And then there were four.

If there were any lingering doubts that Winnipeg is one of Canada’s hottest sports markets, that is being put to bed this autumn. For the 12 months ending next May, there will be more fans attending professional sports – more than 1.5 million – than at any time in the city’s history.

Leading the way is the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Winnipeg Jets, as the team has for the past four years, followed by the Canadian Football League’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers and baseball’s Winnipeg Goldeyes of the American Association. Joining these teams is the Manitoba Moose, back playing in the American Hockey League (AHL) for the first time since 2010-11.

After four years of selling out every Jets game, team owner True North Sports & Entertainment opted to relocate the Jets’ farm team, the St. John’s Icecaps, to Winnipeg and rechristen them the Moose. The Moose, of course, were the city’s professional hockey team for 15 years, starting in 1996-97 following the departure of the original Winnipeg Jets to the Arizona desert.

After assessing the virtually insatiable appetite for hockey in Winnipeg – there’s a waiting list of 7,000 for Jets season tickets – True North decided that moving the Moose back home made sense.

There are obvious cost synergies to having both teams share the same home arena and practice facility, but perhaps the biggest benefit is being able to walk down the hallway to call a Moose player up to the big leagues. For the past four seasons, the Jets had to arrange for flights out of St. John’s to wherever the NHL team happened to be playing in the case of an injury. On more than one occasion, that was California.

The Jets will drive the attendance high-water mark with sellouts at 41 home games during the regular season and another four exhibition games. At 15,294 people per contest, that’s 688,230 butts in the chairs in Winnipeg’s downtown arena. (Of course, Jets fans are hoping to open their wallets for even more hockey in the playoffs.)

The Bombers, meanwhile, are averaging 27,117 fans through eight regular season games. Tack on one more home game before the end of the season, plus one exhibition game (24,344), and that will mean 268,397 fans will have gone through the turnstiles.

The Goldeyes, meanwhile, averaged 5,284 fans for their 49 home games this year, good for a season total of 258,922 and second in the entire league.

The Moose are the wild card. But with so many people on the Jets waiting list and the fact the AHL targets a very different clientele – more families, fewer suits – True North is very confident that attendance will be similar to what the team had before moving to St. John’s. Matters are off to a good start – the Moose’s season opener was sold out.

So, in total, 1,551,705 people are expected to attend a professional sporting event in Winnipeg from May to May. Just four years ago, that number topped 1 million for the first time ever. Combined, the four teams will bring in almost $100 million in ticket revenue.

According to the teams, hockey and football fans spend $18 per game at the concession stands and baseball fans spend $10 each per game, which is another $25 million during the regular season. And that figure will jump if there are playoff games.

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