Regional Attendance

[Fishhawk]

Re: Regional Attendance

This is why lower ticket prices is the key to boosting attendance. More people who are local to the host cities that are not necessarily fans of any of the teams involved might check it out if it was more affordable. College hockey might even gain a handful of new fans along the way too.

Yep! To put thousands of butts in seats you have to entice the locals. NCAA Regional tix in Albany were twice the cost of Albany Devils and three times the cost of seeing an RPI game. A local hockey fan with a couple of kids and no dog in the NCAA fight doesn’t give a crap what a rabid college hockey fanboy is willing to spend. He wants a cheap night out with his kids and he might want to drink a beer or two while at the game. Those guys stayed home with their kids and their $$.

 

[fightingsiouxfan16]

Re: Regional Attendance

Plus tip, plus tax, and suddenly we're at $17-18 for beer and pizza. Not a heck of a lot less than concessions. Point is, the no leaving between games thing for concessions is a pretty lame reason to not go to a regional. They do the same thing for basketball and I've not once heard a single basketball fan ever complain about this.

i cant tell you how much i spent there but i drank for prolly 7 hours there lol. Most of my money was prolly spent at that bar

 

[fightingsiouxfan16]

Re: Regional Attendance

Plus tip, plus tax, and suddenly we're at $17-18 for beer and pizza. Not a heck of a lot less than concessions. Point is, the no leaving between games thing for concessions is a pretty lame reason to not go to a regional. They do the same thing for basketball and I've not once heard a single basketball fan ever complain about this.

I drank btw 1 and 3:30 and had a pizza. My tab was 23 bucks. So you figure 30 bucks with tip.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: Regional Attendance

The case against the #1 seeds hosting is Quinnipiac. 3100 capacity is a problem especially considering Albany's Saturday attendance of 5326. Heaven forbid Union ever getting a #1 seed again.

No it's not. You go back and look at all the brackets since we've gone to 16 teams and we haven't come close to a combination of teams as the #1 seeds that would draw worse than the regionals did this year. Not even close.

On campus NCAA play is the real simple solution. First, you earn the right to play at home, you don't "bid" on it.

Take the eight host teams this year. Their total attendance capacity was 48,572, with the "average" capacity of games at those rinks this year coming in at 43,239. Those figures dwarf the total NCAA attendance at the regionals, and doesn't even take into account the four games that would have to be played the following day or weekend among the eight surviving teams.

But let's go further. Let's assume for a moment that we played eight, single elimination games on campus at the higher seed this year, and only saw the team's "average" attendance show up, and then the same for the four host teams the following week. Total attendance for the NCAAs leading up to the Frozen Four would be 68,249, or two and a half times larger than what we saw this weekend.

Even better, lets say we go to a two game, total goal series each weekend, like we used to. Attendance now doubles to 136,498. Maybe even do a best two out of three, also the way we used to. Now you have potential attendance at over 200,000 people.

How is that not better for everyone?

 

[rdf8585]

Re: Regional Attendance

With 8,300 total, the Albany regional did slightly better than when the arena last had it in 2010. The 2010 regional was attended by about 7,800.

But this year was far below arena expectations. One of the local papers ran an article about a week ago about the expected attendance for the regional. The Times Union Center's general manager expected 7,000-8,000, if not higher, per session. A driving factor of that thought was probably having all 4 teams within 225 miles of Albany. That wasn't the case six years ago when Denver was here.

Expecting 7,000-8,000+, if not more, per session was unrealistic without Union or RPI in the field. That's the only way they could have gotten that kind of crowd here. The arena thought that half the crowd was going to come from the local market, also unrealistic without Union or RPI playing.

Saturday's crowd of 5326 was solid, but having only 2,900 in there last night wasn't very good. I think the time slot is mostly to blame. A 7:30 PM slot on a Sunday makes it tough for out of towners who have to drive back for work/school early the next day. And then add in Easter and the timing really becomes a handicap. It also didn't help that the schools with the biggest contingents -- RIT and Quinnipiac -- played each other on Saturday. So losing one of those fan bases also hurt on Sunday night.

With Easter falling when it did this year, all the regionals probably should have been Fri/Sat affairs.

 

[billmich88888]

Re: Regional Attendance

No it's not. You go back and look at all the brackets since we've gone to 16 teams and we haven't come close to a combination of teams as the #1 seeds that would draw worse than the regionals did this year. Not even close.

On campus NCAA play is the real simple solution. First, you earn the right to play at home, you don't "bid" on it.

Take the eight host teams this year. Their total attendance capacity was 48,572, with the "average" capacity of games at those rinks this year coming in at 43,239. Those figures dwarf the total NCAA attendance at the regionals, and doesn't even take into account the four games that would have to be played the following day or weekend among the eight surviving teams.

But let's go further. Let's assume for a moment that we played eight, single elimination games on campus at the higher seed this year, and only saw the team's "average" attendance show up, and then the same for the four host teams the following week. Total attendance for the NCAAs leading up to the Frozen Four would be 68,249, or two and a half times larger than what we saw this weekend.

Even better, lets say we go to a two game, total goal series each weekend, like we used to. Attendance now doubles to 136,498. Maybe even do a best two out of three, also the way we used to. Now you have potential attendance at over 200,000 people.

How is that not better for everyone?

You lost me at "2 games, total goals". I.E. the most horrific format i could think of.

Just play 2 out of 3 instead

 

[ticapnews]

Re: Regional Attendance

How well do schools promote/help with logistics to the event? 20 years ago BU was very good about getting you to the FF. They had a deal with a travel agent for the flights, a hotel worked out where the fans stayed, etc. I know its easier now to make your own travel arrangements, but for students do schools organize several busses to go out to these places anymore? If not that might help a bit. BU does little anymore I understand in terms of getting fans to away games and tournaments.

Maybe one of our friends from the Heights has more information, but I saw Boston College students on Twitter griping that the school was trying to charge $80 for the bus to Worcester and back. That's insanity. The bus trip from Orono to Albany for women's hoops was only $100.

 

[brassbonanza]

Re: Regional Attendance

Did someone really just suggest aggregate goals as a realistic proposition?

 

[fightingsiouxfan16]

Re: Regional Attendance

We as hockey fans have to accept that hockey is a niche sport. Your either a "diehard" fan or you couldnt care less. Hockey is not football or baseball were the occasional fan will tune in weekly or whatever to watch a game. It is a fast moving game that has a lot going on. I know its good when people get new fans but it gets annoying when your at a game like i was yesterday and you have a dad trying to explain the game to their kid but the parent doesnt know the sport at all. Hockey will prolly never get the occasional fan to tune in.

 

[billmich88888]

Re: Regional Attendance

Did someone really just suggest aggregate goals as a realistic proposition?

Which is why it must be met with unrelenting vocal opposition every time it is preposterously presented as an alternative.

 

[J.D.]

Re: Regional Attendance

I'm not sure I agree with that. Nationally, you are correct. But if we host regionals in hockey hotbeds, decent prices, normal starting times etc...more fans can be drawn in. I don't care about drawing in new fans, I care about drawing existing fans that are turned away due to the factors that have been discussed here.

 

[Shirtless Guy]

Re: Regional Attendance

I'm not sure I agree with that. Nationally, you are correct. But if we host regionals in hockey hotbeds, decent prices, normal starting times etc...more fans can be drawn in. I don't care about drawing in new fans, I care about drawing existing fans that are turned away due to the factors that have been discussed here.

The problem is that even at reasonable prices, very few college hockey fans are going to attend a regional that doesn't involve their team... I do agree that prie is a big reason this doesn't happen but regional weekend has always been a time for me to have people over and watch ALL the games, not just 2 of them.

 

[fightingsiouxfan16]

Re: Regional Attendance

I'm not sure I agree with that. Nationally, you are correct. But if we host regionals in hockey hotbeds, decent prices, normal starting times etc...more fans can be drawn in. I don't care about drawing in new fans, I care about drawing existing fans that are turned away due to the factors that have been discussed here.

Well for sports to survive you need to keep the fans that you have and also gain more fans in the process. Look at college lacrosse. It was exactly like hockey. They had there fans and attendance was like hockey. Now they have exposure every weekend on ESPN and they are booming. Denver is winning national championships. Lacrosse was an east coast sport. Now its being played across the country at a very good level. Is it gonna grow everywhere probably not. But if its expanding then it helps the sport. College hockey needs to team up with ESPN and get more games televised across the country. Airing the games on Fox Sports is not helping the cause.

 

[joecct]

You lost me at "2 games, total goals". I.E. the most horrific format i could think of.

Just play 2 out of 3 instead

C'mon! Let's use 1st to 3 points with a mini game if tied! (Just kidding). While as much as WE'd like on campus 2/3 series, the coaches - especially the non power school coaches - desire neutral site games.

 

[DavidSec17]

Re: Regional Attendance

Just imagine what last nights attendance would've been without the Q and UML fans in attendance. Hardly any locals there at all.

It would've looked like an old Albany Choppers game.

 

[mookie1995]

Re: Regional Attendance

I dont understand how people can complain about ticket prices....80 bucks for 3 games of hockey is so cheap. Go to an nhl game and one game for the ticket alone will cost you at least a 100..

can we once and fall all STOP WITH THE NHL COMPS?!?!!? this is closer to high school hockey than top level in the world professional.

mookie pays $5 for high school hockey. so 3 x $5 x (some high school mark up?? ~25%?) = $20 max

 

[J.D.]

Re: Regional Attendance

Could a 16 team tourney ever work where top 8 get a bye into super regionals. other 8 plays on campus whether that's one game or best of three. 4 winners advance and we place 6 teams in a east regional and 6 in a west regional at neutral locations.

 

[fightingsiouxfan16]

Re: Regional Attendance

can we once and fall all STOP WITH THE NHL COMPS?!?!!? this is closer to high school hockey than top level in the world professional.

mookie pays $5 for high school hockey. so 3 x $5 x (some high school mark up?? ~25%?) = $20 max

You can charge 5 bucks at a local high school rink because the rink is gonna make there money and its not a big production. When you have what you had this weekend you have to pay concessions, espn, ticket people etc etc.

 

[billmich88888]

Re: Regional Attendance

C'mon! Let's use 1st to 3 points with a mini game if tied! (Just kidding). While as much as WE'd like on campus 2/3 series, the coaches - especially the non power school coaches - desire neutral site games.

That is a different animal, and I liked that old ECAC format

 

[MarkEagleUSA]

Re: Regional Attendance

Did you buy the prime rib at the game? I've spent at or around $400 on weekends that included airfare, hotel, rental car, and game tickets multiple times. You complain about not being able to leave between games and having to pay concession prices, but unless you're leaving to go to McDonalds, the majority of the time bar food is hardly priced reasonably.

$20.00 for 2 beverages and 2 pretzels is hardly prime rib. For lunch on Saturday I had a huge burger with fries and a soda (I don't drink) for $15.00 that luckily carried me over for the games.

A buddy in our group brought his wife and 3 kids plus spent the night Saturday. I can only imaging what his final tally was.