The reference to University of Connecticut football was succinct and unflattering. “They can’t draw anybody to games, they have no natural rivalries and they’re not very good,” said Peter Roby, former Athletic Director at Northeastern University. “Is that what people want?”
Read MoreBaseball fans in Connecticut turn their attention to the West Coast this week, as the traditional “hot stove league” Winter Meetings get underway. While much of the interest will focus at the major league level, there will be plenty of action at the concurrent minor league baseball meetings
Read MoreConnecticut’s minor league franchise hosts may be in two different categories – the have and the have not – when the 2021 season gets underway, if Major League Baseball’s plan to cut 42 teams in Minor League Baseball becomes a reality. Norwich is on the list of affiliated franchises that may be disconnected.
Read MoreAn innovative undergraduate program in Digital Media and Communication will launch in January 2020 at the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) in West Hartford, part of a pioneering collaboration with Connecticut Public. The undergraduate degree program offers students two distinct concentrations: Spanish Media and Communication or Sport Media and Communication.
Read MoreThe Travelers Championship has announced that the 2019 tournament generated more than $2.1 million for 150 local charities, including this year’s primary beneficiary, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. The impact of the tournament, one of the most highly regarded on the PGA Tour, reverberates throughout the state.
Read MoreWhen statisticians, academicians, and sports enthusiasts with a keen interest in the overlapping fields of sports and statistics get together for the annual New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports on September 28 at Harvard University, Connecticut will have a strong presence.
Read MoreProfessional soccer’s return to Hartford may be only months old, but the city is already gaining notice. A new national survey ranked Hartford as 8th best in the nation for soccer fans, among midsize cities hosting soccer franchises or with college soccer teams.
Read MoreConnecticut Children’s Medical Center is the only hospital in Connecticut dedicated exclusively to the care of children. A pediatric dialysis center - the state’s first - is now being planned, with support from a major gift - and an assist from purchases of Hartford Whalers license plates from the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Read MoreIf you are wondering why there is optimism for the success of the Hartford Athletic, the city’s new professional soccer team planning to begin its inaugural season later this month, a peek back at ratings for televised international soccer in the U.S. provides some hints.
In March 2016, the Washington Post reported on the U.S. cities with the highest viewership for the Manchester derby between City and United in the English Premier League the previous week. Topping the ratings was Baltimore, followed by Kansas City, Hartford, Seattle, Columbus, the San Francisco Bay area, West Palm Beach, and Philadelphia. Yes, Hartford ranked third that week. The match was the highest-rated Manchester Derby telecast in U.S. history at that time, attracting 1.17 million TV viewers.
Two years later, when NBC Sports reported on the cities with the highest average season-long ratings on Premier League telecast for the 2017-18 season, Hartford was ranked in the top 10. Connecticut’s Capitol region was outranked only by Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Providence, Austin, Norfolk and Dallas.
This past Sunday, the top rated U.S. television markets for Manchester United vs. Liverpool, broadcast on NBC Sports Network, once again included the Hartford/New Haven market, at number six. Leading the way once again was Baltimore, followed by Norfolk, Washington D.C., Milwaukee and Jacksonville. Boston was seventh, just behind Hartford/New Haven.
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oincidentally, the telecasts are coordinated not in the U.K., but in Stamford, Connecticut, at the massive NBC facility there, which also serves as the command center for NBC’s Olympic coverage. Approximately 60 work on each match day at NBC Sports’ headquarters, located at 1 Blachley Road on the city’s East Side, the Stamford Advocate reported last summer, just prior to the current season. On NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app, a record 4 million unique viewers watched during the past season, the Advocate reported.
Hartford Athletic, a USL expansion franchise, will kick off its inaugural season with a game in Atlanta on March 9. The team's home opener is set for May 4. The club announced this week that Trinity Health of New England will be Title Partner and Official Healthcare Provider of Hartford Athletic and featured on both Hartford Athletic’s home and away jerseys. Dillon Stadium, currently undergoing renovation in Hartford, is slated to be the club’s home turf.
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With the ghosts of Hartford Whalers past brought back to life for a one-night stand in Raleigh, North Carolina this past weekend, a glimpse at attendance numbers may give some perspective on what was, what is, and what might have been.
The Carolina Hurricanes home attendance in the 31-team National Hockey League ranks 29th in the league thus far in the 2018-19 season, after 20 home games, not including Whalers night. The team has been drawing considerably better on the road (17,258) than at home (13,245). 
That home attendance figure should come as no surprise. It is on pace for last season’s home attendance average over 41 games of 13,320. Then as now, it was the third lowest home attendance average in the league. Only Arizona and the New York Islanders drew fewer fans to home games.
It’s no wonder that the Hurricanes were seeking to recapture some of that Whalers magic – or should we say Bonanza. And also cash in on merchandise sales, as well as seeking an attendance boost, even if only for a night.
In early 1996, a 45-day “Save the Whale” season-ticket drive in Hartford resulted in 8,300 season tickets sold, about 3,000 more than the previous year. In the aftermath of the season ticket drive, and heading into the 1996-97 season, the Whalers management said they would remain in Hartford for two more years, in accordance with their lease. Yet they ended their 18-year history as the Whalers in Hartford, moving to Greensboro, North Carolina seeking redder pastures and becoming the Carolina Hurricanes for the start of the 1997-98 season.
In the Whalers’ final season in Hartford, 1996-97, attendance at the Hartford Civic Center had grown to 87 percent of capacity, with an average attendance of 13,680 per game. Published reports suggest that the average attendance was, in reality, higher than 14,000 per game by 1996-97, but Whalers ownership did not count the skyboxes and coliseum club seating because the revenue streams went to the state, rather than the team. Attendance increased for four consecutive years before management moved the team from Hartford. (To 10,407 in 1993-94, 11,835 in 1994-95, 11,983 in 1995-96 and 13,680 in 1996-97.)
During the team’s tenure in Hartford, average attendance exceeded 14,000 twice – in 1987-88 and 1986-87, when the team ranked 13th in the league in attendance in both seasons. The Hurricanes had somewhat higher attendance numbers in the immediate aftermath of winning the Stanley Cup a decade ago, but they did not sustain those levels and were among the top half of NHL teams in attendance only once.
Keep in mind that as we approach 2019, after two decades in North Carolina, the Hurricanes are only a couple of seasons removed from the recent low water mark in NHL attendance. In the 2016-17 season, the average home crowd was the lowest in the NHL – only 11,776. It was the second consecutive season that the Hurricanes had the league’s worst home attendance numbers. (They were second worst the previous year.)
The Hurricanes/Whalers will next skate in Boston against the Bruins in early spring, taking to ice in the green uniforms originally worn as road uniforms by Hartford from 1985-89, then again in 1991-92. The Whalers, by the way, are now undefeated this season, as the Hurricanes defeated the Bruins 5-3 on Sunday afternoon. The win was not without criticism, with one published report describing the Hurricanes new first-year management as leading "the desecration of a grave and a shameless ploy to drum up some jersey and merchandise sales. A cash grab."
The crowd was, as CBS Sports phrased it: "much bigger than they’re used to": 17,491.
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