Can't get no satisfaction

That's embarrassing.
Ranked almost last (in the NHL) in every category.

But one stat that doesn't surprise me is being ranked 30th (last) for Coach/Manager. If you consider our duo of Crawford and Lombardi.

Stadium satisfaction was 22nd? How much crappier was the other 8 teams arenas? I'm actually debating if I want to give up the hell hole of downtown LA for Ontario.

Ironic on how they finished
29th out of 30 NHL teams
just as they finished this
regular season. BSPN sucks
anyway.

eh, ESPN isn't worth listening to. I take every thing they say with a grain of salt.

I apologize in advance Rich, for some reason polls and surveys cause media-types to salivate incessantly and believe that they have uncovered some sort of trove of information when what they really found was/is an unprofessional, unscientific, biased study from the same people who brought you "who's it?" or "who's hot?" or whatever the stupid segment was. This study has a clear selection bias which skews results to favor not only sports that have larger fan bases (MLB, NFL, NBA)and larger market cities that have all of these teams competitive - LA, as you well know, has competitive MLB teams, 1.5 NBA teams and arguably 1.5 NHL teams, with no NFL team. Please Rich, you are better than this. I know that this is the slow time of the year but this is ridiculous. I thought for a second Matt was back contributing to this blog.

The stadium catagory seems pretty lame..the kings are 83, but the lakers are 18th, and clippers 31st. They all play in the same stadium, have the same food etc about the same give aways...there is no way there should be that much discrepacy.

Hey, what a shock! anthony was the first person to comment and used the platform to bash Lombardi. Whouda thunk it?

I wouldn't put too much consequence on these results. It doesn't appear that ESPN spent much time or research on compiling these statistics (when do they, ever?) and just sat at their cushy east-coast-oriented desks to pass judgment with limited knowledge. They probably know as much about the Kings (or the Ducks, for that matter) as they do about the Reno Silver Sox. This is "People Magazine" journalism--for shock value and sensationalism.

Anthony, (Coach/Manager) means coach OR manager-- coach for the NHL, NFL, or NBA, manager for the MLB.
last time i checked, GMs have nothing to do with on-field (or on-ice) leadership. if it included lombardi, our ranking would go up.

then again, i don't expect you to actually think before you comment; i've come to expect that from you over time.

Anonymous: great point. shows how much stock we can actually put in these rankings.

Seitz: i know, i couldn't believe it either!

Wow. Like astrology, this is all for entertainment purposes only folks, so lighten up. And you know who you are.

It's simple business. You put out a crappy, yet expensive product, you'll have disgruntles consumers. I don't need a survey, however flawed it may be, to tell me that the Kings suck on many levels. It's obvious. But somehow we all keep following them. And maybe one day we'll be rewarded.

sorry guys, I got a little fired up since I do these sort of things for a living (e.g. polls, surveys). I apologize Rich, I'm sure you're laughing about all of this anyways.

As for Anthony ... I'm sure your clients wouldn't like the fact that you are billing them for time you spend on this blog; assuming of course you actually have clients.

Okay, so while I agree with some of the sentiment behind this poll, it's clearly crap.

The "Bang-For_Buck" rating is likely useful, but not much else there is. And all that tells you really is if your team is winning or not.

CAR ranks #1 for "Title Track"? Okay, geuss they only ever wanted the one and are now eternally satisfied...

The building rating I have no beef with though. Right here in CA we have two buildings that beat Staples for actually watching hockey (as opposed to generating revenues with luxury boxes or based on the number of consession stands and bathrooms).

The affordability ranking seems like it could be useful, but there is another group out there, Team Marketing Report, that does a pretty comprehensive survey of relative sport costs. You can check out their '07 report on the NHL here:

http://teammarketing.com.ismmedia.com/ISM3/std-content/repos/Top/Fan%20Cost%20Index/NHL/nhl%20fci%2007-08.pdf

This one and TMR seem to agree somewhat at the extremes (CAR, BUF, STL are cheap, TOR is expensive), but in the middle they are all over the place. LA ranks 5th least affordable here, but comes in 14th with TMR.

So what's this ESPN thingy really say? Fans aren't happy the Kings are losing. Wow, that one's a real shocker...

the one rating that I find really odd is the 27th for FRL (Fan Relations): Ease of access to players, coaches & management - I can't imagine too may other pro sports teams that do better at this than the Kings

Meanwhile the Kings managed to average over 16,000 in attendance.

This list is meaningless.

"Meanwhile the Kings managed to average over 16,000 in attendance.

This list is meaningless."

As is your comment on attendance without a little explanation of what you mean by throwing that out there.

16K puts us in the bottom third in absolute terms and in the bottom half on a percentage basis.

So by throwing out attendance you mean to point out....?

Seriously, not trying to knock you sandman, just wondering what you are getting at.

I think the one thing the ESPN poll says is fans aren't happy with a losing team. Attendance, especially taken from a historical perspective on the way this team has been able to muster a pretty solid core base of support over some pretty bad years, kind of agrees.

Although, attendance is actually up slightly this year on a percentage basis from last year. From '03 to '06 the Kings were about 95%. In '07 that dropped to 91% and this year was 92%.

So, the past two years we have seen a drop-off. Not sure how that fits into what point was trying to be made, but there it is.

I have to agree with the ranking for the Bang for the Buck, affordability, and title track. But as someone pointed out earlier, the CLippers and Lakers have higher rankings for the Stadium category? This whole thing is crap. I mean, come on, the Ducks are 5th? Why, because they won the cup last year. Their arena is crap and I can't see too many other sports teams that have as good as player/coach interaction as the Kings do with open practices, Tip a King and Meet the Players. The Kings handle those things really well. I have a stick signed by the entire organization (in 2 hours) to prove it.

Its easy for Staples to sell out kings games as this is a show town and thousands of tickets are sold in corporate packages which pays for the luxury suites and fills the seats. I've worked for companies that had air least 25-30 left over unused tix(all lower bowl) for kings games if the "upper mangagement" does use them, the minions below can fight for them in thunderdome in the mail room.

My big gripe is the price of tickets for games going up every single year. I usually cant afford many games a year, but i try to get to a game a month or every other if i can. I usually buy a cheap seat in the upper 300 with the real fans, but thats becoming to expensive to maintain on a regular basis as well. When Staples first opened the upper 300 ticket cost was $18.50. Now the price has gone up at least $2.50 every single year, so now a nosebleed seat is now $30. and im guessing that next season it will be $32-33 per minimum, not counting parking, eats etc. and i only buy at the box office, freaking $8-12 service charges for ticketmaster is insane.

These rankings seem way off if you consider the Carolina Hurricanes are ranked No. 1 overall -- not just for NHL teams -- in the "Titles already won or expected soon" category. I realize Carolina did win a Cup, but 1) that was two years ago, 2) they haven't made the playoffs since and 3) you can't tell me there aren't a half-dozen or more NHL teams that can expect more titles soon.

So, don't place too much stock in these rankings, unless you either think the Canes' championship in 2005 was so monumental as to dwarf any other recent title in sports, or you think the Canes are on the verge of becoming the next great NHL dynasty. Assuming they manage to make the playoffs again in the near future.

Kudos to Kostopoulus.. Is great to see the gritty former King having success in the playoffs. He always worked hard for us, stood up for his teammates, and a class guy with the fans.

yeah, and they try to have a "players" category ranked by effort and likability. looks like it's just based on talent.

there is no way that chris pronger and friends have us by 95 spots on effort and, especially, likability. i'll take the classiness of our players and lubo's cookies any day.

Kostopolous class guy? I guess unless you are a Tampa police officer.

quatro, if you're talking ease of access to players, the kings are not great. I just relocated from the philly area, and most of the flyers players stop and sign autographs after games and practices. The way the parking at staples and toyota center are set up, it's difficult, if not impossible, for the Kings players to do the same. It feels like they are trying to keep us away from the players except for team sponsored events. Just a transplants 2 cents.