What will average attendance be this season?

[DaveMatthew]

With the state of ownership/management, the complete mistrust of the fanbase, and what's projecting to be one of the worst season's in Senators' history, what do you expect Ottawa's average attendance per game to be?

What we know: The Senators have sold ~4000 season ticket packages for the upcoming season. The rest will have to be sold as single game tickets. Last year, average attendance was ~15,800.

Before you say Senators fans are bad fans and need to support their team: When you lose the trust of your fanbase and put a bad product on the ice, people will stop going. Even in Canada. When ownership begins treating a team solely as a "business" (balance sheet over team-building), fans will respond in kind. And you wouldn't go to a restaurant that serves undercooked salmon and dirty cutlery, would you? Take these examples:

• Between 1984-1988, a time when the Canucks missed the playoffs 3 times and lost in round 1, attendance in Vancouver was below 11,500 per game. It remained poor in the early 90's and bottomed out again 99/00 at under 15,000 per game (post Bure trade). Then the Naslund era began and fans came back.
• By the end of the Pocklington era after countless player firesales and departures, Edmonton Oilers attendance dropped to under 12,500 per game in 95/96. Fans started coming back after he was forced to sell the team.
• In the late 90's early 00's, pre-Iginla and playoff success, the Flames averaged under 16,000 fans per game.

So with a toxic owner and a team that just traded the face of the franchise, how bad will it get here this season?

Click to read more...

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

Will probably be sub 10000 outside of the Leafs/Habs games. Those games will inflate the number to around 11000 imo. We'll have a few week night games below 8000 though.

Just got myself a ticket package for the 67s though. I'll be interested to see if they have a spike in attendance this year.

 

[Sensung]

Take out Leafs and Habs games and they'll be lucky to average 10,000

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

Take out Leafs and Habs games and they'll be lucky to average 10,000

13000

 

[Peptic Balcers]

Arizona and Carolina were around 13 000. I will be shocked if we are sub 12 000, there are a lot of people who like seeing NHL hockey regardless of the politics involved

 

[armani]

11793

 

[BonkTastic]

I'll guess around 13,000 on average.

There might be a few games around the 10k mark, but people who expect that to be the average mark are probably letting their emotions cloud years of data as evidence that Canadian attendance numbers generally have a floor that is rarely if ever consistently broken.

 

[toxic poster]

Probably like 12k.

 

[The Lewler]

11 650.

In memory of Alfie , Karl , and the 0 dollars I'm giving Melnyk till hes gone.

 

[Caeldan]

With the state of ownership/management, the complete mistrust of the fanbase, and what's projecting to be one of the worst season's in Senators' history, what do you expect Ottawa's average attendance per game to be?

What we know: The Senators have sold ~4000 season ticket packages for the upcoming season. The rest will have to be sold as single game tickets. Last year, average attendance was ~15,800.

Before you say Senators fans are bad fans and need to support their team: When you lose the trust of your fanbase and put a bad product on the ice, people will stop going. Even in Canada. When ownership begins treating a team solely as a "business" (balance sheet over team-building), fans will respond in kind. And you wouldn't go to a restaurant that serves undercooked salmon and dirty cutlery, would you? Take these examples:

• Between 1984-1988, a time when the Canucks missed the playoffs 3 times and lost in round 1, attendance in Vancouver was below 11,500 per game. It remained poor in the early 90's and bottomed out again 99/00 at under 15,000 per game (post Bure trade). Then the Naslund era began and fans came back.
• By the end of the Pocklington era after countless player firesales and departures, Edmonton Oilers attendance dropped to under 12,500 per game in 95/96. Fans started coming back after he was forced to sell the team.
• In the late 90's early 00's, pre-Iginla and playoff success, the Flames averaged under 16,000 fans per game.

So with a toxic owner and a team that just traded the face of the franchise, how bad will it get here this season?

One caveat, that 4000 number is a touch misleading as it was reported as full-season packages.
Usually I believe that the season ticket sales numbers we hear include half season and multi game packs down to whatever the lowest number of games you can get and still get STH perks.

That said, I don't doubt sales are lower and overall we'll see some pretty empty arena nights, especially mid week against low draw teams. Montreal, Toronto games probably still sell out though.

 

[Grizwald]

With the state of ownership/management, the complete mistrust of the fanbase, and what's projecting to be one of the worst season's in Senators' history, what do you expect Ottawa's average attendance per game to be?

What we know: The Senators have sold ~4000 season ticket packages for the upcoming season. The rest will have to be sold as single game tickets. Last year, average attendance was ~15,800.

Before you say Senators fans are bad fans and need to support their team: When you lose the trust of your fanbase and put a bad product on the ice, people will stop going. Even in Canada. When ownership begins treating a team solely as a "business" (balance sheet over team-building), fans will respond in kind. And you wouldn't go to a restaurant that serves undercooked salmon and dirty cutlery, would you? Take these examples:

• Between 1984-1988, a time when the Canucks missed the playoffs 3 times and lost in round 1, attendance in Vancouver was below 11,500 per game. It remained poor in the early 90's and bottomed out again 99/00 at under 15,000 per game (post Bure trade). Then the Naslund era began and fans came back.
• By the end of the Pocklington era after countless player firesales and departures, Edmonton Oilers attendance dropped to under 12,500 per game in 95/96. Fans started coming back after he was forced to sell the team.
• In the late 90's early 00's, pre-Iginla and playoff success, the Flames averaged under 16,000 fans per game.

So with a toxic owner and a team that just traded the face of the franchise, how bad will it get here this season?

So according to a few poster's logic here fans in Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton must be terrible hockey fans..lol

I remember in the early 80's when Irving Grundman managed the Canadiens and was driving the franchise south in a hurry, I happened to be in Montreal when the Oilers with Wayne Gretzky were playing and I bought tickets at the box office on game day - I was also told the Canadians usually had about a thousand tickets available for most games that season. Very bad fans….very bad.

Oh but my guess for the average Sens attendance this year: 12,500

I won't be one of them.......unless Melnyk sells.

 

[Sensung]

13000

You voted over 18000 genius.

 

[Sensung]

I'll guess around 13,000 on average.

There might be a few games around the 10k mark, but people who expect that to be the average mark are probably letting their emotions cloud years of data as evidence that Canadian attendance numbers generally have a floor that is rarely if ever consistently broken.

Sens don't have a corporate season ticket base to fall back on like other Canadian teams.

It's going to be ugly.

 

[topshelf15]

Sens don't have a corporate season ticket base to fall back on like other Canadian teams.

It's going to be ugly.

He has repeated his lack of corporate so much,I remember driving past an Ad plastered CTC,just a few seasons ago...Now its pretty bear on and in around the CTC ...Wonder why???LOL

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

You voted over 18000 genius.

I am not good with numbers.

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

I am not good with numbers.

That's strange, I would have thought you'd be pretty good with numbers. Remember that time you bought hundreds of tickets to a Sens game hours before puck drop, donated them to local youth hockey teams and they all managed to get to the game with almost no notice? You must be pretty good with numbers and logistics to arrange something like that.

 

[AchtzehnBaby]

That's strange, I would have thought you'd be pretty good with numbers. Remember that time you bought hundreds of tickets to a Sens game hours before puck drop, donated them to local youth hockey teams and they all managed to get to the game with almost no notice? You must be pretty good with numbers and logistics to arrange something like that.

....finally I get the recognition that I deserve!

 

[dumbdick]

Team comes flying out of the gate and surprises everyone. Pesky sens are back. Games are fun to watch and all but two disillusioned fans are back on board by mid-November. 16k-18k.

 

[Sensung]

Team comes flying out of the gate and surprises everyone. Pesky sens are back. Games are fun to watch and all but two disillusioned fans are back on board by mid-November. 16k-18k.

Good luck with that.

 

[Peptic Balcers]

Team comes flying out of the gate and surprises everyone. Pesky sens are back. Games are fun to watch and all but two disillusioned fans are back on board by mid-November. 16k-18k.

Pick an exact number in that range and I'd love to take some action on the under

 

[Canadian Time]

Probably around 16,000 average, some games higher, some lower. It's NHL hockey and not very many people spend 24/7 on internet message boards making up fantasy scenarios.

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

Probably around 16,000 average, some games higher, some lower. It's NHL hockey and not very many people spend 24/7 on internet message boards making up fantasy scenarios.

Last year's average attendance was 15,829. You think we'll get better attendance after trading away the team's best player in franchise history? I'll take that bet.

 

[Tnuoc Alucard]

Sens don't have a corporate season ticket base to fall back on like other Canadian teams.

It's going to be ugly.

You have that right.

Even a broken clock ...

 

[dumbdick]

I'm betting we'll see more comps this year.

 

[DrEasy]

Will probably be sub 10000 outside of the Leafs/Habs games. Those games will inflate the number to around 11000 imo. We'll have a few week night games below 8000 though.

Just got myself a ticket package for the 67s though. I'll be interested to see if they have a spike in attendance this year.

It would send an interesting signal if the 67's sold out every game this season. I'll certainly be following them more closely (i.e. buying more tickets) than in the past this season.