American Hockey League President and CEO David Andrews has announced the winners of the league’s annual Team Business Services awards, recognizing outstanding achievements in a variety of categories including the Milwaukee Admirals for having the Outstanding Fan Experience in the AHL’s Western Conference.
“We are thrilled to accept this honor from the AHL,” said Admirals President Jon Greenberg. “Our goal is to entertain fans both on and off the ice, creating 38 different events each season and this is testament to the hard work, dedication, and creative thinking that our staff puts in to make Admirals Hockey the best show around.”
For years the Admirals have combined outstanding success on the ice, 13 playoff appearances in the past 15 seasons, with world-class, family-friendly entertainment off it. Led by the Admirals Concert Series, which brings free post-game concerts featuring national recording artists like Brothers Osborne, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, Blake Shelton and Styx, Admirals games provide something for fans of all ages. The team had giveaways, like winter hats and Martin Luther bobbleheads, at over 20 games last season, in addition to intermission activities like the Pick N’ Save Human Hockey Puck, Zamboni rides, Perkins Pie Eating Contests and much more.
As part of its Team Business Services program, the AHL honored one club from each conference for top revenue growth in four areas during this past season: overall ticket sales, season-ticket sales, group-ticket sales and corporate sponsorship sales. The winners in overall ticket sales revenue growth were the Toronto Marlies (Eastern) and the San Diego Gulls (Western). Winners for season-ticket sales growth were the Springfield Thunderbirds (Eastern) and the Grand Rapids Griffins (Western). The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (Eastern) and the Texas Stars (Western) earned the awards for group-ticket sales growth, and the Springfield Thunderbirds (Eastern) and Cleveland Monsters (Western) were recognized for their corporate sponsorship sales growth.
Additionally, teams from each conference were selected for excellence in the areas of digital media, community relations and fan experience. The Rochester Americans (Eastern) and Grand Rapids Griffins (Western) were honored for digital media excellence; the Charlotte Checkers (Eastern) and Iowa Wild (Western) earned the nods for exceptional community relations efforts; and the Laval Rocket (Eastern) and the Admirals (Western) were recognized for outstanding fan experience at home games.
The AHL also honored several teams and individuals for their efforts during the 2017-18 season at the league’s Team Business Meetings in Des Moines, Iowa, last month, including the Iowa Wild as the sponsorship sales department of the year and the San Diego Gulls as the ticket sales department of the year.
The Grand Rapids Griffins were recognized for unique ticket sales promotion or theme night (“Polar Bear Plunge for Special Olympics of West Michigan”); the Texas Stars were selected for unique game operations promotion (“Harry Potter Night”), the Springfield Thunderbirds were chosen for unique community relations initiative (donation of special glasses to allow a blind season-ticket holder to watch games); the Syracuse Crunch were honored for unique social media promotion (“Locker Room Karaoke Battles”); the Iowa Wild were given the award for unique sponsorship package or entitlement (“Hockey Days Iowa presented by Iowa Corn”); and the Toronto Marlies were recognized for unique marketing campaign (“Made For More”).
The Admirals will play their home opener on Saturday, October 13 at 6 pm at Panther Arena, while the rest of the schedule will be released later this summer.
Season tickets for the 2018-19 campaign are on sale and start for as little as $135. For more information on season tickets fans should call the Admirals office at 414-227-0550 or log on to www.milwaukeeadmirals.com.
Don’t forget to follow the Admirals on Twitter (@mkeadmirals) and on Facebook.
via press release
Photo: Scott Paulus/Milwaukee Admirals