Islanders’ head of business ops: We’ve got to grow this fan base
December 17, 2025
Islanders’ head of business ops: We’ve got to grow this fan base
26 comments
> Kelly Cheeseman, a little more than six weeks into his new role as the Islanders’ president of business operations, has identified both the opportunity for growth and the issues when it comes to the team’s fan base and attendance at UBS Arena.
>“I’m a builder,” Cheeseman said in a Zoom interview with Newsday on Tuesday. “I look at the market of Long Island as its totality, going from Queens and Brooklyn out to Montauk. I’d say there’s eight million-plus people there. We’re strong, I would call it, from UBS Arena out to Montauk. We’ve got to be better in Queens and Brooklyn to grow the audience. And we’ve got to grow this fan base here.
>“We need a stronger, more marketable fan base,” added Cheeseman, who joined the Islanders on Nov. 1 after a nearly 25-year association with the Los Angeles Kings that saw him rise to AEG Sports chief operating officer. “We need to become younger, more diverse, more female as quickly as possible to complement the core audience that is really strong with the Islanders. Those are the new audiences that are growing consistently across the National Hockey League…We’re older and less diverse than the NHL.”
>But among the positives for Cheeseman are the marketability of No. 1 overall pick Matthew Schaefer and a winning team as the Islanders entered Tuesday night’s match against the Red Wings with a 19-11-3 mark. There’s also his close working relationship with first-year general manager Mathieu Darche, who does not restrict current players from participating in community outreach initiatives during the season, as predecessor Lou Lamoriello did.
>So far, it has not translated into better attendance at UBS Arena as the team has averaged 15,530 through 18 home dates at the 17,255-capacity building. That’s down from last season’s 15,979, which was the lowest since UBS Arena opened in 2021. But there have been six sellouts, including five of the last 10 home games.
Idk maybe make it so folks in upstate New York can actually steam your games.
If Long Island electeds keep running these towns like they’re nursing homes, the fanbase won’t grow. It needs to be a place young families can live. Urbanize Long Island. There’s room and demand for hundreds of thousands if not millions more residents, especially near transit.
Stop charging so much to park a half mile walk from the stadium
I’m bringing my best friend that has never watched hockey to the New Year’s game :3
Grow your fan base on LI where people are moving out of bc of the Insaine cost of living….
Comp the LiRR tickets with a 10 game ticket purchase or something similar. Stream the games to more northern markets.
There are a few issues that keep people from going to games. Cost, and time. You have a 7:00 pm start time on a Tuesday night. How are fans from Suffolk getting off work then driving to the Nassau Queens border for a 7:00 start? Not to mention the cost of tickets, food and beverages, and parking. The nightmare that is the Emerald lot was one of the reasons I gave up my partial season plan. The hour I sat in that lot after every game in a free for all exit with nobody directing traffic was the very top reason I gave to my rep as to why I wasn’t renewing. I love the arena itself but everything else about it sucks. Its location cuts off half the island from getting to it, there’s no restaurants or bars anywhere around it, the parkways and parking situation is a disaster. It makes me never want to go to a game.
Need better broadcast/streaming access around the country that isn’t locked behind an exorbitant premium cable option.
They moved their home ice to the NYC border where more Ranger fans live and many of the more eastern dwelling LIers dread travelling into. The Rangers offer a much easier train commute to NY NHL fans.
The Coliseum location was ideal with good parking but the stadium was outdated. Building a new stadium there would have been ideal for LIers (at least the car based fans not looking for direct LIRR access) but no one could make that work either.
Their best bet is to burn some profit by lowering ticket prices now, or providing rotating deep discounts, to get asses in the seats, then hope they get hooked. That, or just deal with lower attendance until the Islanders win the cup again – that will bring the fair weather fans from all over NYC, LI, and beyond.
I brought my friend to the Anaheim game then we watched the Tampa Game at a bar that was randomly mostly Islanders fans and they put the sound on for us. He’s hooked.
No they don’t. They need to make it more affordable for the current fan base.
Games can look pretty crowded sometimes, but always with the exception of the club areas.
Maybe they should reduce Dime Club to 2 sections from 4, and have a process to raffle off the unclaimed seats behind the benches to people sitting elsewhere just before gametime so it looks more crowded (including on TV)
As a season ticket holder and super fan it’s so expensive from parking onwards. We are a family of 5 and costs of tickets over last 5 years is going up exponentially. It’s coming to a point where I would rather watch on TV and save the money for a full family vacation anywhere in the world. Think about that. Maybe even multiple vacations.
Edit: it’s at a point where there is not much value in spending discretionary income on this – money in the fun jar can create so much more memories/opportunities when not wasted on exorbitant tickets
>“We need to become younger, more diverse, […] We’re older and less diverse than the NHL.”
i don’t disagree with the mission but… buddy you’re fighting against long island itself here. young people are being priced out because our housing supply is stagnant, wages aren’t keeping pace with cost of living, and inflation is currently fucking everyone. our local politicians cater to homeowners and retirees above all others. as for the diversity angle: long island is among the most racially segregated places in the nation and hockey already has very little buy-in in black and brown communities in far more racially integrated markets – I don’t see LI in its current state overcoming that trend
i’d love to see things change and have a fairer, more equitable long island but, the conditions on the ground are simply not conducive to what you’re asking for
I understand the goal is to build the fanbase and I think we are all on board with seeing the team succeed and being a place where people want to play and see games. However, I am concerned that his comments are overly optimistic and lack an understanding of the general geographic differences that make up Long Island/NYC and the demographics of Long Island. He is coming from Los Angeles to the Islanders, but Long Island is clearly distinct from New York City in terms of culture and not at all like Los Angeles. I raise these points not to say I disagree, but to call out potential friction points with the fan base with his plans.
First his comment: *“I look at the market of Long Island as its totality, going from Queens and Brooklyn out to Montauk. I’d say there’s eight million-plus people there. We’re strong, I would call it, from UBS Arena out to Montauk. We’ve got to be better in Queens and Brooklyn to grow the audience. And we’ve got to grow this fan base here.”*
We tried the whole “getting better”, especially in Brooklyn part. That was not well received. calling Queens and Brooklyn part of Long Island can be debated as physically, sure its on the same Island but the City isn’t LI. We have never been a “City” team. We have been a suburban *Long Island* team. If he makes us more appealing to NYC, there will be backlash by those who want us more Montauk and less Barclays. Whatever he does here will need to be distinct from changing the identity from being a Long Island team, I believe or it will not be well received.
Second his comment: *“We need to become younger, more diverse, more female as quickly as possible to complement the core audience that is really strong with the Islanders. Those are the new audiences that are growing consistently across the National Hockey League…We’re older and less diverse than the NHL.”*
Again, if the concept is just growing the fanbase, fine. But in my experience many hardcore (looking at some Merrick-based) fans will most certainly throw a fit if it is seen as we are pandering for the sake of diversity. Im not entirely sure how we make a fan base “more female” but Long Island isn’t Los Angeles when it comes to diversity/inclusion measures. Its far more conservative and may not be well received either.
Build a new stadium not on the edge of the throggs neck bridge
8pm home games would wildly drive up attendance
He talks about growing the Queens fan base. Easy, have the players (or alumni) do school assemblies on off days.
Like I told my wife while waiting for what seemed like forever for Pat Lafontaine to finish his acceptance speech for the club’s hall of fame, “if this team looked forward half as much as it looks back maybe we could with a !@#$ing cup.” For us fans born after 1984 the constant focus on the glory days is getting painful. And I mean no disrespect, and the dynasty years are worth celebrating but its been over 40 years with little to show for it.
Lower ticket prices, more promotions, maybe incentivize getting season tickets or have 3/6/9 game plans with a food credit. It’s so damn expensive to go to a game especially with a family. Don’t forget kids are your future customers. Get more kids and families in.
There is no benefit to being a season ticket holder – tickets are cheaper on the open market than what season ticket holders pay for them.
Ticket prices in general are too high for growing a fan base. Offer student discounts to college students and cheap group sales to schools in Queens and Nassau.
Don’t charge $17 dollars for beers or $16 dollars for fountain drinks.
Winning takes care of everything. You had a generation of kids see them either be one of the worst teams in the league, miss the playoffs or barely get in and lose in the first round. The perception of the franchise has changed in recent years which helps, but aside from a few playoff series wins in the last decade, the team hasn’t won a cup in over 40 years, and hasn’t even won a division title since 1988. The isles never marketed themselves good even when I was growing up. Hopefully the right people are involved now to change all that.
I hear his statement re: age, gender, and diversity, but as a young woman…I’d rather not be pandered to with pink tape or ladies’ nights or whatever. I don’t want special; I want normal. I want to feel included in the fanbase, equal to everyone else, and tbh the Islanders already do a better job of that than a lot of other sports teams. Some teams have fans that are happily, openly misogynistic, and ours aren’t. I can (and have) scream(ed) about the refs with any cool grandpa I happen to be sitting next to at UBS.
Good culture definitely starts from within. We have Shannon, and you can see that the players and broadcast team genuinely vibe with her. I’m horrified by some of the things other teams have done this season, tbh, and things that have come out about players and their actions or beliefs, but I do generally feel safe and equal as a young female Islanders fan 🤷♀️
If the Islanders wanted more people to attend games, they should have never left Nassau County. The Coliseum was a terrible, old arena, however it was in a really good spot easily accessible by car from either Nassau or Suffolk and parking was only $16-$20. They moved to UBS which is almost Queens! There are more Ranger fans in those parts. Makes it unaffordable to get by train or car as others have already stated. We are now a family of 4 so unrealistic to spend $500-$600 for a 2-3 hour game.
Signed….a still bitter fan of 40 years.
Of the NHL teams that have a train station near them, only the Islanders and the Golden Knights have one more than a 10 minute walk away from the arena, with both of them clocking in at a whopping 15 minutes.
However, we still have it worse, as at least Vegas’ cheap parking option (i.e. their equivalent to our Emerald Lot) is only an 8 minute walk away, about half the time. The Islanders’ cheap parking option is **still** 15 minutes away.
This isn’t even to mention how much of a shitshow it is getting in and out of the Emerald Lot. For weekends, who cares, people will (and do) show up regardless. On weekdays, when time is more precious, it becomes a much tougher sell to get casual fans to want to spend a night at the arena.
Fix this, and attendance will boom. I am sure of it. I’d love if they could use the Belmont Park station, but I recognize that’s infeasible as the LIRR has shown no interest in cooperating with the Islanders on this. The next best option imo would be to make a heated pedestrian tunnel under the racetrack with some moving walkways to a) cut down on the time, and b) make the commute to and from the arena more comfortable. Nothing makes me never want to return to UBS more than spending 20+ minutes in the freezing cold walking and waiting for a train after a brutal loss.
26 comments
> Kelly Cheeseman, a little more than six weeks into his new role as the Islanders’ president of business operations, has identified both the opportunity for growth and the issues when it comes to the team’s fan base and attendance at UBS Arena.
>“I’m a builder,” Cheeseman said in a Zoom interview with Newsday on Tuesday. “I look at the market of Long Island as its totality, going from Queens and Brooklyn out to Montauk. I’d say there’s eight million-plus people there. We’re strong, I would call it, from UBS Arena out to Montauk. We’ve got to be better in Queens and Brooklyn to grow the audience. And we’ve got to grow this fan base here.
>“We need a stronger, more marketable fan base,” added Cheeseman, who joined the Islanders on Nov. 1 after a nearly 25-year association with the Los Angeles Kings that saw him rise to AEG Sports chief operating officer. “We need to become younger, more diverse, more female as quickly as possible to complement the core audience that is really strong with the Islanders. Those are the new audiences that are growing consistently across the National Hockey League…We’re older and less diverse than the NHL.”
>But among the positives for Cheeseman are the marketability of No. 1 overall pick Matthew Schaefer and a winning team as the Islanders entered Tuesday night’s match against the Red Wings with a 19-11-3 mark. There’s also his close working relationship with first-year general manager Mathieu Darche, who does not restrict current players from participating in community outreach initiatives during the season, as predecessor Lou Lamoriello did.
>So far, it has not translated into better attendance at UBS Arena as the team has averaged 15,530 through 18 home dates at the 17,255-capacity building. That’s down from last season’s 15,979, which was the lowest since UBS Arena opened in 2021. But there have been six sellouts, including five of the last 10 home games.
Idk maybe make it so folks in upstate New York can actually steam your games.
If Long Island electeds keep running these towns like they’re nursing homes, the fanbase won’t grow. It needs to be a place young families can live. Urbanize Long Island. There’s room and demand for hundreds of thousands if not millions more residents, especially near transit.
Stop charging so much to park a half mile walk from the stadium
I’m bringing my best friend that has never watched hockey to the New Year’s game :3
Grow your fan base on LI where people are moving out of bc of the Insaine cost of living….
Comp the LiRR tickets with a 10 game ticket purchase or something similar. Stream the games to more northern markets.
There are a few issues that keep people from going to games. Cost, and time. You have a 7:00 pm start time on a Tuesday night. How are fans from Suffolk getting off work then driving to the Nassau Queens border for a 7:00 start? Not to mention the cost of tickets, food and beverages, and parking. The nightmare that is the Emerald lot was one of the reasons I gave up my partial season plan. The hour I sat in that lot after every game in a free for all exit with nobody directing traffic was the very top reason I gave to my rep as to why I wasn’t renewing. I love the arena itself but everything else about it sucks. Its location cuts off half the island from getting to it, there’s no restaurants or bars anywhere around it, the parkways and parking situation is a disaster. It makes me never want to go to a game.
Need better broadcast/streaming access around the country that isn’t locked behind an exorbitant premium cable option.
They moved their home ice to the NYC border where more Ranger fans live and many of the more eastern dwelling LIers dread travelling into. The Rangers offer a much easier train commute to NY NHL fans.
The Coliseum location was ideal with good parking but the stadium was outdated. Building a new stadium there would have been ideal for LIers (at least the car based fans not looking for direct LIRR access) but no one could make that work either.
Their best bet is to burn some profit by lowering ticket prices now, or providing rotating deep discounts, to get asses in the seats, then hope they get hooked. That, or just deal with lower attendance until the Islanders win the cup again – that will bring the fair weather fans from all over NYC, LI, and beyond.
I brought my friend to the Anaheim game then we watched the Tampa Game at a bar that was randomly mostly Islanders fans and they put the sound on for us. He’s hooked.
No they don’t. They need to make it more affordable for the current fan base.
Games can look pretty crowded sometimes, but always with the exception of the club areas.
Maybe they should reduce Dime Club to 2 sections from 4, and have a process to raffle off the unclaimed seats behind the benches to people sitting elsewhere just before gametime so it looks more crowded (including on TV)
As a season ticket holder and super fan it’s so expensive from parking onwards. We are a family of 5 and costs of tickets over last 5 years is going up exponentially. It’s coming to a point where I would rather watch on TV and save the money for a full family vacation anywhere in the world. Think about that. Maybe even multiple vacations.
Edit: it’s at a point where there is not much value in spending discretionary income on this – money in the fun jar can create so much more memories/opportunities when not wasted on exorbitant tickets
>“We need to become younger, more diverse, […] We’re older and less diverse than the NHL.”
i don’t disagree with the mission but… buddy you’re fighting against long island itself here. young people are being priced out because our housing supply is stagnant, wages aren’t keeping pace with cost of living, and inflation is currently fucking everyone. our local politicians cater to homeowners and retirees above all others. as for the diversity angle: long island is among the most racially segregated places in the nation and hockey already has very little buy-in in black and brown communities in far more racially integrated markets – I don’t see LI in its current state overcoming that trend
i’d love to see things change and have a fairer, more equitable long island but, the conditions on the ground are simply not conducive to what you’re asking for
I understand the goal is to build the fanbase and I think we are all on board with seeing the team succeed and being a place where people want to play and see games. However, I am concerned that his comments are overly optimistic and lack an understanding of the general geographic differences that make up Long Island/NYC and the demographics of Long Island. He is coming from Los Angeles to the Islanders, but Long Island is clearly distinct from New York City in terms of culture and not at all like Los Angeles. I raise these points not to say I disagree, but to call out potential friction points with the fan base with his plans.
First his comment: *“I look at the market of Long Island as its totality, going from Queens and Brooklyn out to Montauk. I’d say there’s eight million-plus people there. We’re strong, I would call it, from UBS Arena out to Montauk. We’ve got to be better in Queens and Brooklyn to grow the audience. And we’ve got to grow this fan base here.”*
We tried the whole “getting better”, especially in Brooklyn part. That was not well received. calling Queens and Brooklyn part of Long Island can be debated as physically, sure its on the same Island but the City isn’t LI. We have never been a “City” team. We have been a suburban *Long Island* team. If he makes us more appealing to NYC, there will be backlash by those who want us more Montauk and less Barclays. Whatever he does here will need to be distinct from changing the identity from being a Long Island team, I believe or it will not be well received.
Second his comment: *“We need to become younger, more diverse, more female as quickly as possible to complement the core audience that is really strong with the Islanders. Those are the new audiences that are growing consistently across the National Hockey League…We’re older and less diverse than the NHL.”*
Again, if the concept is just growing the fanbase, fine. But in my experience many hardcore (looking at some Merrick-based) fans will most certainly throw a fit if it is seen as we are pandering for the sake of diversity. Im not entirely sure how we make a fan base “more female” but Long Island isn’t Los Angeles when it comes to diversity/inclusion measures. Its far more conservative and may not be well received either.
Build a new stadium not on the edge of the throggs neck bridge
8pm home games would wildly drive up attendance
He talks about growing the Queens fan base. Easy, have the players (or alumni) do school assemblies on off days.
Like I told my wife while waiting for what seemed like forever for Pat Lafontaine to finish his acceptance speech for the club’s hall of fame, “if this team looked forward half as much as it looks back maybe we could with a !@#$ing cup.” For us fans born after 1984 the constant focus on the glory days is getting painful. And I mean no disrespect, and the dynasty years are worth celebrating but its been over 40 years with little to show for it.
Lower ticket prices, more promotions, maybe incentivize getting season tickets or have 3/6/9 game plans with a food credit. It’s so damn expensive to go to a game especially with a family. Don’t forget kids are your future customers. Get more kids and families in.
There is no benefit to being a season ticket holder – tickets are cheaper on the open market than what season ticket holders pay for them.
Ticket prices in general are too high for growing a fan base. Offer student discounts to college students and cheap group sales to schools in Queens and Nassau.
Don’t charge $17 dollars for beers or $16 dollars for fountain drinks.
Winning takes care of everything. You had a generation of kids see them either be one of the worst teams in the league, miss the playoffs or barely get in and lose in the first round. The perception of the franchise has changed in recent years which helps, but aside from a few playoff series wins in the last decade, the team hasn’t won a cup in over 40 years, and hasn’t even won a division title since 1988. The isles never marketed themselves good even when I was growing up. Hopefully the right people are involved now to change all that.
I hear his statement re: age, gender, and diversity, but as a young woman…I’d rather not be pandered to with pink tape or ladies’ nights or whatever. I don’t want special; I want normal. I want to feel included in the fanbase, equal to everyone else, and tbh the Islanders already do a better job of that than a lot of other sports teams. Some teams have fans that are happily, openly misogynistic, and ours aren’t. I can (and have) scream(ed) about the refs with any cool grandpa I happen to be sitting next to at UBS.
Good culture definitely starts from within. We have Shannon, and you can see that the players and broadcast team genuinely vibe with her. I’m horrified by some of the things other teams have done this season, tbh, and things that have come out about players and their actions or beliefs, but I do generally feel safe and equal as a young female Islanders fan 🤷♀️
If the Islanders wanted more people to attend games, they should have never left Nassau County. The Coliseum was a terrible, old arena, however it was in a really good spot easily accessible by car from either Nassau or Suffolk and parking was only $16-$20. They moved to UBS which is almost Queens! There are more Ranger fans in those parts. Makes it unaffordable to get by train or car as others have already stated. We are now a family of 4 so unrealistic to spend $500-$600 for a 2-3 hour game.
Signed….a still bitter fan of 40 years.
Of the NHL teams that have a train station near them, only the Islanders and the Golden Knights have one more than a 10 minute walk away from the arena, with both of them clocking in at a whopping 15 minutes.
However, we still have it worse, as at least Vegas’ cheap parking option (i.e. their equivalent to our Emerald Lot) is only an 8 minute walk away, about half the time. The Islanders’ cheap parking option is **still** 15 minutes away.
This isn’t even to mention how much of a shitshow it is getting in and out of the Emerald Lot. For weekends, who cares, people will (and do) show up regardless. On weekdays, when time is more precious, it becomes a much tougher sell to get casual fans to want to spend a night at the arena.
Fix this, and attendance will boom. I am sure of it. I’d love if they could use the Belmont Park station, but I recognize that’s infeasible as the LIRR has shown no interest in cooperating with the Islanders on this. The next best option imo would be to make a heated pedestrian tunnel under the racetrack with some moving walkways to a) cut down on the time, and b) make the commute to and from the arena more comfortable. Nothing makes me never want to return to UBS more than spending 20+ minutes in the freezing cold walking and waiting for a train after a brutal loss.