The Florida Panthers are one of the 23 American based NHL teams. They currently operate out of Sunrise, Florida with other teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning playing in the same state. The Panthers have been losing significant amounts of money for the last couple of years now and have recently informed reporters that that number is skyward of $100,000 per day. This coming after they saw record low numbers in attendance with only 7,311 of their 19,250 seats filled in a recent game.

The question that arises is why the NHL or the owners of the team haven’t decided to re-locate this struggling franchise to a more northern city? For one, losing over $100,000 a day is not something that can be sustained in the long run. Secondly, the fans are definitely showing their lack of support for a struggling team. In fact, back in 2011-2012 when the Panthers finished atop of the once called Southeast division, they had a record selling number of sellouts at 17. The statistics show that as the performance of the team has gone down through history, so has the fan base.

My point here is to compare the struggling team south of the 49^th parallel to a similar struggling team north of the border. The Edmonton Oilers have consistently blew up expectations of their team year after year and are still seeing sellout crowds at all of their home games. This proves that the demand for hockey in the country in which it was created is as high as it has ever been. So what’s stopping the Florida Panthers from leaving the sunny beaches and heading up North to the snowy plains of Canada?

References:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/11/05/florida-panthers-losing-money-attendance_n_6103644.html?ir=Canada+Business

http://panthers.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=60916

http://www.nhl.com/ice/standings.htm?season=20112012&type=DIV

http://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=5632

http://tiffanydipanni.blitzmetrics.com/epic-fail-florida-panthers-new-ownership/

The music industry is one where if you are popular, you make a ridiculous amount of money but if you are trying to start out, revenue can be scarce. Sahir mentions in his blog post “Music Industry Today” that artists, no matter what their level of fame, earn between $0.006 and $0.0084 per song play on Spotify. Even though I completely agree with Sahir’s opinion regarding the fact that this amount is very small and this shows a negative trend in society in regards to paying for quality music, I believe there is some value in the free downloading market.

Free streaming hurts the main players in the music industry hands down, but in ways it can be an advantage to the up and coming. During our Comm 101 class where the Sauder Alumni visited, Tom Dobrzanski (Founder of Monarch Studios) mentioned that there exists a market for free/illegal music downloads for bands who are trying to start out like “Said the Whale” and “Hey Ocean” once were. By having this service available, these emerging artists are able to spread their music out to the public without having to thin their admirer’s wallets. If this illegal downloading system did not exist, there would be no way for these up and comers to have their music heard. Like Sahir mentioned, it would severely impact the diversity of music available to the listeners.

In summary, as much harm as free downloads can be to the big boys in the market, like Eminem, or Taylor Swift (who can definitely afford to take the hit regardless), they allow people to appreciate good music that wouldn’t otherwise have been out there and accessible to the public.

Image References:

https://spotifypresscom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/spotify-logo-primary-horizontal-dark-background-rgb.jpg

Said The Whale | Little Mountain

Album Review: IU – The Winning

It seems as though WestJet is starting to take precautionary measures towards the impending arrival of Southwest Airlines into the Canadian market. The company announced on November 4^th, 2014 that it would begin studying passenger’s reactions to thinner seats on their planes. These thinner seats are supposed to cut fuel costs as well as increase legroom by an extra inch (from 30-31). WOW!

As much as WestJet says this is an attempt to provide ultimate comfort for its passengers, I believe there lies an ulterior motive to these decisions. By making the seats thinner, WestJet essentially gets to increase profits by lowering costs. In doing so, in the event that Southwest airlines does attempt to make an appearance in the Canadian market, WestJet can cut its fares in order to continue to dominate its market share in the short range flight market. After all, Southwest airlines, if they do come to Canada, operate on the same value propositions and target the same customer segment as WestJet does right now. Being a successful company, Southwest will be able to come in and offer cheap flights right off the bat. Therefore, by transforming the inside of all of WestJet’s fleet, they are essentially preparing themselves for a game of survival of the fittest.

References:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/westjet-earnings-fall-20-per-cent-due-to-one-time-charge/article21436818/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/southwest-airlines-targets-canadian-expansion/article20493147/

http://www.billseye.ca/fun-facts.html

In Aiden’s blog post “Microsoft’s $400 million deal with the NFL may do more harm than good”, he mentions how Microsoft has made this expensive deal in an effort to further promote their brand and their new Surface model. The troubling portion of this deal comes from when commentators are unknowingly mistaking the Surface with the iPad. To be honest, while writing this blogpost, I myself mistakenly wrote iPad instead of Surface more than once. What is the deal here?

He mentions how these mistakes are hurting both Microsoft and Apple but I think it only goes one way. Microsoft may be suffering exclusively because they are the ones forking up the cash to cover this mega advertising deal that is seeing Apple gain publicity. Where I disagree with Aiden is the fact that Apple gets hurt from this as well. Apple has worked so hard over the last few years to really differentiate themselves in the electronics market. They constantly innovate to stay ahead of the game and be the number one brand in the handheld technology industry. In a way, Apple’s iPad is receiving free publicity from this screw up by the NFL commentators. The viewers are not actually seeing what the screen looks like or how the apps run but more the general shape of the device. And by this, they are associating their favorite NFL teams and players with the iPad and Apple instead of Surface and Microsoft. This deal may be costing Microsoft an arm and a leg, but at the moment Apple seems to be the one benefiting the most.

References:

http://bostinno.streetwise.co/2014/08/24/bill-belichick-the-patriots-utilizing-microsoft-surfaces-on-the-sideline-but-glitches-remain/