The Flames are going to have to become one of those creative teams with fan packages to bring people out to watch this. Which, I hope is a trend that keeps up as the price they want people to pay and watch a game is atrocious - in every sport.
Paying $100+ for a ticket to wander into a crowded mezzanine, watch a lazy team flop again, pay $10+ for a beer (or abandon hope trying) and then go home with the disgruntled mob you entered with isn't a whole ton of fun. Vegas and Nashville get it - the game is the reason for the event, not the event. If you're going to spend that much money, and the product is that frequently disappointing there better be an experience to rival everything else I could have done with that time and money.
Professional sports are going to be in serious trouble very soon because of this. We live in a world where our entertainment dollar has a lot more places to go, and the skyrocketing classic entertainment is building itself up more and more for a big fall. I personally don't see the new arena (and the following price increase) as a good long-term thing for the Flames and hockey if the games are run as they are today. I don't know if the answer is a flashy arena or a refurbished Saddledome (without the ticket price increase) - but one way or another teams are going to need to realize that selling 80% of the arena isn't the worst-case scenario.
How many people left a 9-1 thumping more upset with the money they paid than the loss itself? I think even if I am still a passionate enough fan to dump more and more into this 'entertainment' I'll be doing so alone very soon. If you look around at the people in the arena, ask yourself if any of them would want to spend the same if not less money socializing with the same people and having more fun... or, are they there because the Flames are there? Let's be honest, the dedication we have really only runs through a small portion of the people at games. Most are there to be entertained, not specifically because they want to watch a Flames game.
As Textcritic pointed out a while ago, VR is something anyone in the entertainment industry should be very worried about. And I think overpriced games that far under-deliver (like the majority of Flames home games) are going to be one of the first things to go in the new era of entertainment. Arenas at 80% capacity might be the fear now, but that's pretty high when you think of how much fun a Senators game really is. I don't know who's going to those games at all really.
The enormous player salaries and the towns arenas they're building has to be paid somehow, and I'm not sure how many people will want to keep funding it. But cut it out with the beer gouging for starters (how every arena in NA gets away with this is ludicrous). They need to start treating their fans like valued customers, instead of pesky wallets. I didn't watch the 2nd onwards last night, and likely won't watch too much of the Washington game. I find entertainment elsewhere already, so it's not tough to think that I'll so something else when you're shoving a $200-$400 bill at me.
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