Average Men's Attendance

[Drew S.]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Gonna guess a lot of that had to do with Halloween weekend.

I don't completely disagree with you, but think it is a dangerous way of thinking. There is always something else going on and I can't imagine Halloween discouraged thousands of people from going. I really think 10 or 20 years ago fans of other teams would have gone to get a look at Denver. They're that good. Hopefully this is a wakeup call to those in charge and changes are made.

 

[chickod]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Hopefully this is a wakeup call to those in charge and changes are made.

Good luck with that. Ticket prices (and parking prices) go nowhere but UP. I don't see how that is going to create an incentive for families. It can cost up in the $200 range to take a child to a game if you consider parking, tickets and going to eat (or, worse, eating the overrated, overpriced concessions at the arena).

Like most things, a good percentage of the problem comes down to money. The FIRST step these schools can take is to make a serious evaluation of what they are charging people to attend.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Mookie likes how they try to compare NHL pricing to the product

 

[The Zlax45]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

My PC season tickets in seven years went from a Family Plan season ticket at 99 dollars total to 250 for one season ticket.

 

[FireKnight]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Good luck with that. Ticket prices (and parking prices) go nowhere but UP. I don't see how that is going to create an incentive for families. It can cost up in the $200 range to take a child to a game if you consider parking, tickets and going to eat (or, worse, eating the overrated, overpriced concessions at the arena).

Like most things, a good percentage of the problem comes down to money. The FIRST step these schools can take is to make a serious evaluation of what they are charging people to attend.

I think the changes can vary greatly from school to school. The cost is a double-edged sword. A lot of people blamed the stagnant economy for a long time but honestly, the economy getting better this year can actually hurt schools like UMTC. People are still going to have to find activities for the family, regardless of how the economy is. With people feeling more comfortable about the economy and having some more disposable income, they may just be more willing to take the family to the Wild game on a Saturday night than watch the Gophers face Clarkson.

The biggest thing for all the schools is to market to an audience that will show and then putting on a product that will satisfy that market. Clarkson started an incentive last year for season tickets at a deep discount price ($168 for alumni per ticket). That's a great deal but the problem is that alumni will only show for a successful team and a rivalry, though they may buy the season package just for playoff seating or good seats on the weekend they may be visiting. (Most Clarkson alumni aren't starving artists like SLU alumni.) Well those empty green seats for a majority of the games don't add to the atmosphere.

The closest D-1 school to my house is Army. They have done a great job keeping the program drawing crowds understanding their market. They have events for family and kids almost every weekend, offer group deals for Boy/Girl Scouts, etc. etc. They've also kept ticket prices down ($15 for chair backs, $10 for bleachers, and kids rates) except for the Air Force series. This weekend, they drew 1,500 a night, which is pretty good for a program that will never be horribly successful in the NC$$ and without a student base.

 

[northeastern]

My PC season tickets in seven years went from a Family Plan season ticket at 99 dollars total to 250 for one season ticket.

..and you got yourselves a pretty good HC & that darn NC.
(not the topic of this thread but i'll take that)

 

[kdiff77]

I don't completely disagree with you, but think it is a dangerous way of thinking. There is always something else going on and I can't imagine Halloween discouraged thousands of people from going. I really think 10 or 20 years ago fans of other teams would have gone to get a look at Denver. They're that good. Hopefully this is a wakeup call to those in charge and changes are made.

I’m mostly talking about student attendance. In a perfect world, college kids would make time to go to school sporting events before they go out, but it’s naive to think 18-22-year-olds are going to opt for sports over the biggest undergrad holiday of the year.

 

[FireKnight]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I’m mostly talking about student attendance. In a perfect world, college kids would make time to go to school sporting events before they go out, but it’s naive to think 18-22-year-olds are going to opt for sports over the biggest undergrad holiday of the year.

I would love to worry about Clarkson students going to games on St. Patrick's Day. It's been a while.

 

[Split-N]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

...(Most Clarkson alumni aren't starving artists like SLU alumni.)...

Boom!

 

[Crimson on the Glass]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I wanted to bring this thread back where we're a month into the season. Are people losing a lot of interest in non-confernece games? I'm surprised BU and BC had such small attendances against what truly is a great Denver team.

I thought about going, but honestly I got enough Denver in Chicago to last me a while longer.

 

[ericredaxe]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Has BU student attendance really dropped all that much from the Walter Brown Arena days? Back then the students were mostly in section 8 and the portion of section 7 that the band did not occupy. I imagine that is a lot fewer seats than the combination of 117,118,119 and 108. So a smaller student section felt more full but are there really less students attending?

 

[chickod]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Has BU student attendance really dropped all that much from the Walter Brown Arena days?

Well that's a good point (and also opens up a BIG can of worms) and brings up a couple of questions: 1) Did the school "use" the success of the hockey program to justify building a "mid-sized" arena so they could capitalize on all of the outside "events" (concerts, shows, etc.)? 2) Did they know that there would be enough initial interest and excitement to "push through" the construction but also realized that ultimately that type of interest/attendance was unsustainable? I'm sure that there has been enough of a revenue stream from "mid-sized" events to justify the cost. The question is, how does this affect the hockey program? Personally, I would rather have the excitement level and enthusiasm of a place like Walter Brown as opposed to a half-full (or less) Agganis. Just look at basketball. There's a reason they choose to stay at "The Roof." Can you imagine the unmitigated disaster it would be for basketball to have 300 fans showing up in a 6000 seat arena (even WITH the ends "blocked off")?

Is it all about winning? Maybe today it is...with so many options to choose from apparently people prefer to associate themselves with "winners" rather than loyalty or love of the sport. To go back to the basketball analogy, look at the Patriot League Championship vs Stony Brook when the place was completely packed and going beserk when John Holland led the Terriers to an overtime win to qualify for the NCAAs.

So is this where we're at? It's all about being "seen" at the "hip" places now for this generation? They jump from place to place wherever the "hot" place is? If that's true, sports are going to be in big trouble, because they depend upon a consistent revenue stream, not attendance based upon a "whim."

 

[LTsatch]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Student attendance can be cyclical depending on which winter team sport is doing better. At Yale, if the basketball team is doing well, the hockey student section suffers, as well as the meager band having to play BB before hockey.

 

[chickod]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Student attendance can be cyclical depending on which winter team sport is doing better. At Yale, if the basketball team is doing well, the hockey student section suffers, as well as the meager band having to play BB before hockey.

Yes, but from the tone of this thread it sounds like student attendance is down almost everywhere. So that wouldn't necessarily correlate with how well a team is doing, since ALL teams in ALL sports aren't doing poorly.

 

[purpleinnebraska]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I don't completely disagree with you, but think it is a dangerous way of thinking. There is always something else going on and I can't imagine Halloween discouraged thousands of people from going. I really think 10 or 20 years ago fans of other teams would have gone to get a look at Denver. They're that good. Hopefully this is a wakeup call to those in charge and changes are made.

I don't think students -or fans in general, really- come for the opponent, unless that team is a rival. For Mankato back in the "old" WCHA days, Denver didn't draw any better than any other conference opponent, even when they were the defending national champs. The Gophers would pack them in (Our students grew up on Gopher sports, and for most of the students the Gophers are either their second favorite team or their least favorite team), and so would NoDak, although a lot of that was visiting NoDak fans somehow ending up with student tickets. But other than that, the visiting team made no difference, regardless of how good they were.

Most students aren't really there for the high quality hockey. The other parts of the atmosphere are why they come. That includes the home team winning, of course, but you also have to look at ways to make it enticing for the students to always show up. I don't have a lot of good ideas on that, but I know "This team coming to town is really good!" isn't a big draw for students. And that's probably a good thing, because if it was important, how do you sell the students on the weeks when a not really good team is coming to town?

 

[Split-N]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Among many factors driving the drops in physical attendance is the fact that today’s undergrads are the FANG (Facebook/Amazon/Netflix/Google) generation (and don’t forget Xbox and PlayStation). They tend to be ambivalent toward team sports and generally don’t have the attention spans needed to sit through 2+ hour games. And it’s not just the undergrads.

In an attempt to bring some mathematical perspective to this discussion, I went back and looked at the box scores (which include attendance) for every team that plays in an arena with at least 2,000 seats for each of the past two weekends. It’s impractical to list every single game so I’ve broken down what I found into these categories:

--Win and They Will Come (programs drawing at, close to, or even over capacity): North Dakota, Denver, Michigan, Northern Michigan, Western Michigan, *Wisconsin, Penn State, and Clarkson (*Wisconsin is not close to capacity but is averaging 8K+ in a 15K+ arena)
--Bloom is Off the Rose (Sellouts of the past now down to ~60% (or less) of capacity): Michigan State, Miami, Maine
--In the Middle: All others (except Brown). Most running between 35 and 65 percent of capacity
--Why Even Bother? (Program where apparently, nobody notices): Brown—only 553 souls at its opener

It’s a brave new world in sports marketing at both the college and pro levels. And not just in hockey.

 

[Drew S.]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Among many factors driving the drops in physical attendance is the fact that today’s undergrads are the FANG (Facebook/Amazon/Netflix/Google) generation (and don’t forget Xbox and PlayStation). They tend to be ambivalent toward team sports and generally don’t have the attention spans needed to sit through 2+ hour games. And it’s not just the undergrads.

In an attempt to bring some mathematical perspective to this discussion, I went back and looked at the box scores (which include attendance) for every team that plays in an arena with at least 2,000 seats for each of the past two weekends. It’s impractical to list every single game so I’ve broken down what I found into these categories:

--Win and They Will Come (programs drawing at, close to, or even over capacity): North Dakota, Denver, Michigan, Northern Michigan, Western Michigan, *Wisconsin, Penn State, and Clarkson (*Wisconsin is not close to capacity but is averaging 8K+ in a 15K+ arena)
--Bloom is Off the Rose (Sellouts of the past now down to ~60% (or less) of capacity): Michigan State, Miami, Maine
--In the Middle: All others (except Brown). Most running between 35 and 65 percent of capacity
--Why Even Bother? (Program where apparently, nobody notices): Brown—only 553 souls at its opener

It’s a brave new world in sports marketing at both the college and pro levels. And not just in hockey.

I think its more than just students. There are a lot of people who are content to watch netflix and play on their phone at home. Those numbers are pretty sobering. I saw a pic on twitter last night at Harvard's opener and it looked completely empty.

 

[Drew S.]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I don't think students -or fans in general, really- come for the opponent, unless that team is a rival. For Mankato back in the "old" WCHA days, Denver didn't draw any better than any other conference opponent, even when they were the defending national champs. The Gophers would pack them in (Our students grew up on Gopher sports, and for most of the students the Gophers are either their second favorite team or their least favorite team), and so would NoDak, although a lot of that was visiting NoDak fans somehow ending up with student tickets. But other than that, the visiting team made no difference, regardless of how good they were.

Most students aren't really there for the high quality hockey. The other parts of the atmosphere are why they come. That includes the home team winning, of course, but you also have to look at ways to make it enticing for the students to always show up. I don't have a lot of good ideas on that, but I know "This team coming to town is really good!" isn't a big draw for students. And that's probably a good thing, because if it was important, how do you sell the students on the weeks when a not really good team is coming to town?

I agree with you for the most part. I think there was a day though when if you had a team that was as dominant as Denver is ATM people(not really talking about students) would have wanted to go see them. Those days have obviously come and gone.

 

[Split-N]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

I think its more than just students. There are a lot of people who are content to watch netflix and play on their phone at home. Those numbers are pretty sobering. I saw a pic on twitter last night at Harvard's opener and it looked completely empty.

Right you are and that's why I said in the original post that it's not just undergrads. I singled out Brown for its 3-figure attendance but could easily have added to that category St Lawrence (~1,500), Bowling Green (<2,000) and Harvard (1,661). Harvard is especially discouraging given that it is ranked #3, returns the core of its FF team, is the defending Beanpot champ, and has a kid who is well worth going out of your way to see in Ryan Donato,

 

[TalonsUpPuckDown]

Re: Average Men's Attendance

Right you are and that's why I said in the original post that it's not just undergrads. I singled out Brown for its 3-figure attendance but could easily have added to that category St Lawrence (~1,500), Bowling Green (<2,000) and Harvard (1,661). Harvard is especially discouraging given that it is ranked #3, returns the core of its FF team, is the defending Beanpot champ, and has a kid who is well worth going out of your way to see in Ryan Donato,

The Ohio State/Penn State football game had an impact on attendance at the BG game on Sat (we Ohioans loves us some Buckeye football). While I believe this particular game is an outlier, all the points made in this discussion are valid.