Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

[jjmc85]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Hmmm... It is now my life's work to find a team with a goalie for a captain and attend a game where he takes a faceoff. Ceremonial will be fine, actual one, even better

Paul Dainton was captain for UMass in 10-11. I don't remember who took the ceremonial face offs that year. I doubt it was him, cause I think I would have remembered.

[JohnsonsJerseys]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

...it's a team that draws very well for every game.

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter who they play, the fans show up because they are there to watch the Sioux. So if they schedule AIC and UAH next season you would expect good attendance as well.

Yet there are plenty of people on this board who say their team couldn't "afford" to be in a league with non-premier teams because it hurts their revenue. My point is, if you had a fan base who was buying tickets to watch the home team, who the visitor was would not matter. If it makes the point better, look at a team with poor attendance every weekend. Simply bringing a "great" team to town isn't going to put butts in the seats either. It works both ways. Either fans are behind the team or they are not.

Ryan J

[SCSU Euro]

I like how you ask this question when both Montgomery and Genoway are defensemen.

I don't give a rat's *** about anyone from tUMD and I'm an SCSU fan so I don't recognize Genoway from the front

[darker98]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Wow, I would have thought a great team like UND would have sold out every game.

Every once in awhile 299 people want to attend an Elton John concert.

[Bale]

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter who they play, the fans show up because they are there to watch the Sioux. So if they schedule AIC and UAH next season you would expect good attendance as well.

Yet there are plenty of people on this board who say their team couldn't "afford" to be in a league with non-premier teams because it hurts their revenue. My point is, if you had a fan base who was buying tickets to watch the home team, who the visitor was would not matter. If it makes the point better, look at a team with poor attendance every weekend. Simply bringing a "great" team to town isn't going to put butts in the seats either. It works both ways. Either fans are behind the team or they are not.

Ryan J

So basically your point was to find a new way to brag about how amazing your team is?

Neat.

[osualum86]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

For those of you who still think fans won’t show up unless you are playing a “premium name” team I present excerpts from a North Dakota press release issued today:

“UND's average home attendance of 11,341 fans per game ranked second nationally behind only Wisconsin's 11,772.9.”

“The Sioux played in front of two of the five largest crowds in program history when 12,065 turned out to watch a 1-1 overtime tie with Michigan Tech on Feb. 18, and 12,029 witnessed a 3-0 win over Minnesota State in the regular season finale on March 3. Those two crowds ranked as the fourth and fifth-largest in program history.”

Hmmm... Seems like there isn't any problem at all playing "no-name" programs according to those numbers. If the fans don't show up in your building, maybe they just don't care about the HOME team?

Ryan J

I've been saying this for years, and it seems to be a problem at OSU. Some are saying our attendance will be better once the Big Ten Hockey Conference starts. They say fans would rather come out and watch us play Minnesota or Wisconsin than Lake Superior State or Western Michigan (no disrespect to those programs, just using them as examples). If that's the case, I would ask the same question, "Who are you going to see?" My belief has always been that you go to games to watch your team. It shouldn't matter who they are playing. Unfortunately at Ohio State, who we are playing has always been a factor with the crowds. Lately the largest crowds have been when we were playing Michigan or Miami, it seems. With some of the others, we've been lucky if there have been 4,000 or 5,000 people there, which just looks like crap when you play in a 17,500-seat arena.

[Dirty]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

So basically your point was to find a new way to brag about how amazing your team is?

Neat.

Amazing and Michigan Tech. Two things that don't go together.

[JohnsonsJerseys]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Amazing and Michigan Tech. Two things that don't go together.

Not recently anyway, but we're working on it.

So basically your point was to find a new way to brag about how amazing your team is?
Neat.

No, actually my point was it doesn't matter who the visiting team is...
What does that have to do with the team I support?
Done.
Ryan J

[fangers]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Not recently anyway, but we're working on it.


No, actually my point was it doesn't matter who the visiting team is...
What does that have to do with the team I support?
Done.
Ryan J

I think the point is this: there is nothing else to do in town.

Not being a smart ***, but one of the big issues organizations/schools have to market against is competition for the consumer's disposable income. I doubt UND faces much competition.

[LynahFan]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make. It doesn't matter who they play, the fans show up because they are there to watch the Sioux. So if they schedule AIC and UAH next season you would expect good attendance as well.

Yet there are plenty of people on this board who say their team couldn't "afford" to be in a league with non-premier teams because it hurts their revenue. My point is, if you had a fan base who was buying tickets to watch the home team, who the visitor was would not matter. If it makes the point better, look at a team with poor attendance every weekend. Simply bringing a "great" team to town isn't going to put butts in the seats either. It works both ways. Either fans are behind the team or they are not.

Ryan J

Nonsense. Put UND in Atlantic Hockey, so that your home games against UMinn, UW, DU, and CC are replaced by AIC, Sacred Heart, and Canisius. UND's attendance would drop through the floor, even as their win percentage went through the roof. Then, after about 3 seasons, get a non-conference game against UMinn, and I guarantee that the attendance would be way above that season's average. It absolutely matters who you play - even at UND.

[Bale]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Amazing and Michigan Tech. Two things that don't go together.

Well....I certainly failed on that one, didn't I?

[uaafanblog]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

You have 58 college hockey programs and suffice it to say you have 58 sets of variables that impact attendance.

Clearly who you play on a given night or weekend can have a tremendous impact on both attendance (internet/walk up sales) and revenue.

Not clearly. DU's attendance numbers reflect quite a different story over the years. Yes, a couple of people don't show up to watch DU play Mankato versus a "brand name school" but it is not tremendous. It's actually nearly irrelevant.

This is the same incorrect assertion that you've been making for a long time now. I showed you were wrong with DU's attendance numbers and have repeatedly referred to that whenever I see you post clap-trap like this.

[Caustic Undertow]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

I've been saying this for years, and it seems to be a problem at OSU. Some are saying our attendance will be better once the Big Ten Hockey Conference starts. They say fans would rather come out and watch us play Minnesota or Wisconsin than Lake Superior State or Western Michigan (no disrespect to those programs, just using them as examples). If that's the case, I would ask the same question, "Who are you going to see?" My belief has always been that you go to games to watch your team. It shouldn't matter who they are playing. Unfortunately at Ohio State, who we are playing has always been a factor with the crowds. Lately the largest crowds have been when we were playing Michigan or Miami, it seems. With some of the others, we've been lucky if there have been 4,000 or 5,000 people there, which just looks like crap when you play in a 17,500-seat arena.

OSU doesn't have a large base of dedicated ticket-paying fans. There is a somewhat larger base of fans who care enough about hockey to think, "it would be fun to go to a game. What game would be interesting to see?" When you ask that question, the local hockey rivalry and "That Team Up North" seem much more attractive, especially in an environment where you never have to worry about whether or not tickets will be available. The crowd is bigger, the game is more fun.

I had to overcome this when I started getting serious about college hockey; the big-school bias. As a lifelong Michigan fan I was used to big name schools, even to the point of bias against basketball-only schools in the NCAA basketball tournament. So when I saw a team like "Ferris State" on the schedule I thought lesser of it since I knew nothing about it. Ohio State fans, conditioned to appreciating big football games against teams like Texas and USC and big basketball games against teams like Duke, aren't used to getting hyped up for Lake Superior State.

It's really the same in football, just on a different scale; when OSU and Michigan play, tickets sell for hundreds of dollars. When one of them play Bowling Green, you can get a ticket for $20 on the street.

[dggoddard]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Not clearly. DU's attendance numbers reflect quite a different story over the years. Yes, a couple of people don't show up to watch DU play Mankato versus a "brand name school" but it is not tremendous. It's actually nearly irrelevant.

This is the same incorrect assertion that you've been making for a long time now. I showed you were wrong with DU's attendance numbers and have repeatedly referred to that whenever I see you post clap-trap like this.

Are you the guy that also ran the numbers and invented Moneyball?

The NCHC was founded because 8 schools believed that planing name brand opponents on a consistent basis mattered.

[crossjcek]

Re: Debunking the Myth – Who you play has a huge impact on attendance

Huh. I didn't realize that changes to the 2013-14 schedule affected the ticket sales for the 2011-12 season.

Many of the season ticket holders I talked to said that with the realignment looming PLUS this years schedule is why they did not renew their tickets. So why pay for this year and next when you don't like the schedule this year and won't like it in a couple of years. These are not my feelings but from some I have talked to.