People get way to focused on attendance and also attendance with a winning team when discussing viability of a market. Attendance doesn't mean crap if the tickets are cheap, and markets need to also be able to sustain the ebbs and flows of winning and losing, you can't expect to have a perennial winner to build a business case around.
Thought process like that lead to Tampa being called a hockey market cause they can sell out their building when the reach the cup final and have $10 tickets that come with free pop corn and a drink (some hyperbole there) and people actually raising eyebrows in Calgary when in the middle of a rebuild we don't sell out the building on a Tuesday night against Buffalo but still manage 18K plus in the stands paying 5% YOY ticket price increases on an average ticket price of $100 with arena pricing on drinks and food.
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