Quote:
Originally Posted by h0twired
Interesting. Losing money hand over fist and still averaging 14,789 people per game.
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Don't be fooled by the attendance numbers. The 14,000+ represents tickets distributed - not tickets sold or even actually butts in the seats. Florida gives away around 3,000 tickets each game, Phoenix is probably around 2,000. And when they're selling tickets, they do so at an extremely reduced price and with offers of free food/drinks. On average Phoenix probably has no more than 10,000 actual fans at the games - which really hurts concession sales as well.
Florida the other night had a "listed attendance" of 10,000+, but there was actually around 5,000-6,000 accounted for through the turn-styles (mind you there was some Florida bowl games being played - but it's not much better othe rnights). Reading the specific teams forums is an eye-opener - you get to hear about how empty the buildings are. Someone mentioned that at the Panthers game from the upper bowl they can clearly hear conversations from people in the lower bowl. It was THAT empty and quiet.
When I used to have the NHL Centre Ice package, it was incredible how empty and quiet arenas were in Atlanta, Phoenix, Florida and Carolina.
Don't be fooled by the posted attendance figures.
You can see the empty seats in the lower bowl in the replay video in Florida from that night:
http://www.nhl.com/ice/boxscore.htm?id=2008020602
This is what you get at Phoenix games (attendance, not the cheerleader
):
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