The problem I have as a Leaf fan is being lumped into the category of “Leaf Fan”. The stereotypical Leaf fan overvalues marginal players in Leaf jerseys and as the writer said is usually unaware of statistical and factual history. I take exception to that.

I am a Leaf fan and I have been since I was a toddler in the eighties. I remember how good the team was when they made four conference finals from 1993 – 2002. I also remember when it all started to go sideways when Peddie foolishly hired a rookie GM to manage a heavily scrutinized franchise under immense pressure to win a Cup. But unlike the writer I didn’t simply hop off the bandwagon and pick a winner. I can’t even imagine how anybody could just support a team with no emotional investment whatsoever. It might work for some but the concept is just weird to me as I’m sure it’s weird to die hard Habs fans, Flames fans etc.

I do think that as much as there are delusional Leaf Fans who are ignorant to facts, history etc. big time Leaf detractors certainly suffer from the same disease so to speak. Insinuating that Leaf fans need to boycott or that the organization doesn’t care about winning undermines any sound economic reasoning. I’ve done a godo amount of research on this topic and I invite you to check my numbers but here are the facts I found:

Firstly, ticket sales account for 1/3 of Leafs revenue and merchandise etc counts for 2/3 of sales. The Leafs can only spend a finite amount of money on players and already spend the maximum possible on player personell. After the season ends the players don’t get paid so any playoff game is nearly pure profit for the organization. The Leafs rake in between 1 and 3 million dollars PER home game plus merchandise sold during a playoff run. The argument that the team doesn’t care about winning subscribes to the belief that the Leafs would choose to spend the maximum amount of money on bad players to make x amount of dollars profit when they can spend exactly the same amount on ‘good’ players and make x amount of dollars plus an extra 10 -30 million dollars with a good playoff run.

Some might say “So What? They still make a profit” From an economic standpoint profits aren’t necessarily how corporations are judged in terms of success. While being in the black is always a positive the goal of any corporation including MSLE is to increase value of its assets. For example if the Leafs make a 30 million dollar profit this year but made a 50 million dollar profit five years ago the value of the franchise decreases. If, however, the Leafs make the playoffs and increase their profits to 70 million the value of the asset increases. In terms of trade on the market, this is what the performace of a corporation is based on.

The last point I’ll make has to do with supply and demand. While the Leafs can increase ticket sales (which they have done and I find appaling) ticket sales are a limited supply and therefore a limited profit. ie) Only x amount can be made on tickets. If the Leafs aren’t winning do you really feel like going out and buying a Jersey? If the Leafs get nothing but bad players are you going to get a poster for your kid? Well this is the 2/3 of revenue that REALLY matter to the Leafs because the supply is limited only by the demand. So if the Leafs are winning and have star power, people will buy as many jerseys, posters , t-shirts etc as can be supplied and the influx of cash to MSLE will destroy the numbers they are getting now. Think of when the Blue Jays won the World Series (if you lived in Toronto). How many of you had a World Series Champion shirt or hat? Almost everybody did. Now imagine if the Leafs made a playoff run or GASP won a Stanley Cup. The profits would skyrocket and the value of the franchise would as well. Leaf fans treat Doug Gilmour like he was a Conn Smythe winner on a Championship Leaf team when all he really did was put in two good playoff performances that resulted in a conference final loss in two consecutive years. Leaf fans talk about the 93 team like they are this dynasty when they didn’t win a thing. Imagine how much Leaf fans would milk a Stanley Cup Champion.

Leaf ownership wants to win; they just don’t know how. Hiring Burke is a good start as like him or hate him, he knows more about building a hockey team than Richard Peddie or John Ferguson Jr. Burke isn’t finished with this team; he’s barely started. Time will tell if Burke’s additions (and subtractions) will turn this team into a winner but insinuating that management doesn’t want to win and that Burke is somehow supposed to have taken a very bad team with very bad contracts and turn them into a winner within one year of inheriting them is very unreasonable. In Anaheim he inherited a team with less points than Toronto last year. He didn’t build them from scratch but he didn’t build them with high draft picks either. Getzlaf and Perry were late 1st rounders drafted by Murray who were good pieces. Giguere and role players like Kunitz, Pahlson, and MacDonald were brought in by Coates (all undrafted like Hanson/Bozak btw). What Burke did was take them from a bad team with a few good prospects and add their top four defencemen (Pronger, Niedermeyer, Beauchemin and O’Donnell), their leading scorer (Selanne) their top faceoff man (Marchant) and tough players like Peros and Thornton. While Burke had more to work with in Anaheim than he does in Toronto, he certainly did not inherit a team that would have won a championship any time soon with Ruslan Salei as their top defender and Sergei Federov as their top scorer. Without Burke, the Ducks don’t win the Cup but that doesn’t mean that the same template will work in Toronto. What it does mean is that if Burke does succeed here it’s going to take more than the year he has been here; if it took him three seasons with Anaheim it will definitely take more than that with Toronto.

Bruce

Ummm did you read the post?

When introducing myself, I was proud to announce I was from Toronto, Canada. “Oh, you must be a big hockey fan,” a local gentleman suggested with a warm, hospitable smile. “Yes, I am,” I proudly blurted again. Then I quickly added, “but I’m not a Leafs fan.”

As for the question, the Maple Leafs’ fanbase numbers in the millions just in Toronto and the club makes over a third of its revenue from non-gameday activities. Organising a boycott is a non-starter because for every disgruntled fan there will be a handful that don’t care enough to drop off the map. Give up season tickets? Good luck. The Leafs have been terrible for five years and people still hold on to them because if they turned them in they’d get snapped up in a second. That’s the reality of having 19K seats for such a massive fanbase.

Furthermore, it’s not the fans that have been making the bad trades, draft picks, or investments in player development. It’s on the ownership and management. MLSE spent in the top 5 pre-lockout and had some success but never reached the pinnacle.

Hey Mike,
I guess the simple answer is the ownership structure. The Leafs went from being owned by a bumbling idiot to a committee that only cares about profits not hardware. As long as the Leafs turn a profit – the on ice performance is secondary.
The won’t win until they get bought by 1 guy that desperately needs to win. A big ego with a huge competitive urge the puts winning first.
Imagine a great pirate ship – it has 1 captain that never settles for anything less than total conquest. Even great Empires are headed by Strong Leaders.
The Leafs need a Caesar – the committee will never do the job.