I think that's the thing with hockey in southern USA. Good ownership matter extremely much as they compete with other sports like basket. In Canada it's just hockey. So if they don't get an owner that is good, and willing to do everything to get the success, they will fail. Phoenix went down because of the same reason too. Dallas could have gone down too without a good owner, Anaheim had the luck to be Disneys pet. Floridas Cup-run in their 3rd season took them far, etc. So I do believe Bettmans stubborn claim hockey can work in the south is correct. It just takes a lot. No place for half-assed management. People might be supportive of a hockeyteam there, but if they constantly put out a joke of a franchise, people will take their money elsewhere. Like NBA or NFL.

@@pontusbackman1863 The NHL teams that lost the most money over the past decade (2012-2021): -$152,900,000 = Florida Panthers (Miami - 6,183,199) -$141,600,000 = Arizona Coyotes (Phoenix - 4,845,832) -$108,800,000 = Carolina Hurricanes (Raleigh-Durham - 1,509,231) -$83,500,000 = Anaheim Ducks (Los Angeles-Anaheim - 12,799,100) -$76,000,000 = Columbus Blue Jackets (Columbus - 2,180,271) -$74,400,000 = Tampa Lightning (Tampa-Saint Petersburg - 3,342,963) -$59,900,000 = Buffalo Sabres (Buffalo - 1,155,604) -$130,000,000 = Atlanta Thrashers (Atlanta - 6,307,261) [Atlanta lost $130 million in 5 years from 2005 to 2010] +$4,900,000 = Winnipeg Jets (Winnipeg - 758,515) Quebec City still needs a team....

@@pontusbackman1863 The delusion with Americans... The NHL teams that lost the most money over the past decade (2012-2021): -$152,900,000 = Florida Panthers (Miami - 6,183,199) -$141,600,000 = Arizona Coyotes (Phoenix - 4,845,832) -$108,800,000 = Carolina Hurricanes (Raleigh-Durham - 1,509,231) -$83,500,000 = Anaheim Ducks (Los Angeles-Anaheim - 12,799,100) -$76,000,000 = Columbus Blue Jackets (Columbus - 2,180,271) -$74,400,000 = Tampa Lightning (Tampa-Saint Petersburg - 3,342,963) -$59,900,000 = Buffalo Sabres (Buffalo - 1,155,604) -$130,000,000 = Atlanta Thrashers (Atlanta - 6,307,261) [Atlanta lost $130 million in 5 years from 2005 to 2010] +$4,900,000 = Winnipeg Jets (Winnipeg - 758,515) Hockey fails in Phoenix, Atlanta, hockey NEVER generates money in Miami, Tampa, Columbus, Carolina, Anaheim.... bad managment....blah blah blah bad management that's why hockey fails in the South? not the LACK OF FANS? Why does the SMALLEST city in the NHL (Winnipeg) generate MONEY for the league, while MAJOR AMERICAN CITIES like Atlanta, Phoenix, Anaheim and Miami BLLEEEEEEEEDDDDDD MONEY? Just bad management? No, THERE ARE NO HOCKEY FANS IN THOSE MARKETS.

You stated it well. Atlanta attendance given the ownership wasn't bad. IN EIGHT SEASONS (8), the Atlanta Flames: -Had higher attendance than the Pittsburgh Penguins 6 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Chicago Blackhawks 6 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Detroit Redwings 4 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Los Angeles Kings4 seasons. In ELEVEN SEASONS (11), the Atlanta Thrashers: -Had higher attendance than the Phoenix Coyotes 8 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the New York Islanders 8 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the New Jersey Devils 5 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 5 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Washington Capitals 5 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Nashville Predators 6 seasons. -Had higher attendance than Chicago Blackhawks 5 seasons.

@@willp.8120 ATLANTA THRASHERS ATTENDACES: - The Atlanta Thrashers and Flames attendances were BAD....do not let anyone lie to you and tell you otherwise 2011 - 28th/30 teams in NHL attendance (13,469) 2010 - 28th/30 teams in NHL attendance (13,607) 2009 - 29th/30 teams in NHL attendance (14,626) 2008 - 22nd/30 teams in NHL attendance (15,831) 2007 - 21st/30 teams in NHL attendance (16,240) - the inaugural season (1999) was the best attended season for Atlanta - it is NEVER a good sign when your first year is the most successful -the attendance just dropped off after that - 2007 was the Thrashers SECOND best season ever in attendance with a truly pathetic 16,240....(only good enough for 21st in the NHL that year) - 2007 was also Atlanta's most successful year in the league losing in the Eastern Conference Quarter Finals - Atlanta Thrashers second BEST was only good enough for 21st in the NHL in 2007 - IMAGINE being in a race, and you're finishing 29/30, 28/30, 22/30, 21st place out of 30 runners is considered good in your mind???? Atlanta was a complete joke. The attendances were truly pathetic. 2011 - 28th/30 teams in NHL attendance 2010 - 28th/30 teams in NHL attendance 2009 - 29th/30 teams in NHL attendance 2008 - 22nd/30 teams in NHL attendance 2007 - 21st/30 teams in NHL attendance - Atlanta Thrashers second BEST attended season (16,240) would be 26th in today's NHL Nothing about Atlanta says "success story" Why did Atlanta have SUCH good attendances (21st out of 30 teams) that's terrible by the way, but STILL LOST $130 million in five years? Furthermore, why does Georgia have bottom 5 hockey registration in NORTH AMERICA? 46th place out of 60 states and provinces.... If Atlanta is such a good market, where were all the fans? Where are all the hockey players in 2024? THEY DON'T EXIST....

There was no free parking and no shuttles because the parking decks were right next to the arena. Beers were $5 and up (15 years ago). Prices were similar to other franchises in the South. I went to a LOT of games and did a couple of road trips to TB and Nashville.

How about you give it up. At least educate yourself. Here, I'll help you. The Flames left because the owner, named Tom Cousins, who owned Cousins Properties, a local commercial real estate company, began having financial problems in the late 1970s (after the Flames had been around about five seasons) when the Federal Reserve Bank raised interest rates. When this happened, other companies who wanted to build things were being denied loans, given the effects of higher interest rates. Cousins Properties could not acquire enough contracts, and thus not enough capital to keep it afloat. Tom Cousins wasn't a deep pocketed owner, and his company's stability was predicated on continuous building. So, in order to save the company, Cousins decided to sell his only asset that could provide him enough cash to prevent his company's insolvency. He sold the Flames. Since he needed a lot of money to save his development business, he sold the Flames to the highest bidder, just which happened to be an interested owner whose intention was to take the team to Calgary. Ted Turner wanted to buy them team, but because he owned two other teams, the Hawks and Braves, the NHL would not allow him to buy the team. There were other interested buyers, but because they did not offer as much, none of them were chosen for sale. The Thrashers' story is a bit more complicated. In 1997, Atlanta was awarded a franchise. The owner was Ted Turner, under Turner Sports. At the time, he had recently sold the Braves, thus allowing him to own an NHL team (because he could only own two teams). However, Turner sold the team, along with his other sports assets, the Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena in earlier 1999, even before the Thrashers played their first game. He sold them to Time Warner. About a year after the sale, Time Warner merged with AOL (America Online), the largest internet service in America at the time. I don't know how old you are, but they offered dial-up Internet. Here is the issue with that. It wasn't but about two years into the sale that AOL-Time Warner were losing money because people were dropping dial-up Internet rapidly for cable Internet. AOL did not transition quick enough to outcompete competitors, such as Comcast. As a result, AOL-Time Warner became shaky as a company. In order to secure some capital to make them more profitable, as well as to mitigate losses, the company decided to sell its sports teams. Another reason they did so was because with the company's fledgling status, it threatened the stability of both the Thrashers and the Hawks at the time and their long time success. If they had sold them to about any other buyer, the Thrashers would still be in Atlanta. However, they sold them to a group who was only interested in the Atlanta Hawks. The reluctantly bought the Thrashers only because it was the only way for them to get what they wanted, the Atlanta Hawks. From the start, this ownership group, known as Atlanta Spirit Group, a group of businessmen from different cities around the country, wanted to get rid of the Thrashers. In fact, they were ready to sell the moment they acquired the team. What prevented them from doing so is that there were two owners within the group who did want the Thrashers. Mind you, these two owners represented only about a fifth of the owners, as there were at least ten of them. Atlanta Spirit Group, despite the two owners' objections were about to put the team up for sale, but the sale did not happen because the owners who wanted the Thrashers filed a lawsuit against the other owners. For the next six or seven years, the owners were suing one another. The lawsuits cost the ownership group a huge amount of money, making them unprofitable. What's more, they mismanaged their money and handed out huge, unheard of contracts for certain players on the Hawks. This made them even more unstable as an ownership group and made them lose more money. This resulted in the Thrashers selling off most of their good to decent players, and when the ownership group made it known that they did not care about the team, many of the fans lost interest. Even with all this going on, the Thrashers never finished last in attendance. Speculations regarding the owners selling the team crescendoed after the courts decried that that the owners could sell the team. As a result, attendance plummeted in the second half of the last season, as people figured that they were trying to move the team out of Atlanta, and many realized that the owners did not care about the team. During Atlanta Spirit's tenure of owning the Thrashers, they hardly even marketed the team. You could hardly find a billboard advertising for them around the metro area, but you sure saw plenty of Atlanta Hawks billboards, hundreds in fact. This is because Atlanta Spirit wanted to tank the team by lowering the maximum amount of fans who attended games to justify a reason to sell them when they would be allowed to sell the team. Atlanta Spirit did not take seriously any sales to interested parties who would keep the team in Atlanta. Tom Glavine wanted to own the team, but they denied him. There were other groups who came forward, but when they saw the stipulations on the sale, they balked. You see, Atlanta Spirit Group never intended to keep the team here in Atlanta. They even wanted the team out of their arena. One of the owners was later even outspoken and upset that during the Thrashers stay they outsold the Hawks most seasons and that the Thrashers tended to attract a lot of white suburbanites that the Hawks had trouble attracting. Stipulations for the sale were that the new owner could not receive any revenue on concessions or parking, and they had to pay an exorbitant arena use fee to Atlanta Spirit Group. These stipulations were so outrageous that no owner who wanted to keep the team in Atlanta, at Philips Arena, the only Atlanta arena the NHL at the time said was big enough for the team to play in. Thus, in essence, Atlanta Spirit Group forced the team out with nowhere to play. Their stipulations for sale made it where no one would risk such a situation, as that would bankrupt any team. And since the NHL said they could play nowhere else, Atlanta was left with a situation whereby if the team stayed, they'd have to play in Philips Arena and the owner would take huge losses by these sale stipulations. As a result, no one bought the team, and since True North Sports had just been denied the sale of the Phoenix Coyotes, the former Winnipeg Jets, given Glendale agreeing to fund the Coyotes, they then looked to Atlanta and took advantage of the situation, a situation not brought on by the fans but a crooked ownership group. IN EIGHT SEASONS (8), the Atlanta Flames: -Had higher attendance than the Pittsburgh Penguins 6 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Chicago Blackhawks 6 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Detroit Redwings 4 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Los Angeles Kings4 seasons. In ELEVEN SEASONS (11), the Atlanta Thrashers: -Had higher attendance than the Phoenix Coyotes 8 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the New York Islanders 8 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the New Jersey Devils 5 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 5 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Washington Capitals 5 seasons. -Had higher attendance than the Nashville Predators 6 seasons. -Had higher attendance than Chicago Blackhawks 5 seasons. AND ATLANTA IS A FAR LARGER CITY THAN ANY OF THOSE SMALL FRY MARKETS. Atlanta is one of the largest developed areas by square miles on Earth. Fourth, actually. The development of the suburbs starts 59 miles from downtown Atlanta on I-85. That's just in one direction. The city's developed area is about 90-100 miles across. Some of those other cities developed areas only are twenty miles across, at best. Maybe thirty.

@@bretts2356 And they still failed miserably....for a second time....

@@sampicano Sure, Sam.

@@bretts2356 I agree 100% with you dude

Hey there don't forget Quebec City. Atlanta generatedl ess money than Winnipeg, and Quebec City has more people than Winnipeg.

@@sampicano Winnipeg has 200,000 more people than Quebec City.