lostknight
06-20-2011, 02:34 PM
First the shocker. The Colorado Rockies, once the laughingstock of MLB is ranked as the 8th best sports franchise in the United States, boosted by great scores for players, stadiums and affordability:
Last Year's Rank: 13
Title Track: 45
Ownership: 21
Coaching: 23
Players: 8
Fan Relations: 15
Affordability: 10
Stadium Experience: 7
Bang for the Buck: 24
Hard to believe, but Coors Field, opened in 1995, is now the fourth-oldest park in the National League. Fair to say she's maturing well. Take the killer views of the Rocky Mountains, or amenities like the new wood-fired brick pizza oven inside the Wazee Market (section 137) or the Helton Burger (special sauce, pickles, diced onions) at the #17 Burger Shack in the leftfield pavilionhighlights you can share with friends, thanks to last season's major upgrade in cell phone service. Need to use your data plan to contact the team? The effort won't be wasted. Every call and email is logged into a database, allowing the Rockies to analyze trends and respond swiftly. Plus, they call back! "If somebody's taking the time to communicate with us, it's important to make sure we get back to them," says Kevin Kahn, Rockies VP and Chief Customer Officer. Not that they hear much complaining. The Rox held ticket prices firm for 2011, keeping fan costs 18% below league average ($39.17 vs. $47.79), juiced by absurdly cheap ducats to the Rockpile section: $1 for seniors and kids, $4 for everyone else. Best of all, with two playoff appearances in four seasons and stars like Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki locked into long-term deals, Rockies fans know their modest investments bring handsome returns.
The nuggets are in the middle with a solid 43, roughly 1/3rd the way down the list:
An 11-spot jump in our Standings might seem ordinary, but for the Nuggets it's amazing. They opened the 2010-11 season with a new owner (Josh Kroenke, taking over for his father, Stan) and general manager (Masai Ujiri), as well as a superstar (Carmelo Anthony) interested in finding real estate somewhere other than the Mile High City. As the year wore on, concern grew that the new brain trust would get fleeced -- or, worse, fail to get anything in exchange for Anthony. Instead, Denver pulled off a great deal with New York and went a surprising 187 after the trade. The roster may have been light on superstars, but it proved deep in talent and absent of Melodrama. "This Nuggets team offers me a level of pride," writes "nordmoose" at Nuggets blog Roundball Mining Company. "I enjoy being a fan of basketball when I watch this team click." Which team fans will see next season is uncertain, because Ujiri and Kroenke have big personnel decisions to make this summer, including whether to re-sign big man Wilson Chandler, who arrived in the Melo deal. At least fans know coach George Karl will be around awhile. Not only has he come through his bout with throat cancer, but soon after Anthony shipped out, Karl signed a three-year extension.
Rounding out the bottom of the list, at the top of the bottom third of franchises are the Broncos. Miserable scores for fan relations, affordability, players and bang for the buck leads to:
With a respectable rating for title track, the Broncos are a little like the beauty queen living off ancient pageant photos. Those back-to-back Super Bowl victories in the late '90s conjure up great memories, but Denver has won only one playoff game since. Between 2006-09, the Broncos clung to mediocrity like that cat in the "Hang in there!" poster, averaging exactly eight wins. Last season, though, the cat let go. Only four victories, their lowest total since the strike-shortened '82 season, and the late-year firing of Josh McDaniels made 2010 a year to forget. New coach John Fox has popular support, but the faithful are keeping a wary eye. More than 6,000 season ticket-holders patched into a conference call with Fox following his hire, peppering him with questions for more than an hour. It helps that Fox was hired by none other than John Elway, now the EVP of Football Operations. The franchise QB is charged with stopping Denver's slide in the AFC West standings ... and in ours too.
Last Year's Rank: 13
Title Track: 45
Ownership: 21
Coaching: 23
Players: 8
Fan Relations: 15
Affordability: 10
Stadium Experience: 7
Bang for the Buck: 24
Hard to believe, but Coors Field, opened in 1995, is now the fourth-oldest park in the National League. Fair to say she's maturing well. Take the killer views of the Rocky Mountains, or amenities like the new wood-fired brick pizza oven inside the Wazee Market (section 137) or the Helton Burger (special sauce, pickles, diced onions) at the #17 Burger Shack in the leftfield pavilionhighlights you can share with friends, thanks to last season's major upgrade in cell phone service. Need to use your data plan to contact the team? The effort won't be wasted. Every call and email is logged into a database, allowing the Rockies to analyze trends and respond swiftly. Plus, they call back! "If somebody's taking the time to communicate with us, it's important to make sure we get back to them," says Kevin Kahn, Rockies VP and Chief Customer Officer. Not that they hear much complaining. The Rox held ticket prices firm for 2011, keeping fan costs 18% below league average ($39.17 vs. $47.79), juiced by absurdly cheap ducats to the Rockpile section: $1 for seniors and kids, $4 for everyone else. Best of all, with two playoff appearances in four seasons and stars like Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki locked into long-term deals, Rockies fans know their modest investments bring handsome returns.
The nuggets are in the middle with a solid 43, roughly 1/3rd the way down the list:
An 11-spot jump in our Standings might seem ordinary, but for the Nuggets it's amazing. They opened the 2010-11 season with a new owner (Josh Kroenke, taking over for his father, Stan) and general manager (Masai Ujiri), as well as a superstar (Carmelo Anthony) interested in finding real estate somewhere other than the Mile High City. As the year wore on, concern grew that the new brain trust would get fleeced -- or, worse, fail to get anything in exchange for Anthony. Instead, Denver pulled off a great deal with New York and went a surprising 187 after the trade. The roster may have been light on superstars, but it proved deep in talent and absent of Melodrama. "This Nuggets team offers me a level of pride," writes "nordmoose" at Nuggets blog Roundball Mining Company. "I enjoy being a fan of basketball when I watch this team click." Which team fans will see next season is uncertain, because Ujiri and Kroenke have big personnel decisions to make this summer, including whether to re-sign big man Wilson Chandler, who arrived in the Melo deal. At least fans know coach George Karl will be around awhile. Not only has he come through his bout with throat cancer, but soon after Anthony shipped out, Karl signed a three-year extension.
Rounding out the bottom of the list, at the top of the bottom third of franchises are the Broncos. Miserable scores for fan relations, affordability, players and bang for the buck leads to:
With a respectable rating for title track, the Broncos are a little like the beauty queen living off ancient pageant photos. Those back-to-back Super Bowl victories in the late '90s conjure up great memories, but Denver has won only one playoff game since. Between 2006-09, the Broncos clung to mediocrity like that cat in the "Hang in there!" poster, averaging exactly eight wins. Last season, though, the cat let go. Only four victories, their lowest total since the strike-shortened '82 season, and the late-year firing of Josh McDaniels made 2010 a year to forget. New coach John Fox has popular support, but the faithful are keeping a wary eye. More than 6,000 season ticket-holders patched into a conference call with Fox following his hire, peppering him with questions for more than an hour. It helps that Fox was hired by none other than John Elway, now the EVP of Football Operations. The franchise QB is charged with stopping Denver's slide in the AFC West standings ... and in ours too.