The Washington Capitals’ late-season push has put them on the verge of a playoff berth, and it also has been a major boost to the team’s balance sheet.
While team owner Ted Leonsis said he still expects the team to lose more than $10 million this season because of a higher payroll, he said every financial indicator — from ticket sales to sponsorships to television ratings — is “spiraling upward.”
Tuesday’s clutch win over the Carolina Hurricanes drew a sellout crowd of more than 18,200 fans, boosting the average attendance on the year by more than 10 percent over last season. What’s more, local television ratings have more than doubled, particularly among the highly coveted young male viewers.
“Every green arrow I look at is up ahead of plan,” said Leonsis, who counted Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine among the many guests in his box Tuesday at Verizon Center.
The Caps head into their final two games knowing victories would give them a good chance to make the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2003. It did not seem possible they would be in this position in late November, when the team stood at 6-14-1 and in last place in the Eastern Conference. But the team’s on-ice fortunes changed when it hired Bruce Boudreau as coach on Thanksgiving. And fan support increased when the team signed left wing Alex Ovechkin to a record-breaking, 13-year contract extension midway through the season.
Attendance since the Ovechkin signing has been 25 percent higher than during the first half of the year, and the team has drawn more than 17,000 fans at every game since February. Five of the last nine home games have been sellouts, and the team likely will play its last two games in a packed Verizon Center as well.
Officially, the Caps’ average attendance of 15,326 places the team 26th in the NHL. But the team ranks 21st in the number of actual tickets sold, and only two teams have a larger percentage increase in attendance this season.
Tuesday night’s victory triggered a raucous environment inside Verizon Center and out on the streets, where fans honked their car horns and led Capitals cheers for nearly an hour after the game. The win meant that fans will do some scoreboard-watching and analyze the various scenarios.
“We haven’t done that in a while,” said Paul Sotoudeh, a government attorney from Falls Church. “This is new. This is different. It’s like baseball at the end of the season.”
And those who can’t make it to Verizon Center are tuning in. Ratings in the D.C. area have risen from a dismal 0.3 last year to a solid 0.8 this season, representing a rise from about 7,000 households to more than 18,400 watching. About 37,000 fans tuned in to Tuesday night’s game, giving it a 1.6 rating and making it the most-watched Capitals game of the year. Nearly three-fourths of the fans tuning in were younger men, making the broadcasts particularly attractive to sponsors.
“That’s who they were targeting,” Comcast SportsNet general manager Rebecca Schulte said. “To get that kind of attention from that 18-49 male [demographic] is huge. It’s nice to see that passion is back. It’s nice to see that this town really is a hockey town and that the people are really behind seeing the team succeed. It’s a great story.”
Leonsis said the team is still operating in the red because he has added to the payroll while keeping ticket prices generally flat. But he expects losses to decrease next season as attendance continues to rise, and he is comfortable losing some money because the team is appreciating in value at a faster rate.
And there are indications that regardless of how the season plays out, fan interest in the team will increase next year. Season ticket renewals are at 81 percent, giving the team hope it can retain more than 90 percent of its season-ticket holders going into next season. Sales of new season tickets are also twice as high as they were at this point last year. While the team declined to reveal its season ticket base for this season, Leonsis considers topping 12,000 next season realistic. Two more wins this week would prove more helpful.
“I know these last two games are going to be tough,” he said. “But the team has a confidence that they are a really good team. What I’m happy with to see is that the team’s expectations are very high.”
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