Average Men's Attendance

[Spartanforlife4]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

If you wanted to cheat for MSU, you could put 100% capacity for '86-'03. Problem is I can't find capacities for those years, and they were well over capacity in some of them. For instance, the record season attendance average was 6722 for '86-87, apparently with less home games as the season total attendance record is still from the second season of Munn in 76.

 

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

NextVR is already doing it and it's incredible for boxing and soccer. Hockey is tough because the puck is so hard to see in a VR setting where resolution is spread wider.

When Japan bid on the 2022 World Cup part of the bid was a plan to develop technology enabling it to provide a live telecast of every game in holographic 3D. The idea was to broadcast the games onto the playing fields of about 400 stadiums around the world so fans who couldn't go to Japan could attend the games locally and watch them as if they were there. However, the issue of attendance in the originating venue could still be a problem for the reasons already mentioned, if not for the World Cup then for other events that might want to use the same technology.

I suppose taking it to the extreme you could do away with stadiums/arenas with seating altogether and create a holographic stadium/arena full of fans around the playing surface to give the players the experience of playing in front of a packed stadium/arena every game.

Sean

 

[Split-N]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

...Its a different world than the 80s including 100s of TV channels, PC usage, the internet, apps, cheap travel, meet up groups for singles. Sometimes I think its very encouraging the kinds of ratings we see come through.

Add to all of the above the video game culture and the pre-occupation with posting stuff on social media and then counting "Likes", both of which, IMO, have contributed to what looks to me like an increasing ambivalence toward spectator sports among Millenials, in general, and GenZ, in particular. It's a brave new world out there for sports marketers.

 

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

With it being the holiday break I thought I would update my Men's Home Attendance spreadsheet to include all games this season through 12/18. As a caveat this season's numbers are based on reported attendance. I used scanned tickets for both Minnesota (2013-14 through 2015-16) and Wisconsin (2007-08 through 2015-16) so both appear to have huge attendance gains that are likely smaller.

Assuming both do have overall attendance gains this season, that means only 25 teams have seen an attendance increase through the first half of the season. American International and Sacred Heart see the biggest increases, although both are are still at the bottom in average attendance. Their respective moves to the MassMutual Center and Webster Bank Center are showing early signs of success at the gate. It remains to be seen what the long term results will be. Likewise, Holy Cross having 2 games at the DCU Center boosted their average attendance.

Lake Superior and Alaska-Anchorage both have seen solid attendance increases, with LSSU at its highest average since 2002-03 and UAA almost at their average for 2014-15. Colgate's new rink appears to have helped attendance as well, as they are their highest average since 2003-04. Both RIT and Mercyhurst are currently at new peak averages, but it is to be seen if they hold through the rest of the season. Maine is also showing a nice increase, which is actually slightly better once the 2 'home' games at Portland are removed from the data.

On the negative side, 35 teams have seen their average attendance drop. Alaska has seen the worst drop, over 1,100 per games, a staggering 41% drop from last season and is currently at an all-time low. It would appear that the talk the Alaska schools being combined and one losing their hockey team has negatively affected attendance in Fairbanks. Arizona State is also having attendance issues, as their average is down 32%, over 650 per game, despite having 5 games at Gila River Arena this season against NCAA opponents vs just 2 last season. New Hampshire continues to lose fans, currently down over 1,000 per games and at the lowest average since the Whittemore Center opened. And in Connecticut the excitement of Hockey East appears to have faded as attendance is down over 1,100 per game. In the B1G both Michigan State (down almost 1,100/game) and Ohio State (down almost 1,000/games) are having attendance issues and Notre Dame (down over 900/game) fans seems to be waiting for next season. Nebraska-Omaha's new rink is only averaging 71% or so capacity, as their average attendance is down almost 1,300 per game.

I added NCAA totals for 2001-02 through this season and the overall average was pretty stable from 2001-02 through 2013-14. However it has declined every season for the past five and is currently down 290 per game from 2011-12. That may not seem like much, but that includes 2 new programs, Penn State and Arizona State, not playing in 2011-12 and Connecticut upgrading and moving to Hockey East.

Sean

 

[manurespreader]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Just from an eye test point of view. I attended the First Desert classic last year and the attendance figures were wildly over what was actually there. Not only that but in a number of the ASU games, the attendance figure is missing from the box score entirely. So you have to wonder how they are counting and why.
Second, it strikes me as ironic about the NCHC, because one of the reasons they used in the rationale as to why they split off was that the attendance was starting to drop off for games with the lower teams. Now we are down the line a bit more and of course that was a red herring and the attendance dropped anyway. In other words, if you want to believe something, you can find reasons to believe it, true or not.

 

[gfmorris]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Sean —

Part of Alaska's drop is that they had to play Mankato at the 1200-seat Patty Ice Center due to booking issues with the Carlson Center. The bigger concern is not drawing games with UAA.

What would be interesting — and I might could spare some time to do it — is to correlate attendance with:

1. Current team winning percentage
2. Current home team winning percentage
3. Prior year team winning percentage
4. Prior year home team winning percentage
5. Quality of opponent

UAH has terrible home attendance now because 1) we haven't had a winning season since 2005-06 and 2) we're lights-out on the road (6-0-1-1) and crap at home (1-0-1-6). UAH had a senior class that had never won a D-I home game until their senior year: https://uahhockey.com/blog/2014/11/16/uah-5-lssu-2-its-been-a-long-time/.

I've often heard that team attendance lags team performance — somehow momentum holds.

GFM

 

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Just from an eye test point of view. I attended the First Desert classic last year and the attendance figures were wildly over what was actually there. Not only that but in a number of the ASU games, the attendance figure is missing from the box score entirely. So you have to wonder how they are counting and why.
Second, it strikes me as ironic about the NCHC, because one of the reasons they used in the rationale as to why they split off was that the attendance was starting to drop off for games with the lower teams. Now we are down the line a bit more and of course that was a red herring and the attendance dropped anyway. In other words, if you want to believe something, you can find reasons to believe it, true or not.

Thanks for your comments manurespreader. I looked at the boxes on USCHO for all 9 ASU home games and they all have an attendance figure listed, so however they are counting, this season's average is at least an accurate average. It will be interesting to see what this season's reported Desert Hockey Classic attendance figures are compared to last season's figures.

As for what figures are reported by various schools, I have the sense that most people who have posted about attendance think they are the total number of tickets distributed (and for Minnesota and Wisconsin that has been proven true). Over on the women's board it one poster even suggested that some of their attendance figures are straight out made up. But as long as each school is consistent in how they report their figures from season to season then attendance trends of time should be reflective of actual changes.

Since you mentioned NCHC attendance I decided to modify my spreadsheet so the NCAA Totals are now just Totals that can be subtotaled by selecting a league and/or schools. However, you will have to filter the underlying data on the Totals and Games sheets to see the subtotaled averages reflected on the Average sheet.

With the second half of the season still to play, and most of those league games, I expect the attendance figures to improve for a number of teams.

Sean

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

As for what figures are reported by various schools, I have the sense that most people who have posted about attendance think they are the total number of tickets distributed (and for Minnesota and Wisconsin that has been proven true). Over on the women's board it one poster even suggested that some of their attendance figures are straight out made up.

Regarding the part of your post I emphasized this goes beyond women's sports. My cousin has been a newspaper sports reporter/journalist for 2 decades. At a Ball State men's basketball game he overheard an SID discussing with a student working in the department what attendance figure to report for a game with a particularly small crowd. The decision was made to literally make it up, so the boxscore failed to represent what was probably a crowd of between 1000-1500 (as little as 10% full). The SID said something along the lines of "oh, just say there were 3000 and something."

I think some organizations are reporting figures that are truly tickets sold, but the ones that struggle with attendance often make it up.

 

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Sean —

Part of Alaska's drop is that they had to play Mankato at the 1200-seat Patty Ice Center due to booking issues with the Carlson Center. The bigger concern is not drawing games with UAA.

What would be interesting — and I might could spare some time to do it — is to correlate attendance with:

1. Current team winning percentage
2. Current home team winning percentage
3. Prior year team winning percentage
4. Prior year home team winning percentage
5. Quality of opponent

UAH has terrible home attendance now because 1) we haven't had a winning season since 2005-06 and 2) we're lights-out on the road (6-0-1-1) and crap at home (1-0-1-6). UAH had a senior class that had never won a D-I home game until their senior year: https://uahhockey.com/blog/2014/11/16/uah-5-lssu-2-its-been-a-long-time/.

I've often heard that team attendance lags team performance — somehow momentum holds.

GFM

Greg,

The official attendance for the two Minnesota State games were 714 and 698, both well below the rink's 1,200 capacity. If both had been at capacity or the Patty Ice Center was off campus I would remove them from the team's attendance figures, as I have done for other teams impacted by such considerations (and did for Maine's 2 games in Portland this season). But I don't see either reason being valid in this case.

As for correlating attendance to performance and especially home performance, I agree that there is one and there are numerous papers/articles on the subject, even some on college hockey:

Baseball
What Do Your Fans Want
Fair-Weather Fans

NHL
Winning Percentage and Attendance in the NHL
Fan Attendance: Does Winning Actually Bring in the Crowds?
Sensitivity of Attendance to Wins

College Hockey
The Impact of Winning on Filling a College Hockey Arena
Determinants of college hockey attendance

"Determinants of college hockey attendance" looks at other factors besides winning, including ticket prices and the impact of an NHL team within 75 miles. Unfortunately, he didn't try to factor in the impact of having other college teams within a short distance of each other (i.e. Boston).

Sean

 

[gfmorris]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Nice! Thanks for the links. I'd seen the baseball stuff in the past. I have my own project that correlates UAH attendance to when Alabama and/or Auburn football games are opposite of our start times. It's pretty startling — after football is over, Saturday is our better attendance night by about 10-15% from my last recollection.

GFM

 

[Squarebanks]

Greg,

The official attendance for the two Minnesota State games were 714 and 698, both well below the rink's 1,200 capacity. If both had been at capacity or the Patty Ice Center was off campus I would remove them from the team's attendance figures, as I have done for other teams impacted by such considerations (and did for Maine's 2 games in Portland this season). But I don't see either reason being valid in this case.

As for correlating attendance to performance and especially home performance, I agree that there is one and there are numerous papers/articles on the subject, even some on college hockey:

Baseball
What Do Your Fans Want
Fair-Weather Fans

NHL
Winning Percentage and Attendance in the NHL
Fan Attendance: Does Winning Actually Bring in the Crowds?
Sensitivity of Attendance to Wins

College Hockey
The Impact of Winning on Filling a College Hockey Arena
Determinants of college hockey attendance

"Determinants of college hockey attendance" looks at other factors besides winning, including ticket prices and the impact of an NHL team within 75 miles. Unfortunately, he didn't try to factor in the impact of having other college teams within a short distance of each other (i.e. Boston).

Sean

Thanks for the links.

Regarding the Patty Center, something to remember is it is a practice rink in every sense of the word. It isn't going to draw people in.

There are some rumblings going around that the Carlson Center has a new ticket counting system that is thwarting the attendance numbers. I can certainly attest that when we played UAA a couple weeks ago, the Saturday attendance was listed as under 2,000 but I'd be shocked if it was actually that low.

But there is no doubt that the WCHA move has impacted our attendance. In the old CCHA days we always had big crowds for UM/MSU, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. Without those big draws attendance has crumbled, and it is complicated by the fact that we have been lousy at home the last two seasons.

The other issue is we tend to get stuck with crappy home weekends (I.e. Thanksgiving weekend, Finals weekend, etc.) followed by being on the road the month of January. There is no doubt the scheduling was more advantageous in the CCHA. Not having a home game for six weeks in the middle of the season isn't advantageous for branding.

 

[SJHovey]

Just from an eye test point of view. I attended the First Desert classic last year and the attendance figures were wildly over what was actually there. Not only that but in a number of the ASU games, the attendance figure is missing from the box score entirely. So you have to wonder how they are counting and why.
Second, it strikes me as ironic about the NCHC, because one of the reasons they used in the rationale as to why they split off was that the attendance was starting to drop off for games with the lower teams. Now we are down the line a bit more and of course that was a red herring and the attendance dropped anyway. In other words, if you want to believe something, you can find reasons to believe it, true or not.

I'd like to see a link to a single quote from the NCHC or a representative of an NCHC school saying one of the reasons the conference was formed was because "attendance was starting to drop off for games wth some lower schools."

 

[willythekid]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I'd like to see a link to a single quote from the NCHC or a representative of an NCHC school saying one of the reasons the conference was formed was because "attendance was starting to drop off for games wth some lower schools."

I was thinking the exact same thing... Jeebus, get over it already.

 

[manurespreader]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I was thinking the exact same thing... Jeebus, get over it already.

I Am over it, but it is ironic you have to admit. If you want proof and certainly that's nice to have, you might be able to find some of the old DU threads where they were talking about defending the brand, the drop off in attendance at Denver, how they shouldn't have to play Tech because we were just so beneath them, how it hurt the numbers for crummy teams to come into town, Plus the quotes from peg bradley dopes about the things they were dissatisfied with. All of that came out a few months before the split was announced.
I'm not mad about it in the least, but when these type things are said they stick out in your memory.

 

[Suze]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Thanks for the links.

Regarding the Patty Center, something to remember is it is a practice rink in every sense of the word. It isn't going to draw people in.

There are some rumblings going around that the Carlson Center has a new ticket counting system that is thwarting the attendance numbers. I can certainly attest that when we played UAA a couple weeks ago, the Saturday attendance was listed as under 2,000 but I'd be shocked if it was actually that low.

But there is no doubt that the WCHA move has impacted our attendance. In the old CCHA days we always had big crowds for UM/MSU, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. Without those big draws attendance has crumbled, and it is complicated by the fact that we have been lousy at home the last two seasons.

The other issue is we tend to get stuck with crappy home weekends (I.e. Thanksgiving weekend, Finals weekend, etc.) followed by being on the road the month of January. There is no doubt the scheduling was more advantageous in the CCHA. Not having a home game for six weeks in the middle of the season isn't advantageous for branding.

I agree, the scheduling with the new WCHA has been much worse for attendance. UAA's next home games are at 1:30 on both Friday and Saturday. Add to that the fact that the games are on LIVE television, it's a recipe for disaster.

 

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

...one of the reasons they used in the rationale as to why they split off was that the attendance was starting to drop off for games with the lower teams. Now we are down the line a bit more and of course that was a red herring and the attendance dropped anyway.

I'm not going to bet into a debate about whether or not attendance was a factor in the creation of the NCHC, but your comment did get me interested in how attendance has been affected by the change. I looked at Denver's last four seasons in the WCHA and first 3 and half in the NCHC. In the WCHA Denver had 14 league home games a season and over the last four they hosted either Minnesota or Wisconsin, which I have ignored, leaving 12 other home games per season, while in the NCHC Denver has 12 league home games a season. Overall Denver's league attendance has dropped from an average of 5,528 for WCHA opponents to an average of 5,094 for NCHC opponents, a 7.9% decline. The average attendance for the 5 WCHA teams that joined the NCHC was 5,615 when in the WCHA and is currently 5,458 in the NCHC, a 2.8 decline. The average attendance for the other WCHA teams was 5,426, while for Miami and WMU it is currently 4,731, a 12.8% decline.

Sean

 

[Sean Pickett]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Thanks for the links.

Regarding the Patty Center, something to remember is it is a practice rink in every sense of the word. It isn't going to draw people in.

There are some rumblings going around that the Carlson Center has a new ticket counting system that is thwarting the attendance numbers. I can certainly attest that when we played UAA a couple weeks ago, the Saturday attendance was listed as under 2,000 but I'd be shocked if it was actually that low.

But there is no doubt that the WCHA move has impacted our attendance. In the old CCHA days we always had big crowds for UM/MSU, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. Without those big draws attendance has crumbled, and it is complicated by the fact that we have been lousy at home the last two seasons.

The other issue is we tend to get stuck with crappy home weekends (I.e. Thanksgiving weekend, Finals weekend, etc.) followed by being on the road the month of January. There is no doubt the scheduling was more advantageous in the CCHA. Not having a home game for six weeks in the middle of the season isn't advantageous for branding.

Thanks for the additional information about the Petty Center.

Interesting to hear about the Carlson Center counting system, although you would expect that it was tested and working properly before being used.

Back in 2012-13 BU ended up with no home games for four weeks from the end of January to the end of February. That was the longest stretch BU had no home games outside of the holiday break gong back to the start of the 2003-04 season when BU also had no home games for four weeks after opening the season at home. The four weeks was bad enough and the Beanpot games were in that stretch.

Sean

 

[Squarebanks]

Thanks for the additional information about the Petty Center.

Interesting to hear about the Carlson Center counting system, although you would expect that it was tested and working properly before being used.

Back in 2012-13 BU ended up with no home games for four weeks from the end of January to the end of February. That was the longest stretch BU had no home games outside of the holiday break gong back to the start of the 2003-04 season when BU also had no home games for four weeks after opening the season at home. The four weeks was bad enough and the Beanpot games were in that stretch.

Sean

UAF has no home games this season between December 17 and February 3. Seven long weeks.

 

[purpleinnebraska]

I'd like to see a link to a single quote from the NCHC or a representative of an NCHC school saying one of the reasons the conference was formed was because "attendance was starting to drop off for games wth some lower schools."

To be honest, I heard that way more from Wisconsin people than from NCHC people. It was a lousy argument (Denver, Kato, UAA, CC - to the average fan, what's the difference?) but it allowed them to blame others for how crappy their program had become.

 

[Yuppie Scum]

When Japan bid on the 2022 World Cup part of the bid was a plan to develop technology enabling it to provide a live telecast of every game in holographic 3D. The idea was to broadcast the games onto the playing fields of about 400 stadiums around the world so fans who couldn't go to Japan could attend the games locally and watch them as if they were there. However, the issue of attendance in the originating venue could still be a problem for the reasons already mentioned, if not for the World Cup then for other events that might want to use the same technology.

I've got a bridge to sell ya..

Is this like the outdoor Qatar soccer stadiums that will somehow be magically kept at 70 degrees in the summer?