Ken Warren
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, October 31, 2002
As the co-founder of the 19,000-member National Hockey League Fans' Association, Jim Boone has a finger on the pulse of the concerns affecting average ticket-buying hockey fans.
While Boone sympathizes with the Ottawa Senators' season-ticket plight, he says it's difficult for fans to afford and commit to the costly packages.
He says there's only so much passion and excitement that can be generated for games in the first half of the NHL season. When the opponents are teams such as the Phoenix Coyotes, Florida Panthers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Tampa Bay Lightning and Nashville Predators -- teams with few household names and no historical rivalry with the Senators -- it's a hard sell.
An Oct. 15 game at the Corel Centre against the Phoenix Coyotes drew only 11,862 paying customers (1,954 got in for free), and, another game last week against last season's Eastern Conference champion Carolina Hurricanes attracted 12,928 paying fans (1,919 freebies).
"It is expensive and I think the biggest hurdle they face is probably that there are too many games," says Boone. "People look at the situation and they decide they can wait until the new year to buy tickets."
Boone, who owns a home-based small business, says he regularly buys tickets and rewards his best clients with them, but visits by Original Six teams such as the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings stir the emotions more.
"The league is a lot more watered down now than when we were kids," says fan Brian Ritchie. "A lot of the teams don't have marquee draws. Maybe half the teams have big draws."
Brian Card, president of the Corporate Research Group, agrees that there are too many games and too many lousy teams.
Given the Senators relatively low season-ticket base of just more than 8,366, he says many companies are taking advantage of the situation, attending only games with the best visiting teams and ignoring the league's weak sisters.
"The businesses know they can pick and choose, to see the games they want to see," Card says. "I would rather have eight tickets for the top six games than two tickets for all 41 games."
That doesn't surprise the Senators, who introduced two-tiered pricing for game-day tickets this season.
Games featuring the Maple Leafs and Red Wings are priced 20 per cent higher than games for most other teams, which are the same as they were for all matches in the 2001-02 season.
When the Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche play in Ottawa, game-day tickets will be 10 per cent higher than normal.
The Vancouver Canucks also introduced a similar pricing plan for the 2002-03 season.
However, the Senators are hoping to raise sales of tickets featuring lesser opponents.
Fans buying tickets to see the Maple Leafs and Red Wings, for instance, can receive their tickets at the normal game day price, providing they buy tickets to two additional second-tier games. Fans buying tickets to see the Canadiens and Avalanche can chop the additional price by buying tickets to one additional second-tier game.
But the problem remains: Too many unattractive games to sell.
"To me, the season is way too long and they've got to get rid of the exhibition games, or play the exhibition games at neutral sites," says Boone. "It's not just in Ottawa, it's everywhere. (Mario) Lemieux can't even sell out now."
© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
|
