fun it is to be at Scottrade Center for those games. Even people who aren’t hockey purists, people come away saying, that was a great night. It’s also under Chris Zimmerman’s leadership … we show our appreciation to season ticket holders, suite holders and sponsors. They are involved in a lot of special events, access to the team, things like that. There’s a new emphasis for us. We’ve done a lot of great work on developing more proprietary content, videos and things that bring people a lot closer to the team and behind the scenes. Those sorts of things build additional interest.
We had an open house over the weekend and we did twice what we did last year at a similar event. New season ticket holders, people moving to better locations, all those metrics are really positive.”
Many fans and analysts predicted the Blues would see a financial blow after the team once again bowed out in the first round of the playoffs, but it sounds like that hasn’t come to fruition. As is often the case, the threats to not renew tickets and the the claims that fans wouldn’t come back and fill the Scottrade appear to be coming up empty.
It’ll be interesting to see how attendance compares to 2014-15, but for now it sounds like things are progressing favorably for the Blues.
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