Taking a look at NHL ticket prices
So I think we’ve all complained at one point in time or another about expensive tickets to go see an NHL game, especially after the lockout in 2004-2005. Well, I guess it could be worse than being a Red Wings’ fan. This is a longer post, but I think it’s a very interesting topic and I’m hoping to hear from you guys what your thoughts are.
This post looks at: (1) the new cost of NJ Devils’ ticket prices, (2) how will this affect their already poor attendance?, and (3) should Wings fans complain less about ticket prices?
Take a look…
Paul @ Kukla’s Korner linked to a very interesting article about the NJ Devils’ ticket prices for next season. They are planning on moving to the new Prudential Center and with that move comes an increase in ticket prices. For prime lower bowl seats, the prices are increasing by 114%.
Yep this year at the Continental Airlines Arena, fans in the second row of the lower bowl pay $70 a game (which comes to $2,870 a season). Next year, the same seats will cost $150 per game or $6,150 in a season. The 2000 fans that occupy these premium seats will get a new luxury in the new ice rink: all you can eat buffets, which are included in the ticket price. The two arena restaurants will have sushi stations, prime rib, and “other food options.” Admittedly, it’s not like they are giving away hot dogs and pizza, it does sound like these fans will get high quality food.
Still, that’s a lot of money for hockey tickets especially when those prices don’t factor in the playoff tickets, which typically cost more than the regular season tickets. I think they’ll see a lot of fans giving up these tickets because they can’t afford them while they may see more corporations picking up these tickets.
Not only is it bad enough that Devils’ fans have to pay more than double this year’s ticket price for their premium seats, they only have about a week to decide if they want to keep them.
“We knew it was going to go up,” said Gary Mouridy of Readington, who has been a season-ticket holder since 2001. “We didn’t expect it to double.” … Mouridy doesn’t have much time to decide whether to pay the extra amount. He received the notice from the team last weekend. The Devils want to know his intentions by tomorrow.
What I thought was also interesting is that the second level ticket prices are also increasing by up to 50%. Currently, the best second bowl seats cost $58. At the new Prudential Center, the same seats will cost you $88. To give you an idea of how much money that is, the best seats at the Joe are $85 at face value.
Fortunately, fans will be able to purchase $10-20 tickets for the nosebleeds so you can still go to the game at a reasonable price. I’ve never been to CAA, but apparently the upper bowl seats suck when it comes to viewing the action on the ice. The new Prudential Center will apparently give a much better view for fans high up so that’s an improvement!
Marc Ganis, a leading stadium consultant, said new arenas often improve the experience for the average fan more than they do for the high-end customer.
“If you’re already on the glass and in a club seat, your experience doesn’t change that much,” Ganis said. “But common fans get better sightlines, more bathrooms, better food and wider concourses. The great irony is everyone says these buildings are for the fat cats, but the average fans really get their money’s worth.”
I skimmed the forum at the same website this article came from and it seemed fan opinions were mixed. Many were just excited to be going to a new arena and only plan on making it to 10 games or less per season so the increase in ticket prices doesn’t hit them as hard. Others struggled to see how this would be a good move considering NJ and New York City have like a bazillion teams in such a small area. Are people really willing to spend that much money to go to NJ when they could watch another sports team at a cheaper price? Obviously, corporations will be able to afford these seats, but are they going to pick NJ over NYC?
Are there any NJ Devils’ fans out there who read this blog? What are your thoughts on the increased ticket prices?
Fan Cost Index
TeamMarketing.com has created a fan cost index for each of the four major leagues and compares teams within each league. The fan cost index (FCI) basically creates the average price it costs a family of four to get four tickets (average ticket price), four small soft drinks, four hot dogs, two small beers, two adult-sized baseball caps, parking, and two game programs. Yes, I realize that season ticket holders don’t buy all that at every game, but I think it creates a good way to compare the cost of NHL games by team.
Where do the Devils stand in the 2006-2007 season? NJ fans pay the third highest FCI (only behind Montreal and Boston) in the NHL with the FCI of $327.66. Their FCI increased by 5.8% from last season when it was only at $309.68 (#1 FCI in the league at that time).
Maybe you are thinking that their FCI should be higher because of their dominant play over the past decade. Well, let’s take a look at the Detroit Red Wings’ FCI over the past two years. This season, a family of four will pay $261.51 per game, which is 20.19% less than NJ fans pay. The Wings’ FCI is just above the league average, which is $258.08 this season. Detroit’s FCI did not change from the 2005-2006 season to this year’s.
I also found it interesting that both the New Jersey Nets and Detroit Pistons had lower FCI than their NHL counterparts in the same city.
Will this move hurt the Devils’ already poor attendance?
According to ESPN.com’s attendance spreadsheet for the 2006-2007 season, the Devils are 26th in the league for attendance. They are currently averaging 13,978 per game, which makes CAA only 73.4% full.
I could be wrong, but the hundreds of $10 or $20 tickets in the new arena may boost attendance in that sense especially since the Prudential Center will apparently be a much easier place to access than the CAA and also provide a better view from the upper bowl.
However, if there are only four other teams in the league with worse attendance and the Devils are actually a good team, will these increased ticket prices make poor attendance an even bigger issue?
Only time will tell.
StubHub.com ticket prices
Eric McErlain at Off Wing Opinion showed us the top NHL average ticket prices on StubHub.com. The NJ Devils’ tickets came in at #6 at $95 apiece. The Red Wings’ average ticket price was $93 putting them at #7. Eric wondered why the Devils were so high up especially with the poor attendance.
But what’s up with the New Jersey Devils coming in at #6? The team has had a horrible time drawing for years, which may very well indicate that there is a lively ticket resale market for the best seats while the less expensive seats might go unsold.
One of his readers wrote in and suggested that StubHub prices were so high for Devils’ tickets because a lot of Rangers, Islanders, and Flyers’ fans buy their road game tickets on StubHub. I don’t really know if that is the case, but it does seem reasonable.
I actually just went to Ticketmaster and searched for two tickets for the Devils’ home game on March 30th to see if you can easily get tickets to those games (I’m thinking about people wanting road game tickets). The best available were for two seats in the lower bowl (row 25) at $90 apiece. So I don’t know if the StubHub explanation is the correct one, but I don’t have any other ideas.
How should this make Wings’ fans feel?
I guess after reading all that, I’m a bit more appreciative of the Wings maintaining ticket prices (both in the regular season and for playoffs). Yes, the tickets do seem expensive, but it could be a lot worse! I just wonder if our ticket prices will go up by a ton when we get a new arena. The Joe is one of the older arenas in the NHL so that may help account for our “lower” ticket prices.
The ESPN spreadsheet has the Wings at No. 2 in the league in terms of attendance averaging 20,066 per game (100% full). Essentially, Wings’ fans pay less money for a team equally as good as the Devils’ and there are more competition for these seats. If any team could afford to raise ticket prices, it’d be the Wings because the demand fits (yes, I know there are a ton of empty seats at the Joe, but people can’t buy them because they are sold out).
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8 Responses to “Taking a look at NHL ticket prices”
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March 8th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
[…] Original post by Christy Hammond and plugin by Elliott Back […]
March 8th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
[…] Original post by Christy Hammond […]
March 8th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
[…] Original post by Christy Hammond […]
March 9th, 2007 at 12:04 am
[…] Behind the Jersey takes a look at NHL Ticket Prices, noting that even the all you can eat buffets that are included in the lower bowl NJ Devils tickets next year won’t make up for the 114% increase in prices. […]
March 10th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Great…just what America needs, bigger people!!!
Do you really want to sit beside someone who’s just eaten at an all-you-can-eat buffet? Let’s hope they have good ventilation!
March 10th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
The ticket price increase was expected….in order to make all the upgrades needed…they had to hike ticket prices. Being way out in southern California now…I’m probably only going to be able to make it to a couple games next season. Yes it will affect people…but corporations are going to eat this up and maybe that extra money will lead to better marketing at last which is what Devils fans have been dying to see.
March 14th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Along with being a hockey writer, I’m an admitted Devils fan, so I thought I’d share some comments on your article as per your request.
You made this comment in the piece: “Obviously, corporations will be able to afford these seats, but are they going to pick NJ over NYC?â€
In a word, yes. The Devils have been tailoring this arena to corporate clients in an unprecedented way. They’ve aggressively courted their new neighbors in Newark, and sold the arena as a nightlife experience rather than just a venue for a hockey game.
I remember seeing the first images of the luxury boxes at The Rock, and I’m still picking my jaw off the ground — they’re absolutely stunning. Modern, hip…they make the current models at the CAA look like a motel room by comparison. The amenities and perks the Devils have cooked up for big-ticket fans is impressive; the fact that this is the first time the team will be playing in an actual city — rather than a swamp — should attract more corporate clients for the lower bowl than in the past.
If you haven\’t, check out this video for the new building:
http://www.newjerseydevils.com/njd/prucenter/video.php#
The Devils have never, ever, ever been this aggressive in their marketing.
As you noted, the nightmare scenario for the Devils and their fans is to move to the new building and not increase attendance. I’m impressed they’ll be offering $10-20 tickets, which is a nice start. But where this team has failed time and time again is simply getting bodies inside the building, and keeping them coming back. This new arena demands aggressive ticket plans and ticket sales that will have some of the fans who haven’t been going to games coming to the new building. And if the game-going experience is as stellar
as it’s being sold to be — hell, the sightlines and acoustics alone would sell me — then some of these fans who are “sampling†the Devils will come back for more. The old building wasn’t exactly a selling point for the newbies.
The Devils finally began reducing their tickets for some poorly-attended games this season, and it’s helped keep the gate numbers somewhat respectable. But it’s about five years too late.
Again, your article was a very good and fair look at how much we Devils fans have to pony up to see a team in an ancient building in the middle of a swamp. Combine that with nearly zero mass transit to that arena; parking fees that have grown steadily each season; zero nightlife within walking distance of the arena; two decades of short-sighted marketing from the team; competition from over a dozen other professional and minor league teams in the area that offer more value for their ticket prices; and having to sell a style of play that the media consistently claims is slowly killing the sport, and
you can see why the Devils have their attendance struggles.
Many of those problems will be solved, in theory, by the new building.
Well, save for that last one — I think as long as No. 30 is between the pipes, the Devils are quite content stay on the defense.
April 27th, 2007 at 9:23 am
[…] Rosenberg blames the steep price of tickets, something Christy over at Behind the Jersey wrote about. The Red Wings organization simply charged too much for tickets to the game. Between the second and third periods, I went online to find tickets to Game 2. Just my luck: I could get 12 seats together in Section 225B. Unfortunately, I can’t possibly find 11 friends who want to spend $90 a pop to sit in the corner of the upper level (and pay a $5.75 “convenience charge” for the privilege). […]