Re: SCSU @ UNO Fri/Sat Jan 31st/Feb 1st: We Wanna Fight, Where's Matt White?!?
I realize its a huge venue, but there were so many empty seats in the lower level it was insane. Then they had the nerve to tell us the lower bowl was "sold out." Yeah, thanks.
The only way I can really explin this, then, is to explain the whole "capacity thing" at the Clink.
When the Centurylink Center (then the Qwest Center) first opened in fall '03, it was smaller than it is, now. There were no upper level seats at all at one end of the arena. This was "filled in" in 2006, giving you the arena you see today.
Next, the school does not have control of all the seats in the facility. Many of the choice seats (read: lower bowl) are owned by seat license holders that have been sold to them for the City of Omaha by MECA which operates this building, the Civic Auditorium, and TD Amertrade Park
for the city:
http://www.centurylinkcenteromaha.com/arena/PremiumSeating/ClubSeating.aspx
The lower bowl WAS sold out last night. It just didn't look like it because many of these seats are owned by seat license holders who care not one whit about UNO hockey and don't use/have them for that purpose. Many, many of these people are too lazy to peddle them on the secondary open market and, as a result, there are usually the same seats sitting empty night after night when UNO plays. Since these seats are under license for 5 years at a time and each seat cost upwards of 10 grand each the amount of dollars represented by 25 hockey games for the owners is relatively small and apparently not on too many people's radar screen.
As an aside, this is the reason why, even though my seats are on the goal line that UNO shoots at twice, they are also the most expensive seats in the building, and best, available-to-me, season tickets in the building. License holders and/or other UNO season ticket holders have all the "better" seats.
These situations have led to all sorts of numbers being bandied about as to building (hockey) capacity ever since the place was built.
These are the numbers you will see:
1. The hockey capacity as originally built.
2. The hockey capacity as originally built less the number of seats the school has no control over (and, derives NO revenue from, either).
3. The hockey capacity after the 2006 addition.
4. The hockey capacity after the 2006 addition less the number of seats the school has no control over.
Now, further complicating this, is the fact that the old Qwest Center web site for the facility named a different hockey capacity for the building than the new Centurylink Center one does (and it is a higher number), which is the link in my previous post.
This adds the new Centurylink web site number to the mix as well as
that number
less the amount of license holders.
Talk about a unnecessarily complicated mess.
This situation caused UNO to (falsely) claim a sell-out on the night of January 13th, 2012 against UMD as the announced crowd was 16,138. Yeah, they may have sold all the seats THEY control for that game, but, as we have seen, the building seats more than that number for hockey. And, I don't say so, the building's own management does.
Because of these circumstances, I don't know how UNO could ever really make a sell-out claim in this facility. They don't control all the seats!
But, I will reiterate, the City/MECA has said publicly here in the past that they announce the actual turnstile count.
Whether this is actually true or not...............
