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How a championship season has changed the game for the Charlotte Checkers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte Checkers executives Tera Black and Shawn Lynch have worked together for more than a decade. And, many times during those years, they’ve wondered aloud about a persistent topic within minor-league sports: How much, if at all, does winning matter?

That, in part, explains why minor-league teams so often focus on affordability and promotion-heavy game presentation. No matter the game result, teams hope fans will have a good time and keep coming back. Fans of NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball teams, on the other hand, overwhelmingly buy tickets based on win-loss records.

Black, the Checkers’ chief operating officer, and Lynch, the senior vice president, think they learned the answer last season when it comes to minor-league hockey in Charlotte.

“We’ve discussed it before: Does winning matter at this level? Does it matter to the bottom line?” Lynch said during a recent interview at the team’s offices in the EpiCentre building uptown. “And we found out the answer is yes.”

Read more here about how the team plans to build on this momentum.