Sens reduce capacity at Canadian Tire Centre

[mianjo]

http://ottawacitizen.com/sports/hockey/nhl/senatorsextra/senators-reducing-ctc-seating-by-1500

From 18500 to 17,000

Click to read more...

 

[Filatov2Kovalev2Bonk]

Yeah and Mel saying new rink will be 15,000-17,000.

 

[Albatros]

What will they do with that empty space? Removing a few hundred seats is one thing, but clearing thousands without some kind of weird effect is hard to imagine.

 

[pepty]

Yeah and Mel saying new rink will be 15,000-17,000.

That's a mistake-when the arena is downtown it will attract a lot more people,15000 is Winnipeg territory .The new arena should be 17500-18000..

 

[Masked]

Yeah and Mel saying new rink will be 15,000-17,000.

The NCC and the city should pressure them to not allow a smaller rink on Lebreton Flats. A 15,000 seat rink should get whoever built it shot.

 

[handslikefeet]

What will they do with that empty space? Removing a few hundred seats is one thing, but clearing thousands without some kind of weird effect is hard to imagine.

"The upper bowl of the arena is now covered with tarps."

 

[h2owned]

This is so stupid. Because people complained about playoff attendance they will cover the last 6 rows of the 300s in "black draping" . What about the handicap and standing room seats? Doesn't seem to make much sense.

 

[robsenz]

This is kind of embarrassing

 

[Spartachat]

I check the ticket prices today and it seems you can good seats in the upper bowl for non-premium games for 20 to 35 dollars. That is still very cheap for an NHL game. I kinda agree that arena is too big. I rarely have ever seen a game that is truly sold out, meaning that there are no single seats or suites available. This happens in Toronto, Edmonton or Winnipeg.

 

[Spartachat]

This is so stupid. Because people complained about playoff attendance they will cover the last 6 rows of the 300s in "black draping" . What about the handicap and standing room seats? Doesn't seem to make much sense.

If you look at the seat map the centre ice section where the wheelchair seats is not covered. You can still buy seats in the section. Only the ends are covered.

 

[topshelf15]

25 years of cheap ownership is the likely cause.What has EM or the previous owner done to grow this team,s fanbase?? Excuses is we get from them ,or blame for not selling out the games.

We need an owner committed to winning at all costs,plain and simple

 

[danielpalfredsson]

The NCC and the city should pressure them to not allow a smaller rink on Lebreton Flats. A 15,000 seat rink should get whoever built it shot.

A smaller arena is the right move.

People don't realise how many games were probably papered back in the day when the Sens had higher attendance. Even downtown, the Senators don't have the population or corporate support to drive attendance to a larger than average arena.

Another thing is, moving downtown allows the Senators an opportunity to reboot their pricing structure since being downtown will alter fans expectations. It is better to sell 15k seats at a higher price while keeping the perception of what a fair price is for your product high than it is to have to knock down prices to sell out a 18k or 19k arena without adequate corporate support.

Every time the Sens paper and give away tickets, or drop prices dramatically, they dilute the value of their product. Up until last year when they changed to ticket master, I had gone to games for as low as 10 CAD.....think about how absurd that is. I think I may have watched Steven Stamkos and Erik Karlsson play in an NHL hockey game for less than the cost of a steak and cheese footlong combo at Subway....

Obviously, corporations make mistakes and aren't infallible but if they've come to the conclusion the arena should be on the smaller end, there's probably a good reason why. Like I said above, my guess would be that they don't think it is viable to sell out an arena the size CTC has been in the past without diluting the value of their product with papering and extremely low ticket prices.

 

[Neil Patrick Harris]

This is kind of embarrassing

We were already being eaten alive for the attendance issue in the first place. So this'll just give people something else to mock us over.

Its pretty ridiculous though. Attendance only really became an issue recently after a few years of wildly inconsistent play from the team, but suddenly now the market apparently can't support the team to that capacity? In an arena that's out in the sticks? Sure thing Euge.

And yeah, if they're seriously thinking about building this arena with anything less than 18 000 seats, the NCC should intervene. We're making an investment in this team's (and the city's) future here, not building some rinky-dink rink here.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

We were already being eaten alive for the attendance issue in the first place. So this'll just give people something else to mock us over.

Its pretty ridiculous though. Attendance only really became an issue recently after a few years of wildly inconsistent play from the team, but suddenly now the market apparently can't support the team to that capacity? In an arena that's out in the sticks? Sure thing Euge.

And yeah, if they're seriously thinking about building this arena with anything less than 18 000 seats, the NCC should intervene. We're making an investment in this team's (and the city's) future here, not building some rinky-dink rink here.

Two things.

On the first point, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. We removed seats after not selling out playoff games by a few hundred tickets despite having higher average attendance than other playoff teams with more conservatively sized arenas. So either we remove seats in order to sell out and we get blasted for for that, or we keep the seats and don't sell out by a few hundred tickets and get blasted for that.

Second, someone more in the know can correct me if I am misinformed but I think the Senators may have heavily altered their policy when it came to giving tickets away and papering games over the last year or so. Because of this, it's hard to make a direct comparison between attendances from year to year. Meaning, the market wasn't supporting a ticket to that capacity in the past, the Senators were giving away tickets. I think there may have been a change in law that made papering less advantageous which is why they stopped doing it as much, but maybe someone else more knowledgeable on the subject can chime in.

 

[Micklebot]

We were already being eaten alive for the attendance issue in the first place. So this'll just give people something else to mock us over.

Its pretty ridiculous though. Attendance only really became an issue recently after a few years of wildly inconsistent play from the team, but suddenly now the market apparently can't support the team to that capacity? In an arena that's out in the sticks? Sure thing Euge.

And yeah, if they're seriously thinking about building this arena with anything less than 18 000 seats, the NCC should intervene. We're making an investment in this team's (and the city's) future here, not building some rinky-dink rink here.

I think attendance figures became an issue when they stopped papering the seats.

As for what the right size is, I think the more modern arena's have been getting smaller lately, so less than 18 000 wouldn't be unusual, but I'd agree that 15 000 seems low. 17 500 is where I expected us to land.

 

[Sun God Nika]

I'm willing to bet those tarps will be lifted come playoff time

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

Artificial scarcity, nice one Sens. Truly a consumer friendly move.

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

I'm willing to bet those tarps will be lifted come playoff time

And probably Leafs and Habs games.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

At least we're trying something. I like that Anselmi is starting to put some ideas out there.

 

[Neil Patrick Harris]

You guys are probably right on the papering thing, but I really think this team struggles heavily in regards to marketing. The cult of Alfie, the O logo and terms like the "Pesky Sens" were all elements that played towards building some sort of interest in this club in recent years, and all of them were largely built by the community and later embraced by the team, rather than vice versa.

For years this team could effectively operate as being the only game in town, but this is no longer the case. Other teams could fall back on a storied history and a recognizable brand to market to local fans, the Sens don't have the former and have struggled with the latter. Say what you will about the REDBLACKS name, the team marketed itself really well, creating an image and making going down to TD Place a proper "experience" very quickly (though I'm sure those Grey Cup appearances helped).

And now we're moving into the stages of getting a new home built. This should be a prime opportunity to go all out in attracting the attention of this city - a brand new stadium in the heart of the city, with a competitive team led by one of the best players in the NHL, this really should be a slam dunk to win this city over. Instead we're talking about how we need to tarp over our current home and build a smaller stadium at Lebreton because the fans just aren't there. Not exactly the kind of perception we want to be giving off if we want to drum up interest in seeing the Sens play.

danielpalfredsson mentioned in the jersey thread that the team should be marketing hyperaggresively to kids and teens, and that statement is bang-on. I worked as a TA in an elementary school during a co-op placement a few years ago, and the only real difference from when I was a kid was that there were now more Penguins jerseys than Leafs jerseys alongside the already present Sens and Habs jerseys. A week ago I was at work and a father came in with his two young sons both decked out in Golden Knights merch. This team could get away with a degree of coasting on the Senators name when they employed they were the toast of the league and consistently in the hunt, but we really missed the bar in marketing in these past years when the team was struggling.

A reduction is probably the right move in the short term, but I'm concerned that we're basically resigning ourselves to being on the small-end of the Canadian franchises by doing so. 20 000 probably was a bit generous, but I don't see any reason why this team couldn't draw in the 18 000-19 000 range comfortably if we put in a bit of effort to get there.

 

[Hale The Villain]

So Melnyk thinks that tarps over empty seats will look better than empty seats?

Doubt it. Probably just wants to reduce the amount of seats to increase ticket prices.

Dick move.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

You guys are probably right on the papering thing, but I really think this team struggles heavily in regards to marketing.

You mentioned kids being Penguins fans...what draws kids to be fans of teams? Two things...winning...and star power. Sidney Crosby is the biggest star in the league (McDavid has or will surpass him but let's not nitpick), so that's a big reason why kids love the Penguins. Sidney Crosby=John Cena. Kids like winners or at least people established as being the best that they can relate to.

This leads me to my criticism of the Sens marketing....so they have a young decently charismatic handsome player who happens to be the most exciting OFD in the league since Bobby Orr and a legit top 3 player....how much have they marketed this to attract younger fans to the Sens and to sell tickets to people who want to be able to say they saw Karlsson in his prime....The answer is they haven't.

It's absurd that it took until 2017 for people to really acknowledge how great Karlsson is. Part of that is a lack of national exposure due to not having deep playoff runs where the games are on CBC, but a huge part of that at least locally is the team failing to market Karlsson as a prime selling point about why people should be Senators fans, and it's important to go to the games and give this team money to see Karlsson play.

Of course...without winning, it's harder to become a bandwagon type team that attracts younger fans, but the Senators at least had a huge part of the formula with Karlsson and have absolutely failed to take advantage of it. Instead people are supposed to be convinced to be Sens fans by seeing Mark Stone naked on the side of an OC transpo bus with hockey pads on or something.

 

[OmniSens]

Less Montreal fans

 

[Fandlauer]

Let's blackout home games to really encourage attendance.

 

[BonkTastic]

Why does this organization always seem to come up with the worst answers to it's problems?

This is the literal definition of sweeping your problems under a rug, but instead of a rug it's a giant tarp. The optics of this move is breathtakingly awful.