An updated look at NHL attendance trends

by James Mirtle on Dec 5, 2008 11:00 AM CST in Statistics Comment 26 comments

Today's survey says the Tampa Bay Lightning have had the biggest fall off in announced bums in the seats from last season, followed by Atlanta, Carolina, Buffalo (due to the Winter Classic elevating last season's totals), Los Angeles, Nashville and Columbus.

There's a whole lotta sunbelt/expansion/relocation teams in the mix there.

		2007-08		2008-09
RNK	TEAM	AVG	PCT	AVG	PCT	Increase	%
1	Chicago	16,814	82	21,492	104.8	4,678	27.8%
2	Washington	15,472	82.9	17,795	95.3	2,323	15.0%
3	St. Louis	17,610	83.9	18,978	90.4	1,368	7.8%
4	Detroit	18,870	94	19,671	98	801	4.2%
5	Boston	15,384	0	16,169	86.8	785	5.1%
6	San Jose	17,411	99.5	17,475	99.9	64	0.4%
7	Calgary	19,289	112.4	19,289	112.4	0	0.0%
8	Edmonton	16,839	98.5	16,839	98.5	0	0.0%
9	Minnesota	18,568	102.8	18,568	102.8	0	0.0%
10	Montreal	21,273	100	21,273	100	0	0.0%
11	Vancouver	18,630	101.1	18,630	101.1	0	0.0%
12	NY Rangers	18,200	100	18,134	105.9	-66	-0.4%
13	Toronto	19,434	0	19,311	102.7	-123	-0.6%
14	Phoenix	14,820	84.7	14,632	83.6	-188	-1.3%
15	Dallas	18,038	97.3	17,816	96.1	-222	-1.2%
16	Philadelphia	19,556	100.3	19,324	99.1	-232	-1.2%
17	Pittsburgh	17,076	100.7	16,780	108	-296	-1.7%
18	Anaheim	17,193	102.6	16,809	97.9	-384	-2.2%
19	NY Islanders	13,640	83.7	13,238	81.2	-402	-2.9%
20	Colorado	16,842	93.5	16,272	90.4	-570	-3.4%
21	Florida	15,436	80.2	14,855	77.2	-581	-3.8%
22	New Jersey	15,564	81.7	14,668	83.2	-896	-5.8%
23	Ottawa	19,821	107.1	18,891	110.6	-930	-4.7%
24	Columbus	14,823	81.7	13,781	76	-1,042	-7.0%
25	Nashville	14,910	87.1	13,716	80.2	-1,194	-8.0%
26	Los Angeles	16,606	92	15,358	83	-1,248	-7.5%
27	Buffalo	19,950	109.4	18,562	99.3	-1,388	-7.0%
28	Carolina	16,633	88.8	14,822	79.1	-1,811	-10.9%
29	Atlanta	15,831	85.4	13,988	75.4	-1,843	-11.6%
30	Tampa Bay	18,692	94.6	16,313	89.4	-2,379	-12.7%
		17,308		17,115		-193	-1.1%

There are a lot of teams that really need to make the playoffs on the low end here. The Lightning's circus in the front office has wiped away what was a nice established fan base in Florida, while Atlanta and Carolina have had no postseason success the past two seasons. Columbus, Florida and Los Angeles have way longer droughts than that.

The correlation between attendance and points percentage, by the way, is 0.36 this season, which really isn't all that high. For capacity and points percentage, it's 0.39. Dallas, Toronto, St. Louis and Ottawa all draw well and have had bad starts to the season.

The good news is obvious. Chicago has had what is probably the greatest year-over-year increase in league history so far, while the Capitals are up 15 per cent. The Blues have also done a nice job of filling the seats again and people in Boston and Detroit are turning out for strong teams.

The Islanders, meanwhile, are bottoming out, and Colorado and New Jersey continue to fall. The Isles need a new building, the Devils already have one, and the Avs simply aren't going to draw as well in the past with a rebuilding team.

On the whole, the average team is seeing about 200 fewer fans a game, an average decrease of 1.1 per cent. That jumps to 2 per cent if you discount the Blackhawk-mania in Chicago.

Eleven teams are averaging 500-plus fewer fans per game compared to last year's full season average.

UPDATE Unfortunately I made a mistake in not noting the European games, which are skewing the totals for some teams here. The Stockholm games, for example, had a capacity under 14,000, which is dragging down the numbers for the Sens and Pens.

Ottawa's averaging about 500 fewer fans per game than last season's full-year average — not 930 fewer as noted here. In the future, I'll take those European games out of the mix.

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Ticket Prices

On average, how much did ticket prices increase from last year?

This is why I laugh when people claim the cap will be going down by any significant number.

Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.

by saskhab on Dec 5, 2008 11:17 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

James, I think it would also be fair to say that, given that attendance increases as the season goes on, there is not necessarily ANY drop in announced attendance this year, or that certainly any drop is less than 1.1% as indicated in your post. Would you agree?

by Gerald on Dec 5, 2008 11:22 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

I don’t know that I want to assume anything given the economy. But, yes, in general some markets rise after Christmas.

by James Mirtle on Dec 5, 2008 5:08 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

1) Also left off this report is how atendance figures are established. Is this people in attendance, paid attendance(tickets sold) or as we suspect, tickets “distributed”.
2) In some southern/poor performing markets there are thousands of freebees nightly!

by Fauxrumors on Dec 5, 2008 11:23 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

Faux, it is always tickets distributed. Tickets are given out every year, by every team to varying degrees.

As such, with the exception of the anomalies I pointed out below, this is apples to apples.

by Gerald on Dec 5, 2008 11:27 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

1) Gerald, are you saying that the number of ‘freebies’ is a static number?

by Fauxrumors on Dec 5, 2008 12:03 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

No, I am not saying that.

If asked, though, I would say that there is little data one way or the other. The NHL has stated that gate receipts are up, but there are a lot of complications packed into that data.

by Gerald on Dec 5, 2008 12:38 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

It should also be noted that some of the teams’ averages need to be adjusted to take into account the lower attendances achieved at the European-located games (which, although sold out, were in smaller venues) and the fact that Buffalo’s average last year is skewed by the outdoor game.

by Gerald on Dec 5, 2008 11:26 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

I note that you did reference the Buffalo anomaly. My bad.

by Gerald on Dec 5, 2008 11:28 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Yet Buffalo is still down a bit, even when you do take into account for the extra game

Blue and Gold (of Buffalo)

by Ebscer on Dec 5, 2008 11:28 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Just wondering, why is it that in some arenas (NYR, NJD, Pittsburgh, Ottawa), attendance figures are down, while attendance percentage is up?

Actually, as Gerald just noted, I guess it is explained by the European games for the Rangers, Senators and Penguins?

by sabunation on Dec 5, 2008 11:29 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

…not to mention the new arena in Jersey. Ok, makes sense now.

by sabunation on Dec 5, 2008 11:31 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Two notes:

1. Is the 2007/8 number a total season average? It might be more accurate to compare against the early part of the season, I know at least in Nashville (and probably for other teams as well) there is a large season shift in attendance, with bigger numbers down the back stretch.

2. The relation between standings points and attendance presumably has some lag involved, as “buzz” needs to build as a team achieves success. I’m not sure how that might best be looked at…

by Dirk Hoag on Dec 5, 2008 11:44 AM CST reply actions 0 recs

If you have the figures for the first two months of 2007-08, I’d be glad to compare them. As of now, I go with the best available data and allow for others to read into it as they will.

by James Mirtle on Dec 5, 2008 12:24 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Too true, I’m not aware of any all-NHL info that provides that breakdown of attendance over time.

Wait a minute, as long as you’re just using announced attendance, that could be scraped from the game-by-game files. I’ll see what I can whip up over the weekend and pass it along if you like…

by Dirk Hoag on Dec 5, 2008 12:53 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I think these numbers are pretty correct

Yeah, I’m very lame, but I do have a spreadsheet where I was tracking this (using the announced attendance from the NHL.com scoresheets). Here’s what I have for average home attendance between 9/29/07 and 11/30/07 (with ANA and LAK each getting a home game in England). There may be an error in there (mostly hand-recorded), but at least it wasn’t too hard to generate.

Team / H-GP / Avg. Attendance

ANA / 14 / 17,209
ATL / 10 / 15,381
BOS / 10 / 14,713
BUF / 12 / 18,651
CAR / 14 / 16,149
CBJ / 12 / 13,840
CGY / 15 / 19,289
CHI / 13 / 13,485
COL / 12 / 16,616
DAL / 12 / 17,521
DET / 12 / 17,749
EDM / 14 / 16,807
FLA / 12 / 14,006
LAK / 13 / 16,378
MIN / 13 / 18,568
MTL / 11 / 21,273
NJD / 9 / 15,088
NSH / 11 / 14,312
NYI / 13 / 13,809
NYR / 13 / 18,200
OTT / 15 / 19,498
PHI / 10 / 17,521
PHX / 11 / 13,867
PIT / 14 / 17,081
SJS / 11 / 17,457
STL / 12 / 17,428
TBL / 12 / 18,908
TOR / 14 / 19,422
VAN / 14 / 18,630
WSH / 12 / 13,343

Anyone spot anything that looks terribly wrong in those numbers?

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by Earl Sleek on Dec 5, 2008 12:53 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Thx for that, Earl, before I ran down that road myself!

by Dirk Hoag on Dec 5, 2008 2:36 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Ugh … I was going to look into that because my impression was the Isles draw less in the early-going, but the early 2007-08 average you dug up is higher than this season.

But a bigger factor for them is weeknight games, and they’ve had four Monday home games, two Tuesdays and one Wednesday so far. (Now I sound like a club official.) Of course, one Monday and one Tuesday were holiday 2:00 starts where they drew slightly above this season’s average.

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by Dominik on Dec 5, 2008 4:29 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

interesting

Thanks for pulling those numbers.

It is interesting because i heard a week or so ago on local radio that Nashville was averaging higher paid attendance (i think the number was +300) than this same time last year. Not sure though. I know the new ownership has been doing a lot more ticket promos and fewer out and out giveaways.

But Forechecker is right… even if the sunbelt teams do end up off last years numbers, i doubt they will be this bad. Early season is always fighting College and Pro Football (and some college basketball) for ticket dollars (at least in Nashville). Feb starts to tick up a bit, and after March, when the Preds are the only team still playing, things get downright solid (frequent sellouts through late March, April, and the playoffs).

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by pwnicholson on Dec 5, 2008 4:50 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

The Blues attendance resurgence is nice to see,

though I would question how long it will last…the collapse of the Rams makes the effort the Blues put out night after night outstanding by comparison…once the NFL season is over, however, and the effects of the economic downturn sink in for more people(especially if there is bad news in the auto industry) it will be interesting to see how much effect it will have in terms of disposable income and how many tickets will be sold for a team that, while pointed in the right direction, are probably not going to make the playoffs for a 4th straight season, by far the longest in Blues’ history.

by tbell61 on Dec 5, 2008 12:06 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Wrong numbers?

How is the Caps attendance only @ 95?

17795 / 18277 = .9736

by wittcap79 on Dec 5, 2008 1:21 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Percent is a misleading stat, because it often uses out of date capacity numbers. Edmonton’s been at 98.5% capacity for years, even though they sell out pretty much every game. It’s because no one bothered to update “capacity” after a few seats were taken out for more luxury boxes.

by Doogie2K on Dec 5, 2008 2:32 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Specifically, it is because ESPN never updated the figures.

They still list 17,100 as Edmonton’s capacity, and 17,409 as Calgary’s. That has changed in both cases, to 16,839 (last renovations) and 19,289 (opening of the East 300s) respectively.

by Resolute on Dec 5, 2008 4:12 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Ticket Price Increases

Team Marketing Report (publishes the widely quoted Fan Cost Index) says the average ticket price increase in the NHL was 5.1. Chicago (28.4 %) and St Louis (17.5) raised their average prices the most so the increases haven’t put a damper on attendance.

by Big Picture Guy on Dec 5, 2008 2:02 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Chicago is an anomaly because of the deep inherent hockey fanbase that was abused and sent away for so long. Not only is the franchise working hard to give everyone the bang for their buck in number retirements and giveaways, the team is pretty damn good in the ice.

Now the world economy is indeed struggling, but why do we keep seeing Bettman smiling with 18 teams playing before less fans? While it is a bit melodramatic, is he listening to the band as they keep playing while the ship he captains is slowly sinking??

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by Scotty Hockey on Dec 5, 2008 11:39 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

I think part of it is because a lot of the revenue for this season was collected before the economy really tanked (season tickets already purchased, etc.). If a season ticket holder has already committed for the year, they may as well show up to games since they are paid for.

I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see a drop after the holidays in single-game tickets as people rein in their spending on luxuries to pay off their holiday bills (such as they are), but maybe an increase in season ticket holders selling their tickets to get a few extra bucks, perhaps? The major hit will likely be next year as people decide not to renew tickets and corporations continue to cut their budgets to survive.

What’s that allegedly Chinese curse – “May you live in interesting times?” :)

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by Baroque on Dec 6, 2008 7:50 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs