Empty Seats, Empty Seats Everywhere

[dmaksymyshyn]

It's the cost. As mentioned, not just tickets, but what goes along with it. Even when the product wasn't that good, I would go to a Sabres game with the kids. But, I just went last week, and although the tickets were $100 for the 3 of us, in a pretty nice viewing spot, i also needed: $50 for the tank of gas, $50 for food and water, $15 for parking, $14 for tolls...more than the cost of tickets. And luckily, my kids didn't want to hit the Sabres store. Good thing I was driving, or beers would have been an easy extra $30+. I took them to the game, that is it for the year. I will start saving up for a game next year!

[pwaldo]

This is a very interesting topic because this is an issue for a lot of things right now so I don't think it is just hockey or bad hockey for the cause. It is something much bigger. What that is I guess is up for debate and could be a warning for things to come.

Seemed like this first started with NASCAR having horrible attendance and other racing sports having attendance so bad they were REMOVING seats to make the areas smaller. This was ignored because it is racing so many people didn't take notice. Then WWE wrestling saw a huge drop off in people going to the events but that was brushed off as the product being absolutely terrible. Baseball really didn't see a drop and even the Toronto Blue Jays had a big attendance turnout this season so like I said not much attention was paid to the attendance drop until the NFL stadiums started showing up with less and less people. Now this was attributed to the protests and the poor play on the field but if the NHL is also experiencing this drop it could be something larger. What I don't really know but it could just be the people aren't going out and doing things anymore, the economy sucks and nobody has money, people are afraid of terrorist attacks, or maybe a combination of both.

For this to be happening in the US and Canada makes me think this is something larger and the drop in the Hollywood box office may be linked to it as well instead of the people boycotting it for the reason it has had a stark fall this year. Another economy collapse around the corner? Maybe a generational shift in the way things are now going to be? Either way it looks like the sports/Hollywood gravy train is done. It was making money left and right with no end in sight but now it seems like the future is going to be a bit uncertain for the lower level sports leagues and events. It won't doom the NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB but the other leagues that struggle to turn a profit could soon be put out of business soon.

[30ranfordfan]

This is a very interesting topic because this is an issue for a lot of things right now so I don't think it is just hockey or bad hockey for the cause. It is something much bigger. What that is I guess is up for debate and could be a warning for things to come.

Seemed like this first started with NASCAR having horrible attendance and other racing sports having attendance so bad they were REMOVING seats to make the areas smaller. This was ignored because it is racing so many people didn't take notice. Then WWE wrestling saw a huge drop off in people going to the events but that was brushed off as the product being absolutely terrible. Baseball really didn't see a drop and even the Toronto Blue Jays had a big attendance turnout this season so like I said not much attention was paid to the attendance drop until the NFL stadiums started showing up with less and less people. Now this was attributed to the protests and the poor play on the field but if the NHL is also experiencing this drop it could be something larger. What I don't really know but it could just be the people aren't going out and doing things anymore, the economy sucks and nobody has money, people are afraid of terrorist attacks, or maybe a combination of both.

For this to be happening in the US and Canada makes me think this is something larger and the drop in the Hollywood box office may be linked to it as well instead of the people boycotting it for the reason it has had a stark fall this year. Another economy collapse around the corner? Maybe a generational shift in the way things are now going to be? Either way it looks like the sports/Hollywood gravy train is done. It was making money left and right with no end in sight but now it seems like the future is going to be a bit uncertain for the lower level sports leagues and events. It won't doom the NFL/NHL/NBA/MLB but the other leagues that struggle to turn a profit could soon be put out of business soon.

I think supply & demand is the big thing, no matter what the sport. For example: My brother and some friends go to a Pittsburgh Steelers (home) game every year. Only way for them to get tickets is stubhub (or something similar) as the 68k seats @ Heinz field does not make it big enough to house everyone that wants to go.

The NFL, overall, isn't like that though. Not anymore. Lots of cities jam their buildings, but lots of them don't sell out. Maybe close, but not sells outs.

Why? I think your comment about it being a "generational thing" has some merit.... though I think as much (probably more) about this generation of media, sports, and entertainment options - rather than an age bracket.

Instead of going to a game, I can watch the game at home on my 60 inch TV, in high definition. Is that as good as going to the game? I would suggest "no" but I think for a lot of people - the comfort of your own home, your own snacks, your own beer, not paying $20 for parking, not fighting with traffic, and not paying $100 or $200 or more to be in the building is pretty appealing: Especially when you consider that there are very few seats in the building where you can actually watch the game as well as you can on TV.

At the turn of the century, not everyone had had definition TV (yes, there are still some without it now - but it's fewer and fewer). Certainly there will still lots of people whose primary TV was small by today's standards. I think the shift in what's available at home is a big thing that can draw people away from going.

On a much smaller scale... a team pretty local to me: The Kitchener Rangers. They have a capacity of just over 6,200 - And they sell out most of their games. My impression is that under 6,000 people is rare... there are a lot of season ticket holders, and there's actually a waiting list for season tickets. It's not super long (I remember being told a few years ago, that if you got on the wait list it would take you about 3 years to get season seats) but it's there.

The team is owned by the city, and there has been talk (seemingly forever) that they should get a new building. Something similar to what the London Knights have - that holds around 9,000 people. The rational behind the idea is obvious: More seats, more ticket sales. A bigger arena would also attract more concerts, things like that.

But people with team don't want to expand too much. They're afraid that adding too many seats would actually have the opposite affect: You'd end up selling less.

In a building that plays to capacity (or really near it) all of time, you have to buy your seats in advance. Maybe that's 1 game, maybe that's 10. Maybe you opt for a whole season because between you and 5 friends - 2 of you would always want to go to the game. If you can reliably get tickets the week of a game when you want to go, then there is less incentive to buy them ahead of time.... and then you have a much easier time saying "nope, don't want to go this week. I'm too tiered. I made other plans. The team isn't playing well". Whatever the excuse.

Movie Boxoffices? I don't think the problem is that much different:

For two people to go see a movie, buy a drink & popcorn each... the night is going to cost you around $50. The price of popcorn is actually insulting (but I continue to pay it, on the rare occasions I go).

If you've got a 60 inch TV, and full surround sound (there is no way I'm the only one with 5.1.... and I assume a lot of people have 7.1, 7.2, or maybe something better?) a nice couch, and your own popcorn: That's a heck of a lot cheaper than going out to see it. While there is the odd movie that is actually enhanced by being on the big screen (I think most with really incredible special effects are) I think most of the time I'd rather watch the film @ home. I can just wait until it's on netflix, and I don't even pay for it (any more than I'm already paying per month, that is).

[*censored*]

For me personally, burnout. I worked in the junior hockey world from 2005-2013. When I started, I was a die-hard fan. Watched any game I could regardless of who was playing. By my last year, I didn't want to see anything extra. After I left the junior team (now folded, by the way; sic semper tyrannis) I still worked with hockey stuff with Panini. After they lost the NHL contract, I all but stopped watching. I just didn't care. Of course, having my team win back-to-back Cups certainly has probably added some complacency; I've seen them win, now let's get one for my basketball (whoops, had that in 2016), football, and baseball teams.

Granted, most fans don't have that perspective. I kind of envy them. Otto Von Bismarck (or possibly John Godfrey Saxe) allegedly once said once said "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made." Same goes for professional/high-level-amateur sports, as I discovered.

Although really, things that have affected them have certainly affected me too.

Back when I started watching heavily in the mid-90s, Fox and ESPN had the TV contracts so it was all over their networks. Strike one was moving to the Outdoor Life Network. Sure, it became Versus and then NBC Sports and has ended up better than I would have originally expected, but those channels aren't in everyone's cable/dish package whereas ESPN is in pretty much every basic cable package, and ESPN2 is in nearly as many. You're missing out on a LOT of fans that way. Don't forget, ESPN also has SportsCenter, which if I had to guess is the most-watched daily sports highlight program in the country, perhaps the world. If they don't have a share of the broadcast rights, why would they give other networks free promotion by showing NHL highlights as much as MLB/NFL/NBA?

Strike two has been a combination of rule changes, injuries, and misplaced blame. A lack of offense hasn't been the reason for small crowds, but yet the NHL decides they need to increase offense to keep fans around. Not really; I've seen as much action from 2-1 games as I have in 6-5 games. And stop blaming fighting for the rash of concussions and head injuries. Approximately 97% of head injuries in the NHL come from something other than fights. The fact is, opening up a faster game causes far more injuries-- you take an already high-contact dangerous game and make it even faster, you're going to see harder hits and more injuries. Maybe we oughta slow things back down a bit. Maybe reinstitute the two-line pass, or relax the whistles on clutching and grabbing a bit. Drop the instigator rule, let the players hold each other accountable. The instigator rule was put in to deter fighting as a strategy like the Broad Street Bullies used. It has the unfortunate side-effect of protecting dirty players. As Chris Simon proved, the potential for 40-game suspensions is not much of a deterrent. Rule changes haven't made the game much safer, but they have made it less interesting. And the ones that made it more interesting have made it less safe. There is a fine line between balancing those. It was fine for much of the game's history. The balance has been upset and may be at a point where it can't be easily corrected, if at all.

Third, the whole Econ 101 thing. Let's stop pretending that every NHL team needs a 18,000 seat arena. And if they do, maybe drop the ticket prices so you can fill every seat and Joe Lunchpail can actually afford to take his family to a game. Hockey was once primarily enjoyed by the blue-collar types who could see speed, grace, and beauty all inside a brutal environment of body checks, fights, and flying around at 20+ mph with knives strapped to their feet and a lethal weapon in their hands, chasing around what is essentially a rock. That stuff appeals to the blue collar types (just look at the popularity of football and pro wrestling among them, along with the denigration of soccer and and other such sports that are perceived as "soft" in their view). They've been priced out by the upper-class types with kids named Cody and Jaxson and Bailey and Nevaeh and Xander who are too busy with their smart phones, eye-rolling, and Ritalin to care about anything other than a goal and that's only because the scoreboard instructs them that that's when they should cheer. When one of them gets clocked by an errant clearing attempt, we'll have nets up all around the glass and no one will ever get to walk home with a game-used souvenir ever again unless they feel like plunking down $50 at Fanatics. And of course Mom won't let them ever see another game again anyway because OH MY GOD there was actually a fight in it and she just can't even. Most teams could do better with a smaller arena at the same prices, or the same size building and lower prices. Of course, to do that the NHL would have to end the charade of whining for a new, drastically-changed CBA every decade where they won't hold to their own demanded limitations. There is no reason for the salary cap to increase vastly every year only to go whining about contracts being too high. Control your own spending then.

Expanding on my game-used souvenir point earlier, the teams have become incredibly unfriendly in this department. Look at MLB: sure, the netting expansion has the safety element to it, but there's also a profit element. Fanatics at the Rangers stadium here in Arlington sells random game-used balls (from a foul ball, a ground-out, whatever) for something like $50 each. I bet NHL teams could get something similar for used pucks. It used to be that you could get a freebie in the stands. That's being taken away from us, and I believe it's more in the name of profit than in the name of safety. Even autographs have been monetized. Sure, dealers have always been a scourge of the hobby and always will be. But while maybe one out of every 20 is in it to sell, the players, the agents, and the leagues as a whole tend to believe it's 20 out of 20. When I first moved to the Dallas area, I could watch the Stars practice and every one of them would walk out an exit where fans could wait behind a roped off area and players would sign for them. Joe Nieuwendyk was the GM then and he actually required players to walk out and sign. He knew how important it is to build a relationship with the fans and was always great about signing when he was a player. If a Hall of Famer can do it, then so can you Rich Peverley.

Unfortunately after Nieuwy got canned, fan friendliness moved lower on the charts. Jamie Benn went from a great signer to putting limitations on what/when/how: no blue Sharpies, no silver pens on pucks, no single-signed jerseys ever. Training camp was moved to Austin where players could go directly from locker room to bus and not have to deal with fans if they so chose (and of what I heard, most chose not to) instead of Fort Worth where they walked from arena to hotel. And the once-great Ice Breaker event, where players were set up at tables in the Galleria Mall signing for a couple hours a week before the start of camp, was unceremoniously scrapped two years ago without reason. And to add the cherry to this gigantic sundae of crap, the Stars put in a door going from the locker room directly to the players' gated parking lot so they didn't have to walk by us anymore. "Just wait by the lot exit" you say? Nope, the "NO LOITERING" signs, camera, and guy coming out to say "Hey, you can't stand there!" ruin that idea.

Tyler Seguin used to to some events at Fanatics stores where they'd advertise that you could get an autograph with a $25 purchase. What they didn't tell you is that it's on their photo (that of course has their logo feces smeared all over it) rather than your item. After a while the signing disappeared and it became the Seguin Selfie: come in, make a purchase, get a selfie with a terribly weltschmerz-ridden (or perhaps he's ennui-laden; help me out here folks) Seguin. It's terrible, and I hope people aren't falling for it.

So if the NHL wants to end this empty-seat epidemic, maybe they need to actually stabilize the game's rules, make it more accessible to people of all economic strata, and stop treating fans like walking wallets instead of people.

[pwaldo]

I think supply & demand is the big thing, no matter what the sport. For example: My brother and some friends go to a Pittsburgh Steelers (home) game every year. Only way for them to get tickets is stubhub (or something similar) as the 68k seats @ Heinz field does not make it big enough to house everyone that wants to go.

The NFL, overall, isn't like that though. Not anymore. Lots of cities jam their buildings, but lots of them don't sell out. Maybe close, but not sells outs.

Why? I think your comment about it being a "generational thing" has some merit.... though I think as much (probably more) about this generation of media, sports, and entertainment options - rather than an age bracket.

Instead of going to a game, I can watch the game at home on my 60 inch TV, in high definition. Is that as good as going to the game? I would suggest "no" but I think for a lot of people - the comfort of your own home, your own snacks, your own beer, not paying $20 for parking, not fighting with traffic, and not paying $100 or $200 or more to be in the building is pretty appealing: Especially when you consider that there are very few seats in the building where you can actually watch the game as well as you can on TV.

At the turn of the century, not everyone had had definition TV (yes, there are still some without it now - but it's fewer and fewer). Certainly there will still lots of people whose primary TV was small by today's standards. I think the shift in what's available at home is a big thing that can draw people away from going.

On a much smaller scale... a team pretty local to me: The Kitchener Rangers. They have a capacity of just over 6,200 - And they sell out most of their games. My impression is that under 6,000 people is rare... there are a lot of season ticket holders, and there's actually a waiting list for season tickets. It's not super long (I remember being told a few years ago, that if you got on the wait list it would take you about 3 years to get season seats) but it's there.

The team is owned by the city, and there has been talk (seemingly forever) that they should get a new building. Something similar to what the London Knights have - that holds around 9,000 people. The rational behind the idea is obvious: More seats, more ticket sales. A bigger arena would also attract more concerts, things like that.

But people with team don't want to expand too much. They're afraid that adding too many seats would actually have the opposite affect: You'd end up selling less.

In a building that plays to capacity (or really near it) all of time, you have to buy your seats in advance. Maybe that's 1 game, maybe that's 10. Maybe you opt for a whole season because between you and 5 friends - 2 of you would always want to go to the game. If you can reliably get tickets the week of a game when you want to go, then there is less incentive to buy them ahead of time.... and then you have a much easier time saying "nope, don't want to go this week. I'm too tiered. I made other plans. The team isn't playing well". Whatever the excuse.

Movie Boxoffices? I don't think the problem is that much different:

For two people to go see a movie, buy a drink & popcorn each... the night is going to cost you around $50. The price of popcorn is actually insulting (but I continue to pay it, on the rare occasions I go).

If you've got a 60 inch TV, and full surround sound (there is no way I'm the only one with 5.1.... and I assume a lot of people have 7.1, 7.2, or maybe something better?) a nice couch, and your own popcorn: That's a heck of a lot cheaper than going out to see it. While there is the odd movie that is actually enhanced by being on the big screen (I think most with really incredible special effects are) I think most of the time I'd rather watch the film @ home. I can just wait until it's on netflix, and I don't even pay for it (any more than I'm already paying per month, that is).

The thing is though most of this decline has happened in the last year. Hollywood did really well last year and outside of the NFL dropping some last year these places weren't struggling. I mean if somebody went on vacation to China for 12 months and came back and looked at attendance figures around sports and other places they'd say what the heck happened. Now I don't really know the attendance figures for minor league stuff (though minor league baseball was once again super healthy and had one of the best years attendance wise ever) but I don't really think people are opting for minor league stuff over major league stuff is the reason. I mean if NASCAR, WWE, NFL, NHL, and UFC are all dropping in attendance and Hollywood is struggling to attract people to go despite blockbuster after blockbuster something is definitely up.

[baltman]

tickets are $$$$$