So Long Red Seats at LCA

[5088]

I live in Western PA and I'm a die hard Wings fan, I try to make the trek up at least once a year. I really wanted to go to the home opener but the pricing was crazy, especially for a teachers salary. I tune on the game and see all those empty seats, its just irritating. If the lowered corp seating, or ticket prices, people would probably show up, hell, I'd go to even more than one game, even if we were rebuilding just to be amongst the "home" crowd.

 

[raymond23]

Maybe all these corporate bs tickets should actually be used. Its a disgrace.

 

[izlez]

Just to give my overall opinion on this subject one more time:

I am a huge Red Wings fan. I completely support ownership and management and in no way am I protesting.

I just got offered free Red Wings tickets for this Thursday. This will probably be the only time this year that I accept the free tickets. Between parking, food, and beer it will probably still cost me over $100 despite the most expensive aspect being covered. Between driving, parking, the game, and leaving the arena, this will take up my entire night starting at 5:00 and I'll be getting less than normal sleep for work in the morning.

Or I could watch the game at home. Sitting on a couch. Getting things done before/after/during intermissions. Cheap food and beer. Replay, DVR. Other games/things on tv during stoppages and intermissions.

The home experience is 1000Xs better for me, even when I get tickets for free. Sports as a whole, need to take a serious look at themselves if they want to continue having fans at games in the future

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Just to give my overall opinion on this subject one more time:

I am a huge Red Wings fan. I completely support ownership and management and in no way am I protesting.

I just got offered free Red Wings tickets for this Thursday. This will probably be the only time this year that I accept the free tickets. Between parking, food, and beer it will probably still cost me over $100 despite the most expensive aspect being covered. Between driving, parking, the game, and leaving the arena, this will take up my entire night starting at 5:00 and I'll be getting less than normal sleep for work in the morning.

Or I could watch the game at home. Sitting on a couch. Getting things done before/after/during intermissions. Cheap food and beer. Replay, DVR. Other games/things on tv during stoppages and intermissions.

The home experience is 1000Xs better for me, even when I get tickets for free. Sports as a whole, need to take a serious look at themselves if they want to continue having fans at games in the future

I would go so far as to say the entire way the game is presented needs to change. The commercialization of the sport which has only increased steadily since I was a kid reduces the impact of watching the actual team play. I go to a game and I get advertisements during play, between plays, when the Wings score, when I go to the bathroom or walk the concourse. I stay home and I get a commercial between plays, on the boards, on the ice, whenever the Wings score a goal or go on a power play.

The game feels corporatized and stale, now.

 

[jkutswings]

Red Wings' Little Caesars Arena to swap all 18,600 of its red seats for black ones

"(Building) officials initially tried to explain away the empty seats by saying fans were simply in the concourses and elsewhere in the building, checking out the new digs. But that excuse became less and less convincing as the (Pistons and Red Wings) seasons -- both rough ones, record-wise -- went along, and the number of empty red seats seemed only to increase. "

Concourse...sweet sweet concourse...why haz you lied to me?

 

[Bench]

Concourse...sweet sweet concourse...why haz you lied to me?

You don't understand. Word got out how great the concourse is, so even MORE fans started flocking to it.

 

[Filppula]

Why lower ticket prices when you could spend a bunch of money changing the color of the seats to try to hide the fact that nobody is watching the game?

Can’t agree with this more. So the seats cost like $3.5 million to begin with, and they’re revamping them already due to attendance. How about you slash the ticket prices, more bums on seats, more people paying for food and drinks, better atmosphere. Amazing decision really.

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

I can’t argue. Black seats look worse and will stand out more.

EDITORIAL: Black seats at Little Caesars Arena will be far more of an eyesore | Detroit Sports Nation

 

[RedMenace]

I like the idea of creating a team of CGI artists to superimpose a crowd into the arena every night. But random fake fans? No, we can do better. We are talking about an arena built from the nutritious dough of the greatest pizza empire on Earth.

Imagine, the camera pans past the players' bench and what is it you see? Shrek, Wreck It Ralph, Nemo, Gollum, and those blue *******s from Avatar.

So instead of work talk being, "Hey Bill, did you see the Wings game last night? Geez, what a stinker. But hey, they are rebuilding, I guess."
With Bench-o-vision 2.0, "Bill, I was watching the Wings and I saw Buzz Lightyear slamming beers with Kung Fu Panda. Incredible! Oh right, and Larkin did a thing, I don't know, I couldn't really notice with how full the crowd was with Minions and droids from the hit prequel Star Wars: The Phantom Menace."

Should have made them bright green or blue then. Hell, if they'd gone with blue, they could also digitally replace fans wearing various other teams' sweaters.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Can’t agree with this more. So the seats cost like $3.5 million to begin with, and they’re revamping them already due to attendance. How about you slash the ticket prices, more bums on seats, more people paying for food and drinks, better atmosphere. Amazing decision really.

What you're talking about is more an aggressive re-sale area. Because the thing is the lower bowl seats are sold they aren't losing money that is kind of one of the problems in terms of those empty seats at least for the Wings maybe not the Pistons. Though they will continue to lose season ticket holders even of the corporate variety with how bad the team has gotten. But when you talk about them slashing pricing, the tickets are being purchased... I have heard that from people I trust, though they are starting to see a lot more opt out also from what I am told. In a few years this will become an issue and at that point yes I expect lower seats to be cheaper. But you cannot slash prices on tickets that are already sold, without entering the secondary market and yes perhaps that is the real area that Ilitch and Gores should be looking at.

Of course one of the more interesting things about corporate tickets is you're not allowed to sell them because in most cases the business' claim them as tax exemption. Really that is why in large corporate markets and Detroit still is one of those you have such a tough time cracking this behavior and the corporate seats are filled in a more bandwagon esk fashion. The team needs to be good, because the big three and agencies and other large companies are just letting the tickets sit in the office unused because nobody is volunteering, you also don't want to be the person going every game as that is against office norms. It is interesting and I understand the frustration, but to me this is explainable part of life in terms of the cyclical nature of how pro sporting events are attended.

Also agree with those pointing out that the advancements in how we watch a game on tv versus live are pretty big at this point. I think the pro leagues are doing a poor job really understanding that.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

I can’t argue. Black seats look worse and will stand out more.

EDITORIAL: Black seats at Little Caesars Arena will be far more of an eyesore | Detroit Sports Nation

The reason they are switching to black is the idea the black will not stand out as much as red (notice how the majority of the fans appear much darker than the empty seats?). Not everyone wears red or white to the games, and a color that doesn't pop would be less noticable. The comparison between black for the Wings and green for the Canadiens doesn't make any sense.

 

[theYman]

BS!! The seats at the Joe were red too! End of argument.

 

[GBFP]

Terrible decision. Black will just make the arena look more empty. I think this is more for the Pistons though - because Gores had those dumb seat covers made for Piston games last season. Mike Ilitch would have never given up the red seats. All Red everywhere is going to look nondescript and cavernous now.

LCA will NEVER be the Piston's home anyways. It's a hockey arena and they are tenants. Ever since the naming rights and the stupid logo on the roof it seems the excitement for the arena and the teams have nose dived.

 

[Winger98]

Put better teams on the ice and those seats will be filled. This is a solution to a problem that doesn't really matter.

 

[jkutswings]

Put better teams on the ice and those seats will be filled. This is a solution to a problem that doesn't really matter.

Nonono, you just don't UNDERSTAND. The color of the seats really IS the root cause of all the problems of both franchises. Really, it is.

Now, just a little more rouge, and...THERE! All better.

 

[Oddbob]

Put better teams on the ice and those seats will be filled. This is a solution to a problem that doesn't really matter.

I don't know, are you sure? In my experience more enjoyable things to watch never really made me want to go more! Plus, now once they put those black seats in, we can talk about, "oh did you see that sweet move seat 42A made, man what a move, it went down and everything!" "I didn't know they moved!"

 

[Ezekial]

I can’t argue. Black seats look worse and will stand out more.

EDITORIAL: Black seats at Little Caesars Arena will be far more of an eyesore | Detroit Sports Nation

When you're watching the game being played on the ice the empty red seats draw your eyes to the stands.

Look at the picture in that article, most fans don't wear neon red.

 

[Bondurant]

Ken Daniels was on Sirius this morning and said the black seat covers are to appease the Pistons. There's no logical reason for this. Sounds like Daniels is playing the role of a good soldier on this issue.

 

[theYman]

This seemed like a good idea instead of changing seat covers.

 

[SCD]

Having gone to the game on Thursday, all the blue in the lower bowl was more distracting.

 

[Spirit of 67]

They should've put pictures of fans on the seats. Maybe on tv you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

They can project ads on the boards. Whey can't they project fans in the seats?

 

[A Few Good Males]

Is Detroit not the most depressed major city in America? That, combined with a bad on-the-ice product = bad attendance at games. Who gives a shit was color the seats are? Such a petty thing to get pissed about

 

[jkutswings]

This seemed like a good idea instead of changing seat covers.

It would have a better chance of success if implemented after 2 periods. It would only take one or two instances of a lower bowl group arriving late, finding others in their seats, and things getting heated, to ruin the plan for everybody.

(I know the plan your referenced included a refund provision, but if anybody has partaken in a few ginger ales, all bets are off when explaining things.)

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

Ken Daniels was on Sirius this morning and said the black seat covers are to appease the Pistons. There's no logical reason for this. Sounds like Daniels is playing the role of a good soldier on this issue.

Wow, seriously? If that’s true, they can f**k right off. LCA is the Red Wings arena; there’s a perfectly functional arena in Auburn Hills if the Pistons don’t like the LCA seat color.

Is there more info on this?

 

[Bondurant]

Wow, seriously? If that’s true, they can f**k right off. LCA is the Red Wings arena; there’s a perfectly functional arena in Auburn Hills if the Pistons don’t like the LCA seat color.

Is there more info on this?

If you have Sirius you can still get this episode of Stellick & Simmer In the Morning on demand. They ask Daniels why the black seat covers and if it's because of the Pistons. Daniels answered this is part of a $25 million retrofit the Pistons paid to build a locker room and install taller elevators. There was also mention that the Pistons had sponsored seat covers at the Palace and that the Ducks are also going to black seat covers.