Peter Luukko attempts to stabilize Florida Panthers business

The BB&T Center will never have a power outage under Peter Luukko’s watch. If it did, the new executive chairman of Sunrise Sports and Entertainment would have some serious problems.

“The old saying is a good arena manager is afraid of the dark,” Luukko said with a chuckle.

It’s this mantra that makes Luukko so important for the Panthers – a team that’s seen its share of attendance and business woes over the last several years.

Luukko, the longtime COO of Comcast Spectacor, joined Florida last February to try to stabilize the business of the troubled South Florida franchise.

While a transformation of the team can’t come overnight, the group has seen some strides under Luukko. Home attendance is currently up to 14,628 on average – up from 8,808 through Oct. 30 last season according to the team.

The team sold out its first game of the season (19,434 announced attendance), where Luukko trumpets the fact that there were only 2,000 comp seats given out. Season ticket renewal is at a 92 percent according to Luukko. Last season the home opener drew just 11,419 announced.

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A stabilization of the business side means less difficulty for hockey operations to try to put out a winning product, which currently has a lot of the right pieces. All elements of a winning franchise seem to be converging for the Panthers at the right time.

“Well, I see belief, I see confidence and I see ability,” Panthers general manager Dale Tallon said. “That’s what he brings to the table. He has been there, he’s done it, he knows what he’s doing and he believes he can do the job. We all now believe together we can make this a viable franchise and be successful. It gives us that confidence now that he’s here.”

Granted, turning around the Panthers' business is not exactly an easy task for Luukko. The Panthers were ranked 30th in the most recent NHL team valuations according to Forbes. They’re a perennial conversation starter as far as teams that could relocate to other markets.

Luukko left the Flyers in 2013 and after a couple of years came to Florida at the urging of the league to help owner Vincent Viola as he tried to push the Panthers towards a return to relevancy in South Florida.

It was reported by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the Panthers lost $36 million last season and $27.3 million the year before. The organization is asking Broward County for $86 million to help offset these problems.

“If we can get some relief there and as we increase our sponsorship, or season ticket sales and in a few years our concessions contract and our TV deal are up it’ll give us that opportunity to get to where we need to be,” Luukko said. “Our projections to be sustainable are really – all we need to do is to get to the middle of the pack of the NHL. If we can get into that 13-16 team type revenues, we’ll be in great shape. That’s what makes me incredibly optimistic.”

Luukko takes perceived negatives about the Florida market and tries to make them positives. For example the BB&T Center is in Sunrise, Florida, about 15 miles from downtown Fort Lauderdale and 40 miles from Miami.

The building is right next to the swamplands of the Everglades – which doesn’t exactly fall in line with the NHL’s preference of having teams in urban areas.

Instead of bemoaning the remoteness of the arena, he sees it as a central location in Broward County.

“We are where we are and we have to make it go, but it’s also very important to us, north of where we are into Coral Springs and Parkland and up towards West Palm are very accessible to the arena,” Luukko said. “And we do a lot of business in those areas. There are certainly many plusses to being downtown, but the accessibility to Delray Beach, Boca, West Palm Beach, those areas, those are some of the advantages and that’s what we have to play up.”

Winning is also a vital part of selling a product. For the first time, maybe since Ed Jovanovski’s rookie year when the Panthers went to the Stanley Cup Final, Florida is a fun product.

The Panthers are a wacky mix of veterans with personality like legendary Jaromir Jagr, goaltender Roberto Luongo and captain Willie Mitchell along with highly regarded youngsters such as Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad and Jonathan Huberdeau.

This group somehow works with the team starting 4-3-1.

“You definitely have some marketing tools for sure especially with Jagr growing his mullet back. You have a Hall of Famer on the team breaking virtually another record every night, it’s something hang onto and something that’s special, that’s special to be around it as a player,” Mitchell said. “It’s special to fans and that needs to be conveyed to those people. Guys like that and Roberto with his dry sense of humor and social media presence, he’s another fun guy marketing can build around. And then the youthfulness of our team.”

Said Tallon, “I think having Jags here really gives us credibility. It’s been a while since we’ve had a real, marketable star maybe since (Pavel) Bure.”

And as the business ticks upwards, players can feel it. Mitchell said Luukko quickly reached out to him early on, which struck nerve with the captain.

“He said, ‘I have some things I have in mind if players would be interested’ and I said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ Players want to be a part of something too and feel they played a part in that,” Mitchell said. “Players on this team are more than happy to go out of their way as far as promoting the team.”

The sellout created an important buzz for the players who want that sense of energy that teams in forever-full buildings feel.

“When you get a full house in Florida, and luckily enough we had a game there where we ended up scoring a few goals that got the crowd into it, it sure felt good, that’s for sure,” Mitchell said.

A strong start by the Panthers this season can’t completely turn around the business. It can’t lessen natural challenges a team in South Florida generally faces. But it certainly does make the team's economics seem less challenging.

Mitchell broke it down in a simplistic fashion: “As a team, when we go out and work hard and gain the respect of our peers around the league, then our peers are going to start talking about us, and when our peers start talking about us what happens? The media starts talking about us. And when the media starts talking about us, what happens? People come through the turnstiles.”

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper