At this point in the year, all those fans whose teams are out of the running are moaning about what was done wrong, proposing all sorts of ridiculous trades in hopes of winning the Cup next season. Especially if their team won the President’s Trophy and then was upset in the first round (must… not… cry…). Becoming those “armchair GMs,” taking control of their favorite team, if only in their own minds.

I do that too (sorry Mike Grier, but you’re gonna have to leave now), but something else that I like to do is to be the armchair president – the guy who, while he doesn’t have control over the roster, can shape the experience for the fans and team alike.

I know what you’re thinking – the Sharks are a team that failed to sell out just one game this year, and that was because of Obama. Tickets are sold twice their face value in the regular season, and even more for the playoffs. The fans are considered some of the loudest in the NHL, surprising those Eastern teams. And yet, I want to change things.

I can only imagine that Greg Jamison is a believer in lassez-faire economics mixed in with a bit of Field of Dreams (if you build it, they will come). Because really, the attention paid to getting new fans and attempting to retain the current ones is almost non-existant; instead, it is left up to the product that is on the ice. Now, that’s all fine and dandy, especially when the team is one of the few consistant Cup contenders in the league, but when the times get tough there needs to be a special outreach to fans in place. Like, say, when the economy goes down the toilet, or when the team gets bounced from the first round. Not that I would be mentioned any specific examples, of course.

I mean, the Sharks are the best professional team in the Bay Area by a long shot. The Raiders and the 49ers are jokes whose days are long behind them; the Warriors just suck; and the A’s and Giants are middling teams that have a 50-50 chance to make it to the post-season. Meanwhile, the Sharks have been locks for the playoffs ever since the lockout, and topping their already impressive regular season point total every year. And yet, less attention is paid to them than to the teams that have been mired in mediocrity or defeat for the better part of a decade.

To see how a team is marketed the right way, you just have to look at the Chicago Blackhawks. When Rocky Wirtz took over as owner the beginning of this season, the team when through a perceptible shift, despite having pretty much the same core. He promised that all games would be televised locally (something the Sharks have yet to do), and promoted the hell out of the team. The result? The 21,000+ seat arena was sold out for the majority of the season, the Winter Classic was brought to Wrigley, the players were voted onto the All Star team, and Chicago became a hockey town once again.

That said, let me put on my owner’s hat and show you exactly what I would do to improve the presence of the Sharks.

1. All games must be televised.
   This seems like it should be obvious (televised games means more people watching, more people watching means better ratings and more fans, and both of those means more money), but apparently its not. Before the 08-09 season started, there was a whopping nine games scheduled to not be televised, not on CSN-BA, CSN-BA HD, CSN-BA+, Versucks Versus, or NBC (yeah, right). Five possible channels, and yet no game. Granted, there were more games added on as the season went by, but I estimate that a good six games went untelevised.

 

2. All games must be broadcasted in high definition.
   HD is here, and its spreading like the swine flu. Hockey is the sport that is by far the most affected by HD, for one reason: it is much easier for newer fans to view the puck. In basketball, there is a large orange ball. In football, there is a large brown ball. In baseball, there is a small white ball, but the camera tends to follow it like the paparazzi follow Britney Spears.Amazingly enough, there were only 41 games broadcast in HD during the regular season – exactly half. In comparison, there were 46 Warriors games broadcasted in HD out of the 78 games in the season. While its not much of a difference – 50% of the games compared to 59% – it still would mean 7 more games broadcasted in HD for the Sharks if the percentages were constant. 

   But really, hockey in HD is like nothing else. You get to see more of the action – crucial when so much is away from the puck – and everything is a lot clearer. I mean, its beautiful. Almost as good as going to a game in person (what it lacks in atmosphere it makes up in instant replays, witty commentary, and free-ness). Guarenteed to change the minds of all those who think watching hockey on TV is too hard to follow.

3. Hire a new marketing director.
   So, frequenting various NHL-related blogs, I am often accosted by youtube videos of commercials for their team. Like this one advertising the Blackhawks on TV, or this one for voting Blackhawks to the All Star Game, or this one for the Bruins playoff run, or this one for the Predators. All of those videos were made for this season. 

   What do the Sharks have? The horrible “Its not hard to find the Sharks” commercials that CSN-BA run and the playoff tickets one with Joe Thornton, JR, and Sharkie that makes me cringe. I’m sorry, I’ve seen better commericals in my beginning media arts course. Believe me, that’s saying something.Its not hard to come up with a creative, yet cheap idea like those four aforementioned commericals did. The marketing department has free access to the players, the arena, hockey equipment, a bunch of jerseys, and can easily send out a bulliten attracting thousands of extras willing to be in it for free (aka “Sharks fans”).

   Oh, and not only does the quality of advertising have to increase, but the quantity as well – there was nothing done about the All Star Game despite having 5 players nominated for starting positions and one player having a somewhat successful grass-roots campaign. I’m not sure if many people in the greater San Jose area even knew that they could vote. And then when they actually sent out something, it was those horrible vector pictures of the players that looked like someone did in about 10 minutes because they realized that the deadline was the next day.

   What I propose? Have a contest like Doritos did for the Super Bowl, only with people coming up with commercial ideas instead of actually filming the commercial themselves. The winner would get center ice tickets to a division rival game and a chance to meet the players beforehand. Cheap, simple, and effective.

   Either that or just hire a better marketing director. Seriously.”Whose your Nabby” just doesn’t cut it anymore.

4. Have a team-imposed salary cap.
   Now this one is going to be a bit more controversial. I know that this past season was the first time that the Sharks spent to the cap, and I’m glad they did. The fans could see what they would get with that extra $5 million that Jamison usually hides away, and that’s good. However, with the economy in shambles and with the salary cap going who knows where for the 2010-2011 season (which, unfortunately, is also the season where most contracts will be up for the Sharks), the team should impose a cap ceiling $2 million below the NHL’s. Why? Two reasons: economic uncertainty and flexibility. 

   The cap has a liklihood of going down after this coming season, and so by not spending to it the Sharks would be in a much better position going into the future. The flexibility factor comes in when the team needs to bring in new guys just in case some players are hurt or if there is a hole in the team that needs to be plugged. There would be less worry about the player’s cap hit, and so the focus could largely be on whether or not the player would best fit with the team.

5. You know those jumbo screens outside of Mellon Arena and Verizon Center that fans can watch during games? Yeah, get one of those.
   Currently, there are a few ways to watch a Sharks game. You can go to a game, watch it from home, listen to it on the radio, stream it online (both free and, uh, not free), or – and this is only once in a blue moon – go to a Sharks-sponsored event at some place like Stanley’s or Dave and Buster’s. The latter option is the one that bothers me; while I have yet to actually go to one of those events, it seems odd that they would be held so out of the way. Especially the D&B option, which is all the way in Milpitas. Milpitas! 

   A giant screen broadcasting the game out to the park right across the street would give a sense of actually being at the game (what with all the fans in jerseys) without having to pay tickets for the game. But wait – doesn’t that seem like it would lose the organization money? Not if they sell food and Sharks merchandise outside of the arena as well as inside of it. It would further draw crowds to downtown and to the Tank, and with more than the standard 17,496 going to a game, it would seem like the fanbase is that much more impressive.

6. Pay less attention to Germany.
   The Sharks must have the award for drafting the most Germans, what with Goc, Ehrhoff, Greiss, and Sturm all their doing. And as decent as those players are, Germany isn’t exactly known for its hockey players. I would personally pay more attention to Sweden and Russia, the two European hockey powers with a lesser focus on the Czech Republic and Finland. All those countries (plus Canada and the US) have turned out great prospects and NHL players the past few years, and the Sharks haven’t quite picked up on the Euro thing, except where goalies are concerned.

So that’s my six-step plan. Some of it will be costly, other parts will take a while, but I truely believe that the Sharks will be better supported because of it.