A couple of questions I have when it comes to reporting healthy attendance.
1. On any given night what percentage of the in game audience is composed of STH vs walk-up/one or two off traffic.
Season tickets count as seats filled whether anyone shows up for it or not. And this number is not a constant for a season ( varies slightly as some folks buy the packages late, and especially higher uptakes for popular games as part of packages. I suppose they could figure it out pretty easily, but without knowing how many package seats are sold for a game and how many total attend, we as fans will likely never know.
2. A follow up question...what percentage of the STH attendance is made up by folks that didn't actually buy the ST.
Every season ticket seat is assumed to be filled by its owner and guests...they do not track resales outside of their own system for it, and don't really care once they get their money (and they do make a bit extra for the resales).
3. What actually constitutes a STH...someone who purchases a 41 game pass...or do 5/10/15/20 or whatever game packages count? If five people go into together and buy a full season pass and split the games do all five count at STH and get the benefits (fan meet and greets) or does only one of them get all the benefits?
One entry per season ticket for those events. Not sure how they allocate the partials for those events. But for whole season numbers (what they report as the number of season ticket holders), they count how many seats are sold for the full 41 games as part of the packages...so if they sell 7000 full ST, 1000 20game packs and 2100 10game packs, the total would be 8000 season tickets sold....even though some of the games will have more STH in the seats.
4. If an arena is funded through "public dollars"...why aren't a certain percentage of seats set aside as a lottery for the taxed population to attend for free? Seriously...this one actually kinda bothers me. Tax payers not interested in sports pay for sports and those that do like them still pay through the nose to actually go, park, get a hot-dog and a soda. WTF. At some point that has to stop right? Especially when "true fans" continuously call for teams to re-locate after a region has made a significant investment via tax-breaks or direct funding.
Good question. The conventional argument is that the city as a whole receives benefits to the economy, more sales tax, tourism, etc. But studies have shown that it is not generally the case. Some do...Coors field revamped LoDo from what I remember of that area as a kid....but how much economic benefit, I dunno. But I like the idea of raffling a number of tickets to those that would not otherwise be able to afford them. The fans that can afford, likely already attend at least some. Tax payers that do not attend by choice, likely would not even if free (some would, and might be a way to grow the game), but to me the biggest benefit would be to help those that love the game, but never have the chance to attend due to economics.
And "true fans" of a team never ask for a team to relocate...at least not their own team unless it is closer to them. You get those yahoos that want other peoples teams to relocate because "not a hockey market" or "city B deserves a team more." But they invariably forget that ANY team will have a number of fans wherever they are. Put a team in Tijuana, and it would have fans after a while....and those fans would be devastated if they moved. But sometimes it does not make business sense to keep a team in a certain location (hence the Avs vice Nords).
5. It's 2:45am...am I really interested in this or just posting because I'm drunk?
Its 12:02am and I am answering, but I am sober
Yep