Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
20 years ago I was a rabid, all-consuming Flames fan, and would travel to other cities to see the Flames play. 10 years ago, I was happy to split season tickets. 5-6 years ago, the value proposition erosion of a live game started to become really apparent, but I'd still go to a handful of games. 2-3 years ago, I stopped going altogether and just stuck to watching games on TV. This season, I didn't even bother re-upping Sportsnet.
I know a big part of this is me getting older and priorities changing, but it's been a slow descent into sheer apathy around this team and league. Checking in on CP seems like the last step, and that's more of a habit than anything.
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You're not alone and this is not exclusionary to just the well-offs. I'm by no means rich, and neither are most of my family and friends, but we all certainly have money to go several Flames games if we wanted to. The problem is exactly as you say - the value prop erosion.
I'm going to pick and choose some events like concerts, ski passes, ski trips and other local sport (wranglers, hitmen, surge, cavalry) well ahead of blowing a huge amount to sit in poor to average seats for a single game at the dome. The Flames tumble even further down the list when you are talking about a product like the one we have over the last 90 or so games.
NHL hockey in Canada used to be pretty affordable in terms of getting a mediocre seat, beer and burger for you and your spouse without dropping $250-$300+ and that wasn't all that long ago (at least in Alberta anyway). The apathy sits squarely on the shoulder of the league and the teams that would rather rinse fans for every cent they have instead of keeping price increases in line with reality. When you have a top end team many will just deal with it, but when your product is average to garbage.....you pretty much deserve poor attendance and all the apathy you get.