General Leafs Talk
- Thread starter armche123
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CarltonTheBear said:
Am I right in thinking that this:
Bang For The Buck (BNG): Wins during the past three years (regular season plus postseason) per revenues directly from fans, adjusted for league schedules.
directly penalizes teams with more fans (or, conversely, gives advantage to teams with fewer fans). For every additional jersey or seat purchases or, say, Leafs TV subscription, the team is getting more revenue, and that is counted directly as a negative. Bang-for-buck calculated as (average-ticket-price*games-played/wins) would make more sense.
princedpw said:
I am extremely skeptical that the rankings for this field: "Players (PLA): Effort on the field and likability off it" are generated in any scientific or even moderately unbiased way.
One gauge of likability is, for instance, number of jerseys sold with player names on it. Obviously, that will bias large market teams, but those large market teams do have more people who like their players, so that is fair. I wonder, what objective criteria did they use to rank the Leafs #121 (suspiciously identical to their overall ranking) when they have legions of fans and a decent work ethic as far as I can tell (though unfortunately not the talent)? And why are the Philadelphia Eagles, with a star player who kills dogs for fun, ranked up at #71 in PLA (#73 overall)?
And another sketchy column:
Title Track (TTR): Championships already won or expected in the lifetime of current fans.
Why again is Toronto #121 when my mom is a huge Leaf fan and she had a great time watching a whole bunch of Leaf championships in the 60s? In contrast, Pheonix is #68, St Louis is 75, Florida is 84, Ottawa is 58, ... by that ranking when 0% of their fans have seen a championship.
So, this ranking is worth less than nothing.
#1PilarFan
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Title Track (TTR): Championships already won or expected in the lifetime of current fans
I don't think your mom is reflective of the total demographics of the Leafs fan base. Many Leafs fans, such as myself and I'm guessing you, have yet to see a championship, can count the number of viable opportunities to win a championship on one hand and don't really expect a championship in the foreseeable future.
So by that metric, the Leafs would certainly be very close to last place, but you're correct that there's an argument to be made that they are not necessarily last place. They probably played with the ratings a little bit so that a big market team whose fans don't necessarily hit up ESPN for news would be controversially ranked at the bottom.
I don't think your mom is reflective of the total demographics of the Leafs fan base. Many Leafs fans, such as myself and I'm guessing you, have yet to see a championship, can count the number of viable opportunities to win a championship on one hand and don't really expect a championship in the foreseeable future.
So by that metric, the Leafs would certainly be very close to last place, but you're correct that there's an argument to be made that they are not necessarily last place. They probably played with the ratings a little bit so that a big market team whose fans don't necessarily hit up ESPN for news would be controversially ranked at the bottom.
#1PilarFan said:
I am saying that there are *some* leaf fans who have seen a championship. The 60s were 50 years ago. People in their teens and 20s are now in their 60s and 70s. Men, especially, of retirement age watch A LOT of TV -- this is a well-established fact. In Toronto, there are a pretty substantial number of these people who watch hockey. Both of my parents watch pretty much every leaf game. My mum is a bigger fan than my dad.
I contrast this with the ZERO fans from the other teams I mentioned.
SOME FANS >>>>> NO FANS
With that in mind, it is easy to argue the rankings are just wrong. (I understand there is some forward-looking component, but that shouldnt dominate to the point where a franchise with multiple championships loses to the many, many, many franchises with zero championships across all the sports.)
hockeyfan1
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Even the Islanders were ahead of the Leafs of the bottom rankers.
Many of us already know about the Leafs' woes in just about all of the categories mentioned -- save for the stadium part and the community part. Because the Maple Leafs are the richest and most profitable hockey team in the world for that matter, they were bound to end up at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to what makes a hockey team successful on ice.
I wouldn't, by any means, take these rankings seriously, but, they do serve as a fair barometer of where the team has stood in quite a few areas -- and still does, in a way.
Many of us already know about the Leafs' woes in just about all of the categories mentioned -- save for the stadium part and the community part. Because the Maple Leafs are the richest and most profitable hockey team in the world for that matter, they were bound to end up at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to what makes a hockey team successful on ice.
I wouldn't, by any means, take these rankings seriously, but, they do serve as a fair barometer of where the team has stood in quite a few areas -- and still does, in a way.
Kin
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princedpw said:
Well, the component you're missing there is that the revenues you're talking about contribute to teams winning. Even in the NHL with a salary cap the Leafs revenues pay for front office people and scouts and so on. In sports without a hard cap big market teams can use those revenues on players so winning is directly tied to the revenue generated.
If you look at that specific ranking and who's near the bottom you get a pretty healthy mix of big market clubs(The Yankees, Leafs, Cubs) and small market losers as well(The Oilers, Jets and Twins).
Kin
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princedpw said:
Maybe I'm missing something but it's not like they're being mysterious or secretive about how they arrived at their rankings. They link to their methodology in the second paragraph of the article here and they explain it pretty clearly. This is a fan poll/survey for the most part. So a team's likability is being graded by the fans of the team. Why do Eagles fans like their team more than Leafs fans like theirs? I don't know. But would it really surprise you if a question posed to a group of Leafs fans about the Leafs received negative, or at least an unusually high amount of negative, answers?
We've all taken surveys like that. "How do you rank this professor's class?" 1. very good 2. good 3.average 4. bad 5. very bad. Then they just count up the responses.
Is that "unbiased"? Well, no. Fans, by the very definition of the word, are biased. What works against the Leafs here is that the bias Leafs fans feel towards the team is not necessarily a positive one.
princedpw said:
Two things. One, and I can't say for certain this is what they had in mind, but it's a often ignored fact that most major sports do not just have one championship. They may have one championship that trumps the others in importance but just from a technical standpoint it's not the case. Last year the Devils were the Eastern Conference Champions, baseball plays the ALCS and the NLCS which determines the American League and National League champions and so on and so forth. If that's being considered, and again I don't know if it is, then some of the teams you're mentioning won championships and recently.
Two, again, this is a fan survey. Would it really surprise you if Maple Leafs fans, as a group, were the most pessimistic about their chances to see a Cup victory in their lives?
Now, ok, you're free and 100% accurate to say that it's hyperbole to call these "Ultimate Team Rankings" as opposed to a fan opinion poll. Likewise you'd be free to say that a poll that says that Leafs fans are more down on their team than any other isn't all that revealing. That said, I think you have to acknowledge that it's a believable outcome given the criteria and methodology they're using.
Kin
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Mike1 said:
One of the things to keep in mind is that the categories that go into the final rankings are weighted. So things like Title Track account for only 3.2% of the final score whereas Bang for the Buck, which seems to be the category where they most seem inclined to look at things objectively, accounts for 21.6%.
The Red Wings, who would seem to excel in terms of Ownership, coaching and title winning, are hurt because those seem to be the least heavily weighted categories.
Now, you and I might not agree with all thqat, but those weights are arrived at via poll with fans and what they consider important from a franchise.
GhostofPotvin29
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I had a good laugh at this: http://theleafsnation.com/2012/9/30/leafs-in-wonderland
hockeyfan1
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Potvin29 said:
LOL!
Imagine if this were for r-e-a-l! ;D
hockeyfan1
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Boston Leaf
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anyone know where Colton Orr is playing if he is?
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