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Guest E_S_A_D

The Buzz is Gone in Hockeytown (W/ Article)

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That stat you look at ignores the fact that some arenas aren't even that big. % is a far better indicator, which the Wings are 15th in.

I agree % matters but only to an extent. Some of the arenas how 25% more people than others do. For example Montreal's Bell Centre can hold 21,273 people whereas Edmonton's Rexall Place can only hold 16,839 people. That difference of 4,434 people is significant. You could split the difference and The Canadians would only be at 89% capacity (19,056 in attendance) which is still 2,217 fans more than the Oilers at 100%. The % gets severely skewed when you deal with drastically different sized arenas.

I already told you ticket prices in Detroit are relatively low compared to other arenas.

I don't think Illitch is the problem.

E.S.A.D. has never let the facts get in the way of being able to bash some aspect of the current Wings franchise. :) Like you said Doc, Detroit is relatively low in team average. Here are the stats for regular season (I couldn't find playoff stats)

League average in 2008 was $48.72. Detroit's average was $40.51 - 17% BELOW league average.

But don't let that get in the way of bashing the franchise E.S.A.D. :rolleyes:

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umm the Atlanta Braves had issues filling up their brand new ballpark in the late 90s when they were making the playoffs every year. Hell the year they won the World Series they had tickets available for the world series games on the day of the game.

Part of it is the economy, part of it is the fanbase is used to winning. Reducing the price isn't the only surefire answer.

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Guest MrSandMan

Another thing that spoiled my experience was after the game... we followed some crowed downstairs to some underground party, and they bastards wouldn't let us in.

Yeah, guess I don't earn enough income to be allowed into the VIP party, f*uck them. I'll spend my money someplace else from now on.

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I'm going to be in Windsor for Game 2, I checked tickets, and I was floored that Upper Bowl was $100 each! I thought there was a recession going on, and the city of Detroit has a 20% unemployment rate?

I have to admit I just don't feel "it" this year for the playoffs. We've seen 4 Cups, so I feel like I really can't expect anything else right now, or get to upset or down if we don't win this year.

With all the success we've seen with the Wings, my focus is to see the Tigers do well. Let's win a World Series now!

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The problem isn't just 20%+ unemployment rate, but it's also the possibility of being laid off. With layoffs happening every day, people are saving their money just in case they become one of those statistics. I'm sad that I can't be there tonight but it's just not feasible right now. I'll be cheering from home though!

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Unemployment rate, the risk of layoffs, the economy are all a HUGE factor. It's not hard to research the history of the team and arena and the LONG sellout streak they had. It's also not hard to google when all the major layoffs began. There's a pretty direct correlation to that as well. Between not having jobs and the fear of losing jobs...just sayin'

I realize that the Wings tickets are cheaper than a lot of other teams. My point is that they know damn well that they're going to have a damn hard time filling the arena, espcially in the earlier rounds. Like someone else brought up earlier about JLA contacting the Jacket Backers with a discount. Again I realize that Wings tickets are cheaper than a lot of markets, but honestly would it kill them to drop the prices a bit more. Wouldn't they rather make SOME money, put a bigger crowd and motivator in the arena for the team? Guess not. They'd rather just let the seats go empty and lose a lot more than they would if they brought the tickets down by another $15. If tickets were $35 out the door, it would be a lot easier, but even with the promo at $30, after ticketmaster sends you through the ringer, it's still almost $50. Point being, If the Joe say they made $45 a ticket now and had (with the floating stat) 10,000 empty seats. They lose $450,000 potentially. Say they drop tickets down to $30 and move 7,000 of those empty 10k seats. They still lose $240,000 but they make up $210,000.

(and yeah yeah i know that's not how it would be exactly broken down, it's just an example to make a point)

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I'm so sick of this s***. Seriously. The economy is freaking HORRIBLE and still some don't realize that and instead trash us Wings fans and say there is no buzz.

There sure as hell was buzz at the parade when near 1 million showed up to see the Wings.

We love and are crazy about our Wings team. Maybe if we actually made decent money, and ticket prices were lowered we could actually attend the games and the arena would be filled game in and out. I guess some don't remember the Wings consecutive sellout record. Ironically it ended a few seasons ago when the economy was starting to get really bad. How funny!

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You do realize stub hub is just a third party broker site and you can go onto ticketmaster.com and see the number of tickets available.

That's what has been making me laugh. All the tickets on StubHub are already bought. The Wings have sold those tickets and now just some private joe is trying to sell tickets he already owns. Those aren't tickets that haven't been sold. Mike and Co. already got paid for them.

I picked up five tickets to Game 2 for $47 dollars each (adding in extra charges). I'm up in 203B Row 26, yeah, it's up there, but I'm happy with it.

It's sad they are having issues selling tickets, but they are way too expensive. I love hockey above all, but I go to more baseball games because it cost 75% less than hockey.

I hear what you are saying about baseball tickets being cheaper but in part that is because they play basically twice as many games and have twice as many seats (the Tigers have about 40,000 seats and the Wings have about 20,000).

To compare apples to apples (disclaimer* some prices are 07-08 and some are 08-09 it was the best I could find without more work than I want to do :D ):

NHL Average Ticket Price - $48.72 Wings - $40.51

NFL Average Ticket Price - $67.83 Lions - $59.01

That's right it cost more to see a team that didn't win a single game all season than to see the defending Cup champions.

NBA Average Ticket Price - $ 49.47 Pistons - $47.50

This is the most relevant (in my opinion) because they both play 82 games in relatively similar sized arenas.

MLB Average Ticket Price - $25.40 Tigers - $25.28

Looking at that data all teams are below the league average but the only two that are substantially so are the Lions and the Wings. One, the Lions, can't win a game in an entire season and are one of the worst franchises over the last 10 years and have a winning % of .242 since 2001. The other the Wings have the 2nd best win % (.669) in all major sports since 1998 (this is through 2007 but I think we all know what they did in 2008) and the best in the NHL. The Wings don't over price their tickets, even compared to other Detroit teams.

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Guest E_S_A_D

The arena looks pretty full tonight I might add, they said 'sellout'? Awesome, glad to hear the early reports are false!

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Guest E_S_A_D
Fear mongering usually is. ;)

Enjoy the game and yell yourself voiceless.

Keep in mind, the arena is 'soldout', but not filled to capacity.

How? Overspeculative brokers buy large quantities, try to sell on stubhub, and then fail to sell them. Resulting in empty seats.

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Guest DetroitBoy313
The arena looks pretty full tonight I might add, they said 'sellout'? Awesome, glad to hear the early reports are false!

Yeah no s***! I was just thinking the same thing when I saw the headline to this article I said to myself that the Joe is NOT ONLY 50% full.I hate these ******* bulls*** ass articles man,always knocking the Wings! The Joe seems/sounds rocking to me tonight! And don't people get it already! PEOPLE CANNOT AFFORD TICKETS!!!!!! For a city and state that is in the s***s right now the Joe is FULL ENOUGH! f*** the haters GO WINGS!!!!

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I have been a die hard Wings fan for a very long time. I generally get to a couple games a year. I live in Findlay, and to be honest, it is EASIER, CHEAPER and QUICKER in and out to go to Columbus to see the Wings play. I love JLA, but for God's sake, you have to walk a mile to get in, and then up and down the steps. I often go with a friend who does not get around well, and it is just too difficult. The hubby and have invested in Center Ice on the HD. We drink premium beer at home and it is much cheaper. Nevermind the fact that it is 2 hours for me to get to the Joe.....

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20% of 20,000 is 4,000.

Detroit's unemployment rate is 21%. You're talking about ONE out of every FIVE people NOT having a job. Thats a s*** ton of people. Thats basically taking a filled up Joe Louis arena and saying 2,000 of the people here statistically don't have job.

I'd like to see how many teams could get 2,000 unemployed fans to spend $150 on one ticket.

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Put playoff tickets at $9 and you will see a lot of sales. That's what the Pistons do.

Edited by Jwo

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The arena looks pretty full tonight I might add, they said 'sellout'? Awesome, glad to hear the early reports are false!

HaHaHaHaHaHa!!! It was YOUR report and you were bagging all over Mike and Co. for overpricing the ticket. BTW look back at my last post and see the price comparison there is not the disparency that you claimed.

Makes me laugh you were even posting that the arena would be half full in other threads.

Such a tiresome argument.

The Wings will open to a 1/2 full arena tonight, and that's no joke. The spirit is gone. I'm sick of these fighting arguments... All I know is Columbus is not doing well economically either and they have Jared Boll who is 2nd in fighting majors. Notice the difference in arenas when we 'visit' the Jackets.

I hope the Wings win, but I'm going to say Columbus in 6.

Good day, gentlemen.

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That's what has been making me laugh. All the tickets on StubHub are already bought. The Wings have sold those tickets and now just some private joe is trying to sell tickets he already owns. Those aren't tickets that haven't been sold. Mike and Co. already got paid for them.

FM, you should check out what some of these idiots on ebay are trying to sell tickets for. I saw some dude, with three seperate pairs of tickets, all higher upper bowl, trying to sell them for $1K a pair. Give me a f'n break, these moron brokers are so disconnected from reality it's laughable. They'd be lucky to get $20 over face value, let alone $450.

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FM, you should check out what some of these idiots on ebay are trying to sell tickets for. I saw some dude, with three seperate pairs of tickets, all higher upper bowl, trying to sell them for $1K a pair. Give me a f'n break, these moron brokers are so disconnected from reality it's laughable. They'd be lucky to get $20 over face value, let alone $450.

Yeah! :lol: I guess maybe every once in a while some moron buys them but I can't imagine it happening that often.

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This is an unfair statement made by the original poster - forgetting the current economic landscape, there are some serious economic, legal, organization, and political factors at work here that s/he may or may not be aware of.

The current unemployment rate, which is seasonally adjusted stands at little higher than 12.5% in Michigan. Now, lets compare this to the historic rate of unemployment during the 2002 Stanley Cup run - which at the time was 6.4% (seasonally adjusted in the month of April).

Okay - so that's a difference of 6.1% - This is considerable, which begs the question why don't the owners automatically adjust cost of tickets so we can go and enjoy the playoffs?

So, lets target Southeast Michigan and assume 5.3M people, now only 2.8M of those are workers in the area.

We can say that that around 172,200 people didn't have jobs the last time the economy was good and they ran for the Cup (2002). And that number has increased to around 350,000 so almost double!

Well - lets look at the per capita income of the avg. Michigan worker. In 2002, it was around 30,200.00 - in 2008 (closest economic data) it was well over 35,000.00.

So back in 2002 - the total income of the workforce was $79,359,560,000. In 2008-09, despite the massive unemployment the total income taken in was $85,750,000,000. So if you actually look at how much total money Southeast Detroit has earned - it has actually increased by 5.5B dollars.

So, there may be less employed individuals out there, but there is actually still over 2.4M people employed in Metro Michigan and they have over $85B.

So why would the Red Wings lower ticket prices when there are still well over 2.4M people within 40 miles who are working and can afford a below league average ticket price?

This is assuming that besides it all - they actually don't have total control of the price of the tickets. They are contractually bound by the league, the revenue sharing agreement of the NHL owners, and the City of Detroit because they own the Joe Louis Arena.

The way a lease agreement works between a city owned arena and the franchise is that they "rent" the space by agreeing to a percentage of the gate sales. In return, the city will provide a return of the premier or top quality seats that they reserve and the suite sales. The agreement is predetermined in the contract that it cannot go below a certain amount to protect the percentages earned by the city and by the team.

Secondly, every team that comes to visit gets a cut of the revenue generated by the game. This is to provide some form of equality as smaller markets have a more difficult time generating the revenue of a larger market team. That is, when a team like the Columbus Blue Jackets come to Madison Square Garden, they both get a percent agreed upon of the revenue. Again, gate prices are protected and have a bottom level in which they are legally allowed to sell their tickets at based upon the agreement.

Two things to finish this up with - this is for general seating, they are blocks of tickets that they are allowed to do with what they please, that's typically the promotional offers of "Family Pack 4 tickets for $100" for a certain number of seats and games. Or, when you own your facility it allows for greater price variation because then it is an agreement between owners at that point.

They couldn't lower prices that much more even if they wanted to - and they have absolutely no incentive to do so unless they totally want to appease the fan base. But I would imagine that they are already losing hundreds of thousands of dollars as it is per game because their prices have come down on average to try to help the fan base.

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HaHaHaHaHaHa!!! It was YOUR report and you were bagging all over Mike and Co. for overpricing the ticket. BTW look back at my last post and see the price comparison there is not the disparency that you claimed.

Makes me laugh you were even posting that the arena would be half full in other threads.

well played, F-man. bagged him twice on his contradictions.

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Today folks, you will see something unprecedented... a Stanley Cup Team defending their championship to a 50% full arena. Some will say it is the Euro play, others will say it's the economy, and finally the old physicality of the team comes into effect...

I think Illitch and Management really missed the ball on this. You can as of 3 pm GAME DAY still get tickets 12th row from the ice. The problem is, here is what my ticketmaster.com receipt at checkout said for pricing:

Section

Row

Seats

Description

113

13

10 - 11

PRICE LEVEL 2

Executive Level (Lower Bowl) Type2 Full Price Ticket Ticket PriceUS $105.00 x 2 Convenience ChargeUS $6.25 x 2

So you want to take your family or 4 to a Playoff game? Shell out $600 after you pay for parking, gas, etc. Too bad in this economy and this is part of the reason why the rink is empty. Freep is running last minute articles trying / pleading with fans to come out to support them! It might be very embarresing come 7:00 pm when they pan the crowd tonight. Have an extra $1000? Then go out and take your family to a game! ;)

According to Ken and Mickey, this game did end up selling out. Not bad for a state with an unemployment rate of roughly 14%

Also, yeah, the "buzz" may not be exactly as it was in 1997 or 2002, but lets face it, there's always bandwagon fans in all sports in all cities, and I think we saw a lot of them around those two cups.

I think the core of hockey in Detroit still is as passionate as ever and I think given the times we are dealing with now, whether it's a packed arena, a corner bar or your buddies living room, Detroit still breathes Red Wing hockey.

Edited by mmorland

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