3 hours Ago
From left, Hearts of Pine President Kevin Schohl, team founder Gabe Hoffman-Johnson, and broadcaster and part owner Tom Caron display club scarves during an event for the USL League One soccer team in Portland in April. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographe r Take a bow, Portland. We’re No.
1. On Monday, the Sports Business Journal released its rankings of minor league sports markets. For the first time, Portland topped the list.
It makes sense. Portland is home to three successful minor league teams – baseball’s Portland Sea Dogs, hockey’s Maine Mariners and basketball’s Maine Celtics – and will add a fourth next spring when the Hearts of Pine soccer club begins play at Fitzpatrick Stadium. Doesn’t it feel like Portland always ends up on one of these ‘best’ lists? Best place to live.
Best place to visit. Best place to drink a craft beer and inhale a lobster. Best place to sprain your ankle walking on uneven cobblestone after drinking a craft beer and inhaling a lobster.
This superlative seems different, though. It’s based on something folks did, simply supporting the teams. It’s not based on the opinion of somebody who dropped into town to take a selfie at Portland Head Light and go home with a coffee table made from a lobster trap.
This ranking came because people crank the turnstiles at Delta Dental Park at Hadlock Field, Cross Insurance Arena and the Portland Expo. The Portland Sea Dogs routinely draw big crowds, like for this game in 2021. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer The Sea Dogs routinely boast some of the best attendance numbers in Double-A baseball, averaging just over 6,000 fans per home game.
Playing in the ECHL, pro hockey’s Double-A league, the Mariners averaged 4,377 fans per game last season, up 16% from the 2022-23 season. Playing in the cozy Expo, the Celtics of the NBA’s G League sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the upcoming season, impressive for the 2,400-seat Expo. And the Hearts of Pine now has a wait list for season tickets before even playing a USL League One game.
Dr. Norm O’Reilly, the dean of the University of New England College of Business, has written a column for the Sports Business Journal for 17 years. He’s familiar with the criteria the Sports Business Journal uses to compile its ranking.
The Portland teams draw well, and that’s a huge piece of it, O’Reilly said. They do well creating sponsorship deals with local businesses. The fact that the USL was eager to expand to Portland is more proof of the area’s viability.
Fans cheer during a Maine Celtics game at the Portland Expo on Nov. 19th, 2023. Sofia Aldinio/ Staff Photographe “Portland is growing.
It’s an exciting place to be. ..
. We’ve got this wonderful package,” O’Reilly said. The Sea Dogs, Celtics and Mariners each has a big league parent club in Boston, and that’s a draw for a fan base crazy for the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins.
When you see the athletes in Boston, there’s something cool about saying you saw them on their way up. How many fans in Maine watched the Celtics wrap up the NBA title last June and saw Maine Celtics Jordan Walsh and JD Davison at the end of the Boston bench? Remember when they played in the Expo? “You really root for them, knowing they’re going to move on,” said Larry Jamieson of Portland, who has season-ticket packages for the Sea Dogs and Mariners. What the local teams do well, O’Reilly said, is market the experience of going to the game.
It’s all well and good to promote the players, but we know they’re not here long. We saw that this summer with the Sea Dogs, when top prospects Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony, and Kyle Teel were all promoted to Triple-A Worcester on the same August day. “I enjoy being there with the people as much as I enjoy the games,” said Craig Gray, a Sea Dogs season-ticket holder since 2013 and Scarborough resident.
“The comraderie at Hadlock, it’s just extraordinary. People bring their best selves to the ballpark, at a time we need it.” Mariners season-ticket holder Brett Goodnow, of Westbrook, likes that the minor league teams are all active in the community.
Through their passion for hockey, Brett and his wife, Brittany, have met some of their closest friends. Young fans get a close-up look at the Maine Mariners during warmups before the season opener at Cross Insurance Arena in Portland on Friday. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer “The community inside the rink is amazing.
I’ve made a ton of friends I’ve through the Mariners that have become friends outside the arena,” Goodnow said. As the longest-tenured team in the city, the Sea Dogs are a legacy now. If they’re lucky, the Mariners, Celtics and Hearts of Pine will reach that status.
“My dad got these tickets the day they went on sale in 1994, and we’ve had them since,” said David Abramson, a Falmouth native who has taken on the family’s Sea Dog season tickets in section 106 of the ballpark. Those seats are touchstones. Those seats are memories.
Iggy Suarez spent parts of four seasons playing for the Sea Dogs. Now the manager of the Greenville Drive, Boston’s High-A affiliate, he’s the guy who gets to tell prospects they’re coming to Portland. He knows firsthand what they’re in for.
“The atmosphere is something I’ll never forget. You hear so much about Red Sox Nation, another thing is actually seeing it and feeling it. And that’s what Portland does to you,” Suarez said.
With the Hearts of Pine, the opportunity to get on board at the start with season tickets was too good for Rob Kennedy, of Monmouth, to pass up. He had seen how the Vermont Green, a USL League Two team based in Burlington, has done well. Kennedy has no doubt the Hearts of Pine can be just as, if not more, successful.
“When it comes to sports, there’s a lot of pride in being Mainers. Mainers want something they can call their own,” Kennedy said. We invite you to add your comments.
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