Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
To put it in perspective: Average attendance at NHL games so far this year has been 15,859. That's the lowest in at least 20 years, excluding the no-fans COVID season. (I don't have numbers handy before that.)
At the tail end of the dead puck era, when games were boring, most small-market teams had no hope, and a third of the teams in the league were reportedly in danger of relocating or folding – with all that, average attendance for the same period in the season bottomed out at 16,122 in 2003-04.
This year is worse, and if you look at the figures so far, there is no sign of a rising trend from game to game:
https://soundofhockey.com/2021/11/16...cross-the-nhl/
I stand by my choice of the word ‘crisis’. |
And what has changed since 2003-2004? League revenue from sources outside of attendance has tripled, in arena prices have skyrocketed, players only get 50% of the money not 78%. Attendance isn't as big of an issue now as it was then.