On January 12, 2018, Dallas billionaire Thomas Dundon became the majority owner of the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League (NHL) when he purchased 61 percent ownership from former majority owner Peter Karmanos.
Karmanos had owned the franchise since 1994, when the franchise was known as the Hartford Whalers, and oversaw the franchises relocation from its original home of 25 years to the Raleigh-Durham area. The move experienced its ups and downs for its first few years. When the franchised moved to North Carolina prior to the 1997-98 season, its new arena was still at least two years away from being completed. Thus, they held a lame-duck status as they played their ‘home’ games at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Even though they had won a division title in one of their two seasons playing in Greensboro, the team averaged barely 9,0001 fans at a venue that can hold up to 21,000. This shows that fans from the Raleigh area weren’t willing to drive almost 80 miles just to see their team play, as well as, fans in the Greensboro area weren’t going to support a team that, not only would be there for two years, but displaced the local minor league team, the Greensboro/Carolina Monarchs2, that occupied that venue for nine seasons and was forced to relocate to New Haven, Connecticut.
Even with the NHL experiencing a lockout in 2004 that essentially cancelled the 2004-05 season, the attendance continued to climb. This peaked in 2006 when the team reached the Stanley Cup final for the second time. But after that peak, the performance of the team started to decline, which led to their attendance figures going back down.
With attendance figures starting to regress back to 1999-2001 numbers over the last four years, there was fear within the fan-base that the franchise would, not only be sold, but moved to another city as part of the new ownership group. This was also a major concern for Mr. Karmanos as they had become part of the fabric in the area, in large part to bring the state of North Carolina its first professional sports championship when the won the 2006 Stanley Cup.
This fear also lingered as the sports fans in North Carolina still had a bad taste in their mouth after the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association (NBA) uprooted from Charlotte to New Orleans. The ownership of the Hornets franchise blamed a failed arena referendum and annual losses in the millions due to sagging attendance.3 “It was expected news,” then- Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory said in the article that was published in May 2002. “I continue to state that in the long run, the NBA’s made a bad decision, but in the long term Charlotte’s made a good economic decision because we weren’t going to get in a bidding war.”
So when the agreement to sell the franchise to Dundon was announced, they made it clear to the players and fans of the team that there was one major condition that the new ownership group had to agree to, and that was the fact that relocation the Hurricanes wasn’t an option.4 Even Gary Bettman, who is the current NHL commissioner, stated in an recent NBC Sports article that “[Mr. Dundon is] buying the club to have it in Carolina. I want to be crystal clear on this because it’s really not fair to the players, the fans or anybody in the (Research) Triangle that this rumor has started. It’s just not accurate.”5
Since the team was officially sold on January 12, the team has been 7-8-2 and has maintain its position within striking distance of a wild card spot and it’s first playoff appearance since 2009. With the fear of what the new ownership might or might not do no longer lingering over their heads, the players on the ice can focus on winning games and winning back fans.
- http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=5154
- http://funwhileitlasted.net/2012/08/02/1989-1997-greensboro-carolina-monarchs/
- https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/nba/hornets/2002-05-10-owners-relocation.htm
- http://www.sportingnews.com/nhl/news/nhl-hurricanes-sale-relocation-seattle-houston-quebec-city-peter-karmanos-carolina/ssmrguyvqwvu17dr9utanmo72
- http://nhl.nbcsports.com/2017/12/07/bettman-hurricanes-relocation-rumors-are-wrong-wrong-wrong/
After The Buzzer 