Colorado Mammoth Message Board

Hey Steve,

With the Thursday night game coming up, how much "pull" do the Mammoth have when scheduling games at the Pepsi Center? How exactly does this work? I would imagine that the Nuggets and Avs get priority, but is that true? Do the Mammoth have to pick and choose what dates are left or does the growing popularity of the Mammoth factor in? Or, are the dates more a reflection on other NLL teams not having much flexibility due to their lack of attendance, which then impacts the rest of the teams schedules?

Thanks

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2006 NLL CHAMPIONS!!!!

Thank you very much for this insightful question.

It is not a matter of "pull", it is however, a matter of overall business applications. The Avalanche and the Nuggets have to play 42 home games each, obviously for them to be successful they need to play some weekend home games as well. As the two marquee tenants, of course they both must have their offering of dates into their respective leagues long before us.

Only after both the NBA and the NHL schedules are complete are the Mammoth able to select dates. There is one person who holds the master schedule for the building and we have a great relationship with him.

The Mammoth is required to submit 10 dates in order to schedule 8 games. You will notice that we have more premium dates earlier in the season that happens because we must co-exist also with the Crush in the time frame where our schedules overlap. We must be good partners here and help them as they help us with premium dates in order to fill the building.

Also, we are faced with a situation where the Pepsi Center itself must book events to be financially stable. Events like the NCAA hockey regional tournaments, CHSAA wrestling, Monster Trucks, Stars on Ice and other events are also necessary for the building to be successful. It certainly is a roulette wheel around here sometimes with all the conversions to different events. It is quite a ballet to mesh all the events together every year.

You will notice that this particular weekend the Mammoth was locked out of Friday and Saturday with Avs and Nuggets games, our only option was Sunday or Thursday. We felt that our past experience on Thursday was stronger than our past experiences on Sunday, sometimes you gamble and it works and sometimes you gamble and it doesn't. Consider this a calculated gamble.

Incidentlly, our new scheduling criteria for the NLL has us only required to play each divisional opponent home and away once each, in the past three games was required with each divisional opponent. Scheduling flexibility was very difficult with more stringent requirements and being able to actually create the schedule was very difficult. Less requirements create more flexibility for the schedule makers, whose job is very difficult as it is.

With limited number of dates available, many things must be considered. Weekends only, commercial travel, strength of schedule, rivalries, etc. all play a factor. We have tried to play earlier in the year and it was an unmitigated disaster financially, later and ticket revenues drop off significantly because people want to get outside and do other things. We are forced to stay in the season that we have and increasing games is exceedingly difficult when teams are unable to submit dates when we can only play on weekends.

Many owners in our league are also reluctant to play more games because it means higher pricing for season ticket packages which may decrease the number of ticket buyers resulting in fewer revenues. Nobody wants to hear that especially those owners that are losing money now.

I hope that gets the majority of your question answered.

SG

Thanks for the detailed response. I figured it would be a difficult balancing act.

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2006 NLL CHAMPIONS!!!!

Why hasn't the league gone to a "division opponents twice and non- divisonal opponents once" format? I understand that with uneven expansion that would create a 17 game season versus the 16 games but dropping a single game would be better for the fans and the league in my opinion. I would love to see Eastern teams every season even if half were road games.

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No one's taller than
the last man standing.

I was hoping someone would ask this question.

It is not quite as simple as deciding on a format and sticking with it. While your scenario sounds very simple, with 7 teams in the east and 6 teams in the west an uneven number of games becomes necessary and that is unacceptable.

Using your thought process a western team would play 10 interdivisional games and 6 eastern divisional games, not 7 as required by your rule. An eastern team would play 12 interdivisional games and 4 in the west leaving out two teams from the schedule. You could increase the number of games but then you run into issues of player salaries, and ticket price increases and more weekend dates.

Now add in the availability of the buildings that we play in, we submit 10 dates to play 8 games, those days are limited to weekends. What if 10 of 13 teams all submit the same date TWICE!! It's great you have 10 good dates but only 13 teams that can play, so 4 of those teams can't use that date and are forced to use an alternative and potentially weaker date.

Now add in the issue of travel; you can't have a team play at night in Philadelphia and then the next afternoon in Portland or Colorado, we fly commercial which creates its own set of challenges.

The league also attempts to maintain some level of consistency with the strength of schedule. For example the defending champion Colorado Mammoth have what is supposed to be the hardest schedule with no expansion teams in our future, whereas the Edmonton Rush will play all the expansion teams and non-playoff teams multiple times.

With more rigidity comes more challenges for the schedule maker. With more flexible scheduling rules, it allows for all the challenges to be addressed.

On top of all that, the NLL is expanding with the growing popularity of our game. Each expansion brings a new set of challenges with the schedule and the rules. We would love to have a hard and fast rule from year to year on how the schedule must look for consistency sake, however, when the landscape changes each year it is extremely difficult.

By requiring that we play each divisional opponent at least twice, we create a situation where, strength of schedule, dates, travel, weeknight games, building availability, etc. all allow the schedule maker at least some flexibility to make it all work.

Sorry its not the way you would do it but I assure you it is the best possible system given all the moving parts.

SG

That makes perfect sense to me. Thanks for the detailed response. Mabye as fans if we keep attendance high and the sport gaining popularity we can finally get the League as huge as it should be.

Thanks again!

_________________
No one's taller than
the last man standing.

With the rumors already swirling of future expansions for the league, possibly as soon as next year, are there any talks already starting for things like division realignment or anything along those lines to help keep scheduling as painless as possible? Or is more of a 'wait and see' approach from year to year?

The NLL and the Competition Committee have been preparing for the expansion for a few years now. Although exact expansion and cities are always a wait and see process until the sale of those teams are actually closed.

When we divided the league into east and west it was in preparation for future expansion. Adding additional playoff teams in an 11 team league seemed premature but was done with expansion in mind (and also to reward the first place team with a guaranteed home game for winning the division).

Things that are in place once we reach certain thresholds are the separation of the divisions into north and south within the divisions. This will certainly help in the flexibility of the schedule. These are all things that we are prepared for as a league but must wait and see what the future brings with potential investors in our leauge.

SG