At the All Star Classic in San Jose, Scott Howson held a brief presser to update media there on the state of the AHL, and what’s coming next for the league.
AHL On The Upswing
The AHL was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it seems the league has come out of the other side even stronger. Howson reported that attendance was up by about 6% in the first half of the 2023-24 season, and team revenue was up about 18%. This time last year, the AHL was struggling with inflation and rising travel costs as they tried to regroup after the pandemic. Not the case this year, as travel costs continue to be high, but not debilitatingly so.
It’s why the schedule is the way that it is, teams want to play closer to home so they don’t incur as high of a cost when they travel. It’s certainly not as bad as last year.
Howson on travel costs for teams
Wolves vs Hurricanes
This season the Chicago Wolves announced they would be operating independently, becoming the only team in the league without an NHL affiliate. This left the Carolina Hurricanes without an affiliate to send their prospects to, and the Wolves without a stream of promising young players to bolster their roster with.
It’s not an ideal situation for either team, and Howson was very firm in reiterating that this partnership is a work in progress.
We are working very hard at it. We are optimistic on a solution, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. And it’s got a lot of moving parts. So I have nothing new to report other than there’s a lot of people working on this, including at the AHL level and at the NHL level and trying to find a solution to this problem because, quite frankly, it’s not sustainable for either league. It’s not sustainable for the Chicago Wolves and it’s certainly not sustainable for the Carolina Hurricanes.
Howson on the progress between the Wolves and the Hurricanes
Expansion News?
With NHL expansion news always swirling in the rumour mill, it’s fair to assume the AHL is keeping markets in mind for potential expansion there. They’ve had great success with Henderson and Coachella Valley, the newest AHL franchises for the newest NHL teams, but even with the Chicago-Carolina situation, adding a 33rd team is not a viable option for the league right now. Are there any markets that the AHL is thinking about? How much of those decisions will come from the league, and how much from the hypothetical new NHL teams?
Are there markets that I get calls on that say “we’re going to have a building here” or “what do you think about this?” Yes, that happens all the time. I get calls from people that want to own teams in the AHL. But if the NHL ever expands obviously the NHL team would have a large say in what they want to do. And we would try and make it work. But it’s a hypothetical right now.
Howson on AHL Expansion
Blame It On The Weather
The one mark on the ASC last weekend was something out of their control: the unseasonable storms across the state of California. The Barracuda’s representative, Shakir Mukhamadullin, arrived at the arena only thirty minutes before the conclusion of the All Star Skills competition, and a handful of other players like Abbotsford’s Arshdeep Bains and Rochester’s Isak Rosen and Jiri Kulich didn’t make it to the skills portion of the weekend at all. With that in mind, is the league considering alternate schedules next year, to try and give teams a bigger travel window?
We’ll look at it. We’ve been doing it this way for a long time and the reason we do it this way is because we get the exposure we want on the Sunday night and the Monday night after the NHL All Star weekend, and the NHL is essentially dark on these nights. But you know this was a concern. I think we had the perfect storm yesterday. Pardon the pun, and we reacted very well, but it’s not ideal. It’s probably something we will look at. Next year, we’ve got the NHL holding the Four Nations tournament, so no All Star game and then we’ve got an Olympic year the next year [so also no NHL ASG]. So that will maybe give us a different dynamic and how we plan this event.
Howson on the travel issues due to the weather
Barracuda: A Success Story?
It’s fair to say that the San Jose Barracuda are not the most well attended AHL team. There are a bunch of factors here, but with the opening of the new arena at Tech CU, moving the Barracuda out of SAP (where the Sharks play) has done great things for the Barracuda in allowing them to establish a separate brand to their parent team.
I think that was a big challenge for them, being in that big arena at SAP Getting to this beautiful facility here is really perfect for this market and for this team. And I think people are working very hard to try and make it a success.
Howson on the Barracuda being a success
The Barracuda definitely have growth still left to do, but they’re still a relatively young team, in the scope of the AHL. They’ve been in San Jose for just over eight years now, but only in Tech CU for a season and a half. Howson pointed to the attendance at the ASC despite the weather as proof that there are loyal Barracuda fans, and maintains that as they continue to grow and improve, San Jose will have a great AHL franchise very soon.
I think they’d be the first to tell you there’s things that they want to keep working on. So we’re there to help them. We’ve got a great team Business Services department that’s there to help them drive ticket sales and some of the other things like corporate revenue. So I’m optimistic that this is going to keep getting better and better for them and they’re gonna have a really strong AHL franchise.
Howson on what the Barracuda’s future looks like
Is Scott Howson worried about the attendance at Barracuda games? Is relocation on the table for the team?
Absolutely not. I have very little concern about what’s going on here. You just don’t measure it by by attendance you measure it by a lot of other things. And I have no concern that the Barracuda will be successful.
Howson on potential relocation for the Barracuda
One of the things Howson noted about the bar for success with the Barracuda, is the state of their parent club, the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks were a very good team for a very long time, and Howson specifically mentioned that the AHL is a development league. The worst NHL teams often have good AHL teams, due to the number of quality prospects drafted by their parent team. The Barracuda are having a poor season this year, but looking at the prospects that San Jose has waiting in the wings, the Barracuda should have a bright future with a lot of exciting young players.
Finding Your Niche
The Barracuda have some stiff competition in the area. The Sharks are only a 20 minute drive away. Then there are the Warriors (NBA), the Giants (MLB), the 49ers (NFL), and then to a lesser extent, the Earthquakes (MLS) and the Warriors and Giants’ minor league franchises, plus SJSU, who draw a reasonable amount of locals to their own games at Tech CU. How does a team work through all these competing markets and find their own space in a crowded Bay Area?
Its attention. It’s fighting for your space. It’s really a lot harder in in a market like this because there’s so much else going on. And that’s a challenge and I think the costs are a challenge too. There’s higher costs [in a bigger market]. However, it’s not something that a lot of teams in our league haven’t thought through and you just have to find your own niche and make sure that you’re appealing to a certain segment of the population.
Howson on competing with all the other professional sports teams in the area
What’s Next For The AHL?
The AHL is a league in constant growth. They’re always looking for the next rung on the ladder, and Howson talks about the success of their streaming platform. AHLTV streams every game for all 32 teams across the league, but notes that there’s uncertainty in the future of the product.
We’re very happy with our streaming property and what it does for our teams and our league but I think that’s definitely a growth opportunity.
Howson on AHLTV
Howson’s Legacy
Scott Howson took over the AHL as the COVID-19 pandemic ran through professional sports (and the world). It’s a tough start to any gig, but Howson made it work. The AHL had three truncated seasons because of COVID-19, and didn’t really get back to a fully normal schedule until last season (2022-23). What was it like trying to grow a league that spent three years operating on bare bones?
There’s a lot of good stories. We’ve come out of the pandemic very well. And we want to keep building on our on our successes, and keep improving on the areas that we need to improve upon.
Howson on post pandemic success
Howson is almost four years into his tenure as AHL president, and likely has many more years of work ahead of him. What are his goals for the mark he wants to leave on the league?
Financially, it would be to make the league on even greater footing. I guess my stretch goal would be to have the team pay no dues to fund the league. Right now every team pays a certain amount and we generate revenue, but we don’t generate enough revenue for the teams not to pay to fund the league and that would be my stretch goal.
Howson on his goals for the future
Growing The Game
The AHL does excellent work with local communities, from Pride games, to raising money for local animal shelters and engaging in diverse and marginalised communities. It’s all spearheaded by Hayley Moore, Vice President of the AHL, who runs the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the league. At the ASC, the AHL invited four guest coaches, all from either the Female Coaches Association, or the BIPOC Coaches Association, as part of their Mentorship Initiative Program. How important is this kind of inclusion for growing the league as a whole?
We have to make our game more appealing to a more diverse audience. And we have markets like Tucson like San Jose, Coachella Valley, have done a great job of appealing to that local market and we have to keep driving that engine so that we are a diverse appeal to a diverse community.
Howson on growing the game
The AHL is a constantly growing and changing league, more so than maybe any other league in the world. Here at The Calder Times, we’re focused on everything in the American Hockey League, and we’re so excited to bring you news on all these changes as soon as they happen.
