2019-20 TMR report. VGK 5th highest ~$560 for family of 4

Ciao

Registered User
Jul 15, 2010
9,918
5,735
Toronto
I genuinely wonder where the money comes from.

The other day I looked at TML ticket prices on a whim. You can't get in the door at ANY game for under $110/per, and it's more like $150 for most games. That's just the cheapest option to get in the door... we're talking $300 for a couple and $600 for a family, before adding parking/food/souvenirs. Pushing closer to $200 per person for one normal game, and that's the in-the-door price.

That compares incredibly unfavorably to almost any other entertainment option. Those are prices you expect to see for a major concert tour or a Broadway show that only comes to your city once a year, not for a sporting event that has 41 home dates. You can literally go to the Toronto Opera for half the price of going to a Leafs game... think about that discrepancy. They have entered a price tier that isn't even supported by an upper-class target market. The only way the pricing structure can make sense, is for corporations to buy the expensive tickets and for the rest to be treated as a re-sale investment by people with a lot of capital on their hands. Otherwise I can't see where a consistent market could exist for $200/person entry level pricing on seasonal entertainment.

IMO they are severely outrunning the market, as we have seen in other sports in recent years. The NHL has some cushion because of its affluent demographics, but I look at what happened to NASCAR and what is currently happening to the NFL where the presumption of infinite growth is grinding to a halt. The Rogers TV deal is a canary in the coal mine, as is the end of sellouts in formerly bulletproof markets -- and this is happening during a roaring economy.
There's a lot of money in Toronto. That's about all I can say.
 

The Lemonheads

Peanut Gallery
Feb 2, 2010
3,022
335
Toronto
Vegas fans also probably have a better opportunity than other markets to scalp their tickets to steal back some of the season ticket costs.

Scalpers. FIFY.

They used to get dogs abuse on gameday. When it's online it's different, somehow.

Which also begs the question, could as many people such as Vegas afford seasons if they kept all their tickets? Does that help perpetuate the problem?

There's a lot of money in Toronto. That's about all I can say.

Also a lot of free tickets from god knows what companies aren't using them that night and get them from a friend or a friend of a friend. Just this week some kid at work is going to his first Leafs game for free. He doesn't even like hockey. :skeptic:

I know more people who go for free than I do who pay. I refuse to spend a penny on the Leafs but have been to 3 games in the last 10 years. One in a box which was pretty crap but nice for suits I suppose.
 
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GuelphStormer

Registered User
Mar 20, 2012
3,808
497
Guelph, ON
when i was in first year engineering at uwaterloo, we were shown a bizzare little educational video by john cleese called "how to lie with statistics". im unable to locate it on the interweb, but it's message still sticks with me many years later. ... dont take any reported numbers for granted, always question how someone calculated them. bridges and airplanes matter, average ticket prices not so much (but it's a lot fun to argue.)
 

LadyStanley

Registered User
Sep 22, 2004
105,727
18,856
Sin City
Which also begs the question, could as many people such as Vegas afford seasons if they kept all their tickets? Does that help perpetuate the problem?

Depends on what you "do" in LV (which relates to income $$).

Most STH I have met sell at least half their tickets to family and friends (so at least share the cost of being a STH). And do it "person to person" so it's not listed on resale site, just gets transferred.
 

TOGuy14

Registered User
Dec 30, 2010
12,061
3,571
Toronto
Scalpers. FIFY.

They used to get dogs abuse on gameday. When it's online it's different, somehow.

Which also begs the question, could as many people such as Vegas afford seasons if they kept all their tickets? Does that help perpetuate the problem?



Also a lot of free tickets from god knows what companies aren't using them that night and get them from a friend or a friend of a friend. Just this week some kid at work is going to his first Leafs game for free. He doesn't even like hockey. :skeptic:

I know more people who go for free than I do who pay. I refuse to spend a penny on the Leafs but have been to 3 games in the last 10 years. One in a box which was pretty crap but nice for suits I suppose.

Know the right people at the right companies.

I work for a major bank in capital markets. I have had a VP come by my desk and give me tickets to a game that night because he was gifted even better seats. The seats he gave me were about 6 rows back from the glass in the lower corner. I can't imagine what better seats he was given, he must have been half on the bench at that point...
 

The Lemonheads

Peanut Gallery
Feb 2, 2010
3,022
335
Toronto
Know the right people at the right companies.

I work for a major bank in capital markets. I have had a VP come by my desk and give me tickets to a game that night because he was gifted even better seats. The seats he gave me were about 6 rows back from the glass in the lower corner. I can't imagine what better seats he was given, he must have been half on the bench at that point...

Oh for sure. That's why there's so many suits in our crowd it's embarrassing. Notice long it takes the lower bowl seats to fill back up when intermission ends. They're too busy eating drinking and talking. I've never been down there as it's practically a months rent.
 

Hockey Outsider

Registered User
Jan 16, 2005
9,056
13,985
I genuinely wonder where the money comes from.

The other day I looked at TML ticket prices on a whim. You can't get in the door at ANY game for under $110/per, and it's more like $150 for most games. That's just the cheapest option to get in the door... we're talking $300 for a couple and $600 for a family, before adding parking/food/souvenirs. Pushing closer to $200 per person for one normal game, and that's the in-the-door price.

That compares incredibly unfavorably to almost any other entertainment option. Those are prices you expect to see for a major concert tour or a Broadway show that only comes to your city once a year, not for a sporting event that has 41 home dates. You can literally go to the Toronto Opera for half the price of going to a Leafs game... think about that discrepancy. They have entered a price tier that isn't even supported by an upper-class target market. The only way the pricing structure can make sense, is for corporations to buy the expensive tickets and for the rest to be treated as a re-sale investment by people with a lot of capital on their hands. Otherwise I can't see where a consistent market could exist for $200/person entry level pricing on seasonal entertainment.

IMO they are severely outrunning the market, as we have seen in other sports in recent years. The NHL has some cushion because of its affluent demographics, but I look at what happened to NASCAR and what is currently happening to the NFL where the presumption of infinite growth is grinding to a halt. The Rogers TV deal is a canary in the coal mine, as is the end of sellouts in formerly bulletproof markets -- and this is happening during a roaring economy.

I agree with everything you said.

I live in Toronto. My wife and I have a very good income. It's not a matter of us not being able to afford tickets. The issue is the tickets are so expensive that for a comparable price, there are simply better entertainment options. For $120 I might get a single, crappy seat on a weeknight game against a mediocre opponent. For the same price, I can get great seats (or standing room) at a concert for a popular metal artist (Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath). For me, the latter is simply better value and more entertaining.

Seven regular season games for a couple would cost close to $2,500 for the year - again for lousy seats, and no playoff games. For only a bit more, we can do a nice vacation, like a week in New Orleans (that cost us about $3,500 a few years ago).

Speaking of corporations - I've gone to a few games over the past several years through work. It's a nice perk - I've seen more games through work over the past decade than I've paid for personally. I expect this trend wll continue. Maybe I'm getting my fix of live NHL through these games, but I'm not sure.

Some would say that these comments mean I'm not a true fan. I like to think of myself as a rational consumer. Seeing a game live is better than at a bar or from my couch, but it's (almost never) worth an extra $350.
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
84,977
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Bojangles Parking Lot
There's a lot of money in Toronto. That's about all I can say.

Definitely, and good for the Leafs for tapping into it.

But this is the dynamic I find troubling:

I live in Toronto. My wife and I have a very good income. It's not a matter of us not being able to afford tickets. The issue is the tickets are so expensive that for a comparable price, there are simply better entertainment options.

In some of the larger markets, the prices have gone beyond “upper tax bracket” and into “fantasy life where money has no value”. That basically means corporations and the mega-rich, which are IMO not sustainable target markets for any entertainment product.

When the economy tanks, yacht makers can make fewer yachts and Rolex can make fewer watches. But there will still be 20,000 seats in the arena, and leaving them empty has a cascading effect on the business model.
 

Ciao

Registered User
Jul 15, 2010
9,918
5,735
Toronto
Definitely, and good for the Leafs for tapping into it.

But this is the dynamic I find troubling . . .

When the economy tanks, yacht makers can make fewer yachts and Rolex can make fewer watches. But there will still be 20,000 seats in the arena, and leaving them empty has a cascading effect on the business model.

I wouldn't worry about it -- that's their problem.
 

Ciao

Registered User
Jul 15, 2010
9,918
5,735
Toronto
Until it leads to the business of the sport being broken.
It won't go that far.

They will adjust prices in accordance with demand, just as the Toronto Blue Jays did when they tanked years ago -- $2 Tuesday-night tickets and $81 stand-by admission season passes etc. They had to reinvest in market development and it worked for them. Every sports franchise will find its own way.

In the meantime, I can't blame profitable franchises like the Leafs for making hay while the sun shines. They are in business, after all, and it would be just as much a problem if they charged so little that demand exceeds supply.
 

Ciao

Registered User
Jul 15, 2010
9,918
5,735
Toronto
I agree with everything you said.

I live in Toronto. My wife and I have a very good income. It's not a matter of us not being able to afford tickets. The issue is the tickets are so expensive that for a comparable price, there are simply better entertainment options. For $120 I might get a single, crappy seat on a weeknight game against a mediocre opponent. For the same price, I can get great seats (or standing room) at a concert for a popular metal artist (Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath). For me, the latter is simply better value and more entertaining.

Seven regular season games for a couple would cost close to $2,500 for the year - again for lousy seats, and no playoff games. For only a bit more, we can do a nice vacation, like a week in New Orleans (that cost us about $3,500 a few years ago).

Speaking of corporations - I've gone to a few games over the past several years through work. It's a nice perk - I've seen more games through work over the past decade than I've paid for personally. I expect this trend wll continue. Maybe I'm getting my fix of live NHL through these games, but I'm not sure.

Some would say that these comments mean I'm not a true fan. I like to think of myself as a rational consumer. Seeing a game live is better than at a bar or from my couch, but it's (almost never) worth an extra $350.
When I was in school a friend had seasons tickets to the Leafs. His father owned one of the largest real estate development businesses in Canada.

The rest of us watched on TV.

For most people like me, I would rather go on a Caribbean vacation than pay what costs to attend a half dozen Leafs games.

Somehow, amazingly, the Leafs have managed to survive.
 

Hockey Outsider

Registered User
Jan 16, 2005
9,056
13,985
When I was in school a friend had seasons tickets to the Leafs. His father owned one of the largest real estate development businesses in Canada.

The rest of us watched on TV.

For most people like me, I would rather go on a Caribbean vacation than pay what costs to attend a half dozen Leafs games.

Somehow, amazingly, the Leafs have managed to survive.

I'm not surprised that the Leafs sell out virtually every game - it's an issue of supply and demand. The GTA has a population of nearly six million people and probably half the population are serious or casual hockey fans. There are only about 800,000 seats available during regular season games. There's a lot of money in Toronto so it's not surprising that the prices are this high.

(It's not just a matter of corporate seats - there are a ton of people in debt in and around Toronto. How else can we explain average homes costing $800K when the average salary is $60K? This is anecdotal, but it seems that there are many people who have no realistic ability to pay off their mortgage, line of credit and credit cards until they're retirement age - if they're going to carry hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for the next two or three decades, what's another $500 to see a Leafs game)?
 

tarheelhockey

Offside Review Specialist
Feb 12, 2010
84,977
137,333
Bojangles Parking Lot
It won't go that far.

They will adjust prices in accordance with demand, just as the Toronto Blue Jays did when they tanked years ago -- $2 Tuesday-night tickets and $81 stand-by admission season passes etc. They had to reinvest in market development and it worked for them. Every sports franchise will find its own way.

In the meantime, I can't blame profitable franchises like the Leafs for making hay while the sun shines. They are in business, after all, and it would be just as much a problem if they charged so little that demand exceeds supply.

It’s not as simple as adjusting prices and then carrying on. The infrastructure of the NHL — arena debts, TV deals, salary structures — is based on an assumption of future revenue. If those projections go sideways, it will be more than just a bad day at the office for some accountants.

I get that the NHL isn’t a charity, and the point of owning a franchise is to cash in on the growth of the brand. This phase of pumping every possible penny of revenue in the short-term is common to most industries.

The problem is, most companies in other industries are run on an assumption that if the economy tanks and the business model fails, they can liquidate their assets and declare bankruptcy, then all the execs and employees move on to the next thing. That is in most cases the natural end to a company life cycle. But the NHL is not — or should not be — run on that assumption. Cash-grabs that erode the long term sustainability of the product are an incredibly bad idea for an industry that is by nature working toward multi-decade horizons.
 
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Ciao

Registered User
Jul 15, 2010
9,918
5,735
Toronto
If we're talking particularly about the Leafs -- and I am -- then TV deals, arena debts and salary structures don't have much to do with the cost of going to a game. MLSE owns its own building, is extremely profitable and is flush with cash -- so much so that I would guess they could practically give the tickets away and still be profitable. The price of tickets to Leafs games is set by what the market will bear, and has nothing to do with the revenue that is needed to sustain the franchise.

If we we're talking about the NHL business model in general-- and perhaps you are -- then you're quite right. However, what happens in Toronto only affects the rest of the league to a limited degree: a business failure in Toronto would deprive the NHL of Toronto's revenue-sharing contributions; and at the same time might reduce league-wide HRR to the point that that salary cap and floor might significantly fall, which could be to the advantage of small-market teams.

I don't think the NHL as a whole will suffer too much no matter what absurd prices they charge for hockey tickets in places like New York and Toronto, and other cities as well.

Conversely, good for the fans of less popular teams who get less expensive tickets due to insufficient demand. Those might be the franchises with the bigger problems.
 
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Mr. Met

Registered User
Nov 8, 2017
857
2,523
Calgary is that low on the avg ticket price, yet I think the prices are still too expensive to go.
 

JianYang

Registered User
Sep 29, 2017
17,753
16,110
Scalpers. FIFY.

They used to get dogs abuse on gameday. When it's online it's different, somehow.

Which also begs the question, could as many people such as Vegas afford seasons if they kept all their tickets? Does that help perpetuate the problem?



Also a lot of free tickets from god knows what companies aren't using them that night and get them from a friend or a friend of a friend. Just this week some kid at work is going to his first Leafs game for free. He doesn't even like hockey. :skeptic:

I know more people who go for free than I do who pay. I refuse to spend a penny on the Leafs but have been to 3 games in the last 10 years. One in a box which was pretty crap but nice for suits I suppose.

The crowd has a very corporate vibe in toronto, so I can believe your story.

Personally for me, the experience at home has enhanced in the past decade or so to the point where I just cannot justify paying face value or above to go to the rink.

The accessibility and affordability of a home theatre system, with HD resolution in the comfort and relatively spacious setting of my place is a much better value proposition. Not to mention, the time investment to get to and from the rink, the concession lineups, and the washrooms. Live events sometimes make you feel like hopeless cattle.

I'll still go to games if I get steep discounts or get free tickets, but thats what it would take to get me out of the comfort of my place.
 
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Burke the Legend

Registered User
Feb 22, 2012
8,317
2,850
I always wonder what the methodology for these surveys are because I would love to know where anyone is getting these numbers from a TML perspective.

Average ticket price is $130?

Looking on Ticketmaster the cheapest ticket I can find for a non resale ticket is $143 for the Wednesday Dec 4th game against the Avs. That is for a single ticket in the nosebleeds on a midweek game against a non conference opponent. To get four in a row in other other scenario would be exponentially more expensive

Beer for $9 at Scotiabank arena? Please someone show me where this hidden and magical concession stand is located!

Parking for $8 is probably the funniest part. Maybe if you park in Scarborough and take the TTC downtown. Parking in the area costs at least $15-20 during the business day and shoots up to $30-40 for anywhere within a couple blocks of the rink on any event night.

They are putting it in USD so multiply by 1.3 - 1.35 to get Canadian Peso prices.
 

Fenway

HF Bookie and Bruins Historian
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Sep 26, 2007
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EM-G_PFWkAImTGp
 

Jets

All hat, no cattle.
Sponsor
Oct 23, 2010
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Winnipeg
Jets prices are out of date in the report also.
Parking near the arena is 15-20$CDN depending on lot and beers are 12-14$ CDN. Also I don't think 120$ as the average premium seat price is accurate as my families' season seats in the "P3" (third highest price tier) avg out to about $130-160 CDN a seat at face value depending on opponent, meaning the P1s are >200$ (or >150$ Freedom Pounds).
 

Centrum Hockey

Registered User
Aug 2, 2018
2,089
727
At TD Garden you have to pay a good amount of attention when you order food usually they try to get you to auto tip on a service counter no tip is hidden under other amount's.
 
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