Volume 2, Number 6 -- June, 1997
  
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The State of the RHI By Dean Shutt
Well it's June again and that means it's time for me and the other three
guys in America who love Roller Hockey International to get excited. Four
months of speed, power and grace for us to enjoy. Yes, the RHI is cranking
it up for another season. This year the league has been restructured and
will boast just ten teams down from eighteen last season. The folks in
charge say that they are just trying to stabilize the ownership group and
that the league is healthy. I for one hope that is true because I would
miss professional Roller Hockey.
Roller Hockey is not one of the pseudo-sports that seem to be competing
to feast on the carcass of Major League Baseball. It seems that in the
last few years, as baseball's popularity has waned, a new summer sport
has come along every year. Indoor Soccer, Major League Soccer, Women's
Basketball, Arena Football and Roller Hockey are all competing with
baseball for the summer entertainment dollar. Perhaps that's the problem.
All of the other summertime sports are derivatives of already popular
Leagues. Even Arena Football can claim some resemblance to the NFL. The
RHI on the other hand is based on a sport that is just now becoming popular
in this country. Ice hockey is light-years ahead of where it was just
a few years ago; still it is definitely the smallest of the big four
spectator sports. When attempting to market their teams, RHI clubs are
forced to overcome the resistance to the sport itself before they can
even think of selling their team. To be fair, soccer has faced many of
the same problems. However, soccer has the luxury of having had a
year-long commercial in the form of the World Cup before they started
their latest league. The RHI has had to build it's sport on it's own.
This is not to say that the RHI has not made mistakes in it's campaign
to bring roller hockey to the masses. Though they started with just a
few teams and a short, economical season, they soon fell prey to
expansion bug. The league swelled to it's all-time high of twenty-four
teams in just a few years. Unfortunately, fan interest could not
sustain that many teams. Perhaps more importantly, the diluted ownership
could not afford the lengthy campaign that a 24 team league entailed.
Another miscue on the part of the vast majority of the league's teams
was their choice of Arenas as venues. While drawing three thousand fans
to brand new sport is fairly impressive, put those fans in a 17,000
seat arena and the turnout looks pathetic.
This also ensures that teams will have to discount their ticket prices,
angering season ticket holders. A wiser course would have been to find
or even build their own smaller venues. This way the team gets more
revenues and the game experience is more exciting. Much better to have
3,000 fans in a 5,000 seat arena than have 6,000 fans in a 20,000 seat
building.
Perhaps the biggest mistake the RHI made was in not fully appreciating
the power of advertising. When you are building a sport from the ground
up, you must do anything possible to get your team and your league in
the public's eye. This means not only paid advertising but grassroots
work as well. Setting up charitable funds, giving clinics and staging
tournaments are all ways to introduce the public to the team and the
sport.
Now that I have spent the better part of this column telling you what is
wrong with the RHI, let me tell you what is right with it. The game
itself is the most exciting sport you will ever see. I grew up playing
and watching ice hockey and to be honest I would rather watch a roller
hockey game any day of the week. The creators of this sport have
eliminated some of the things that tend turn off the casual fan. They
have eliminated the blue lines, thereby all but doing away offsides
calls and completely removing the two-line pass rule. They have taken
a skater per side off of the rink, opening up the game even more.
Professional Roller Hockey is fast, exciting and high scoring. Even
though much of ice hockey's fighting has been eliminated, roller
hockey is far more hardhitting than all but the most brutal ice hockey
games. In short, join me and the other three guys and come out to an
RHI game this season. If you like hockey at all you will absolutely
love this sport.
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