The Nashville Predators

The Nashville Predators is a specialized ice hockey squad located in Nashville town, Tennessee. The team is a member of the well established Central Division in the Western Conference section of the U.S. National Hockey League (NHL). The Nashville Predators franchise holds a strong corporate partnership strategy with the Bridgestone Arena since the team endeavors to build consequential relationships with neighboring, regional as well as national businesses. The corporate strategies generally is composed of a tactical mix of corporate hospitality, cause and community-related support, promotions, unique database and web marketing programs, and also conventional media elements. Therefore, the team is well established in the region in terms of succeeding in games and as a franchise even though external forces like market competition and economic uncertainties has to some extend affected its performance (Jamie, pp.2).

The SWOT Analysis of the Nashville Predators franchise reveals the operating environment of the hockey team and therefore helpful in determining the aspects which need to be checked into so that the organization achieves its set goals. The main goal of the team is to always succeed for the playoffs and also compete for the renowned Stanley Cup competition. The weaknesses and strengths are those aspects within the club itself while threats and opportunities form the external elements which influence the club.

A major strength of the organization is the growth of defensemen whereby the team nurtures talent from its Nashville hometown. It gets quite a massive contribution from the drafted players while they are early in their careers thus the team has an outstanding channel of talent on defense. For instance, Ryan Suter and Shea Weber are home-based team leaders while others like Ryan Ellis, Jonathan Blum, and Kevin Klein always maintain the team supplied with affordable and superior blue-line endowment all year round. Moreover, the organization has had a stable leadership in that it retains a single head coach and general manager all though the hockey team’s tenure, therefore everyone has a clear perception on what direction the club ought to take so as to achieve its goals.

The weaknesses which prevent the Nashville Predators organization from attaining its goal include power play as well as its budget. The power play has been a regular theme in the latest predator’s teams in spite of the changing schemes or personnel, and the power play has actually been positioned amongst the National Hockey League’s worst. Also, the existing ownership has got the limited capability to absorb monetary losses and furthermore the constraints which come along with the NHL income sharing scheme which dictates the salary configuration which runs USD 10-12 million lesser that the cap-maximum teams.

There have been several threats which have adversely affected the hockey organization like the Del Biaggio bankruptcy and the mounting Canadian dollar. Quite a noteworthy minority position in the organization is yet helped up in the insolvency court, with actually no detailed schedule for resolution. This situation places constrains around the longer-term prospects like overall financial development, as well as giving guarantees to Metro Sports Authority. A rise in the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar affects the organization as it would pose a challenge for the team to grow its revenue above the NHL average so as to be eligible for full league’s revenue sharing.

There has been a major technological development in the field of HDTV and it has enhanced TV programming for the whole NHL thus making the sport more appealing to fans. W. Brett Wilson has shown interests in venturing into the organization and this would boost up its financial strength.

The company’s structure basically revolves around its management structure, revenue structure, NHL fan demographics as well as its promotional arrangement. The revenue is structured in such a way that about 60% of its income is from ticket sales whereas the rest is attained from building corporations, corporate sponsorship, as well as broadcast revenue. The fan demographics of the organization shows that it’s composed of three groups, namely, corporations, home fans and also the ticket consumers (Jamie, pp.9). The corporations aligned with the Nashville Predators Company include the Tennessean newspaper, bud light, Ford, and First Tennessee Bank. Nonetheless, the company has strategized in promotion in that it makes use of channels like the online advertisement, fan giveaways, player appearances, and radio/TV promotions. All these approaches are to ensure that the American culture towards hockey is revived therefore enlarging the fan base. The organization ought to dwell much on technological advances as well as building much on the youth hockey in the town which increases the fan base as well as fresh talent into the team.