Madison Square Garden has been the home of the New York Rangers since they played at the original in 1926. However, as time has worn on, the environment has become more sterile and less authentic.
For a sports fan, getting to the stadium or arena to see a favorite team in person is a great treat. In the modern world in which tickets can run north of $100 a person, it is important for a fan to have a good experience. Some of the sport’s newest venues like the T-Mobile Arena of the Vegas Golden Knights and the Rogers Place of the Edmonton Oilers pull in fans with attractions.
However, for the Rangers, simply being the Rangers has been and always be the biggest draw. The World’s Most Famous Arena no longer feels like the same building of yesteryear. Getting fans to the arena is more and more difficult because the experience does not match the price for the average fan.
For the average Ranger fan, watching the game on MSG network while scrolling twitter is enough for them. There needs to be something more to pull them into going to Madison Square Garden more than once or twice a year.
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The arena is now just another venue in which business interests entertain clients. The true diehard fans have been relegated to the nosebleeds and priced out of season tickets. The real issue is, it is never going to get better.
The reality of the situation
As one of the NHL’s original six franchises and the best hockey team in the tri-state area, the Rangers hold all of the cards. The MSG corporation’s three year one billion dollar renovation of the building has sapped the building of some of its best features. The concourses were tucked outside of the playing area and the Chase Bridge’s muffle the sound.
While the bridges provide an interesting perspective, they also trap sound and make the arena seem more quiet. That’s why the arena sounds like a library when watching on television and not like the lion’s den of yesteryear.
Once upon a time Madison Square Garden was a pit to play in and the crowd was alive.
Unfortunately, things are not going to change and that’s the reality of the situation. As long as the team continues to have a ticketed sell out to every single home game, there is no way ticket prices will change. For perspective, the team declined to maintain the ticket prices from last season even though the team had the worst season in 13 years.
The struggle
The modern sports arena is designed to sell as much as possible. That’s why Yankee Stadium feels like a shopping mall and not a baseball stadium. It is also why Madison Square Garden features dozens of specialized kiosks and concessions. The point is to sell food and merchandise, the experience of actually watching the game is secondary.
In addition to having different priorities from a venue perspective, the ticketed fans are different. The lower bowl is glowing with faces glued to phone screens while play is occurring. Checking email is a more engaging experience for the person wearing a suit sitting in company seats. The crowd is disengaged and there are not the same characters that made every game special.
No, Dancing Larry doesn’t count.
The Rangers need to do a better job of making the fan experience more engaging. Asking for a more affordable ticket and concessions is not feasible, but making the arena more conducive to hockey is. Wherever the Rangers end up following Madison Square Garden IV, do not build seating from the ceiling to cram an extra couple of hundred people in at the expense of muffling the crowd.
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The team getting shutout 2-0 against the Tampa Bay Lightning in game seven of the eastern conference finals back in 2015 could’ve been played over at the New York Public Library. The Rangers separate themselves as one of the league’s preeminent franchises, the least they could do is make the people in attendance actually watch the team play the sport.