Flames sellout streak quietly ends last night

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by Locke

2. Cost of tickets vs. Payroll Expense is irrelevant. Its not about how much they're spending on payroll its about overall costs and pricing tickets as to what the market will bear.

This is not completely accurate, Locke. As is the often misused "Ticket prices have nothing to do with salaries and everything to do with supply and demand".

Salaries certainly have an effect on the supply side of supply & demand. They are an input cost and as the input cost of an item increases, the supply curve for that items shifts to the left, resulting in a new intersection point of the supply and demand curves.

[Erick Estrada]

Come on people. Yes there are some empty seats but it's nothing like the 90's or pre-2004. Not even close. Lets not forget that the Flames are only two years away from matching the Young Guns era of 7 years out of the playoffs and it's night and day to where the building was 1/3 empty some nights at 5 straight years out of the playoffs in those years. Right now you have a team that the entire city knows isn't likely going to make the playoffs before the season started and still for the most part attendance is healthy even with little star power and the building becoming long on the tooth. I don't think the Flames will be overly concerned and lets not forget the Saddledome has too many seats in the first place as 18,000 is the sweet spot for new buildings as it's large but not large enough to water down demand and ticket pricing.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

This is not completely accurate, Locke. As is the often misused "Ticket prices have nothing to do with salaries and everything to do with supply and demand".

Salaries certainly have an effect on the supply side of supply & demand. They are an input cost and as the input cost of an item increases, the supply curve for that items shifts to the left, resulting in a new intersection point of the supply and demand curves.

Well thats just not true, of course salaries affect ticket prices.

However you're also assuming perfect economic elasticity or demand, which also isnt true.

Ticket prices are generally stable and dont experience wild shifts, especially not in economies such as Calgary's, and further there are barriers to the consumption or disposition of season tickets. The owners of the Calgary Flames dont particularly care if you use your season's tickets for attendance or toilet paper so long as you've paid for them.

My point regarding it's irrelevance was twofold:

1. Hockey Ticket Prices in Canada do not go down, they simply increase marginally less, and its not reflective of the team's overall salary payroll.

2. The Calgary Flames broke even, more or less, with 82 sellouts and made profits on playoff games when they were a cap team so now, by having a significantly lower payroll but essentially similar attendance figures they are actually better off financially.

And, sort of a 2B, most people who make Entertainment decisions dont factor in the profitability of the company to whom they're handing over their entertainment dollars to in their decision to consume that product.

[RM14]

People ditched tickets in the 90's because there was no real hope during those years. I think the situation here is alot different in the current playoff drought where we see light at the end of tunnel (for now..).

The relocation event had pretty weak options for upgrading in the green section so that shows people are retaining their seats at a pretty high rate. Not to mention the people who do wait this slump out will have first rights in a new building at a time when our picks are hopefully entering their prime years.

I wan't one more cup run out of the Saddledome though!!!

[Locke]

Originally Posted by RM14;4986778[B

]People ditched tickets in the 90's because there was no real hope during those years.[/B] I think the situation here is alot different in the current playoff drought where we see light at the end of tunnel (for now..).

The relocation event had pretty weak options for upgrading in the green section so that shows people are retaining their seats at a pretty high rate. Not to mention the people who do wait this slump out will have first rights in a new building at a time when our picks are hopefully entering their prime years.

I wan't one more cup run out of the Saddledome though!!!

There was little to no hope, but it was also a tremendous cost considering the value of the dollar at that point and the Flames had their backs against the wall.

[Resolute 14]

I think a large combination of factors resulted in the decline in interest in the mid-90s. Chief among them was the fact that fans simply lost the will to pay for regular season games at a time when it was felt that only playoff success mattered. (Same reason why Dave King got fired). Hell, fans were so tired of losing in the first round that there were playoff games with only 15,000 and change in attendance.

Attendance slowly declined from a peak of 19,986 in 1990-91 - losing a couple hundred per game over the following four seasons. The first big drop happened in 1995-96, likely for a combination of three additional reasons: First, the lockout. Second, the team went from two-time division winner to below .500 (but still second in the Northwest), and third, continuing anger from long-time ticket holders who got relocated or stiffed on pricing when the Dome was renovated. The Flames shaved 11% of their attendance in two years (roughly 19,000 to 17,000). The bottom fell out in 2000-01, when the average fell below 15,000.

As much as everything about the Flames sucked then, it was nice as a starving student to be able to come to the Dome when TSN inexplicably chose to broadcast a Minnesota vs. Crappy Flames contest nationally, pay $15 to sit in the 300s and have an usher promote me to lower bowl, just to make the crowd of 10,000 look decent for the cameras.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by Locke

1. Hockey Ticket Prices in Canada do not go down, they simply increase marginally less, and its not reflective of the team's overall salary payroll.

2. The Calgary Flames broke even, more or less, with 82 sellouts and made profits on playoff games when they were a cap team so now, by having a significantly lower payroll but essentially similar attendance figures they are actually better off financially.

In a normal business environment/industry with normal factors of supply and demand, if a company can drive their fixed costs down they will use that to under-price their competitors and gain market share (often to the benefit of the consumer). I think that's where I was coming from when I was saying the real gouging is that the price of the product is rising in spite of fixed costs decreasing.

But the reality of it, and what I failed to account for, is that in industries where there's a monopoly/oligopoly on a product that's in high demand, cost reductions go straight to improving margins for the owners of the business because there's no benefit to reducing prices to either increase demand or gain market share.

It still sucks though, that prices keep rising even though we're last in the league in spending. The key is if demand starts truly softening, then they may have to reverse course. Does anyone know if ST prices decreased at all during the young guns era? Or have they been increasing by a few hundred basis points/year for as long as anyone can remember?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by heep223

In a normal business environment/industry with normal factors of supply and demand, if a company can drive their fixed costs down they will use that to under-price their competitors and gain market share (often to the benefit of the consumer). I think that's where I was coming from when I was saying the real gouging is that the price of the product is rising in spite of fixed costs decreasing.

But the reality of it, and what I failed to account for, is that in industries where there's a monopoly/oligopoly on a product that's in high demand, cost reductions go straight to improving margins for the owners of the business because there's no benefit to reducing prices to either increase demand or gain market share.

It still sucks though, that prices keep rising even though we're last in the league in spending. The key is if demand starts truly softening, then they may have to reverse course. Does anyone know if ST prices decreased at all during the young guns era? Or have they been increasing by a few hundred basis points/year for as long as anyone can remember?

Bingo, you nailed it there.

I've never been a season ticket holder so I cant really tell you about the history of ticket prices in Calgary.

[Calgary14]

I've noticed on kijiji this year many sellers are selling for a discount plus throwing in some food vouchers. Are the vouchers given to season ticket holders? Interesting because a few years ago most tickets were being sold above face value with no extras thrown in

[spetch]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

I've noticed on kijiji this year many sellers are selling for a discount plus throwing in some food vouchers. Are the vouchers given to season ticket holders? Interesting because a few years ago most tickets were being sold above face value with no extras thrown in

I believe people with the vouchers are press level seating above row 3, which weren't easy tickets to sell a few years ago too.