Sat, Oct 30, 2010 page19

• Thrashers’ diversity may help club to revive attendances

  • Bloomberg
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  In the 93-year history of the NHL, no team has looked like this year’s Atlanta Thrashers.

  The team’s opening-night roster included Evander Kane, Dustin Byfuglien, Anthony Stewart, Johnny Oduya and Nigel Dawes — five of the 19 black players in the league — to help the Thrashers set a record for minority participation.

  “This is the first time I’ve ever had this many guys who look like me in the locker room,” Kane said in an interview at the team’s practice arena. “It’s definitely a nice feeling.”

  While Thrashers president Don Waddell said the team’s racial makeup wasn’t intentional, he plans to use it to reach new fans in a city with a 61 percent black population, according to US Census Bureau statistics.

  “There are lots of good black players in the NHL, we just happen to have five of them here,” Waddell said last week. “We’re not going to be shy about that and will try to use that to help grow the sport in this marketplace.”

  Attendance at Thrashers’ games has declined to an average of 13,607 in 2009-2010 — third-lowest in the league — from a high of 17,205 in 1999-2000.

  “For us to be successful here, it’s not happening right now,” Waddell said. “We don’t have enough fans to make this thing viable long term for an ownership group. We have to try to find other means to bring in other revenue.”

  Even before this year’s roster was set, Waddell said the team’s marketing department had planned to expand its advertising into downtown Atlanta this season. In previous years, marketing was mainly focused on 25-to-45-year-old white males in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, he said.

  With Kane and his teammates, the new focus now makes even better business sense.

  “There’s still a segment of this population that we have never reached out to,” Waddell said.

  When the team’s local advertising campaign begins in earnest next month, commercials will air on radio stations that have a hip-hop format. The team’s outdoor billboard campaign will have an increased presence in downtown Atlanta this season. The club plans to advertise in more predominantly black publications and cross-promote the team with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.

  While Atlanta is promoting its diversity, Waddell insists the team makes personnel decisions based on skill, not race.

  “Some people think we’re trying to use race for our own benefit,” he said. “That’s not the case. We’re not trying to exploit these players. It’s not like we’re saying: ‘Let’s just promote our black players.’ We’re still trying to promote our best young players.”

  With four of the five players being biracial, Stewart, 25, likes to correct the official total.

  “Technically, it’s two and a half,” he said.

  “He loves that line,” a laughing Kane said.

  However, like Waddell, Kane says the team’s makeup isn’t a joking matter and insists the only way the club will draw more fans is by winning.

  “The fact that we coincidentally have a bunch of black guys on the team is nice, but at the same time I don’t necessarily think it’s the end-all be-all of bringing fans to the games. We have to win, but it definitely helps,” he said.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Dozens of Taiwanese missing in China

  • 2

    PRC likely to launch drills after National Day speech

  • 3

    US military declines to fire adopting Marine Mast

  • 4

    Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh badge a hit at Japan festival

  • 5

    PRC could not be ‘motherland,’ William Lai says