GDT: Game 2: Carolina vs Columbus, 7pm

[Chrispy]

My thought is when I see a game this poorly attended, coming off a season with the lowest attendance in the league where the team made $2 million is...

...I see why Greenberg is interested in buying this team. The foundation is in place and he can make money if he can get people back in the building. And he has experience in improving fan experience and getting people to minor league games.

 

[the halleJOKEL]

wait

we have a hockey team???

 

[EchoesoftheEighties]

Also totally off topic but I like the Storm Squad. God damn

 

[Lempo]

Speaking of Aho, our kind of knowledgeable hockey dude went ot of limb today on a radio hockey show and told us that Aho will be top-5 in points this season and top Finnish pointman in the league.

I want to believe.

 

[tarheelhockey]

That seems a bit... aggressive.

 

[MinJaBen]

Speaking of Aho, our kind of knowledgeable hockey dude went ot of limb today on a radio hockey show and told us that Aho will be top-5 in points this season and top Finnish pointman in the league.

I want to believe.

He might want to work on not missing wide open nets in overtime if that is going to come close to true.

 

[GoldiFox]

Speaking of Aho, our kind of knowledgeable hockey dude went ot of limb today on a radio hockey show and told us that Aho will be top-5 in points this season and top Finnish pointman in the league.

I want to believe.

He would be lucky to crack the top-20. As far as best Finnish pointman, why not. He will be in the running with Laine and Barkov.

 

[HisIceness]

wait

we have a hockey team???

I think we in the South refer to this as "stick puck".

 

[Headshot77]

They don’t want your $50, they want $500 from your boss’s boss.

So I wouldn’t hold your breath with regard to any $3 beer, Pack the House type events. That’s not the way the wind is blowing in pro sports these days.

But on the flip side, you NEED to have events like that at times to increase your fan base.

 

[tarheelhockey]

But on the flip side, you NEED to have events like that at times to increase your fan base.

The harsh truth is, they don't really NEED the fan who isn't going to show up and buy a full price ticket and concessions. They need the money.

Look at what Waddell just said in the N&O... "I measure attendance by dollars."

 

[Lempo]

That seems a bit... aggressive.

Oh, I sorry... I wish to believe, please.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Here's why the Canes are doing the right thing.

First, where's the money? The money is in season tickets. Period, full stop. Pretend that walkup traffic doesn't matter, because it literally doesn't in the long term. Your goal is to sell 18000 season tickets.

Why? Because it's the money that renews. In the software business, no one sells boxes of software anymore; you sell subscriptions. The cost of retaining a customer is *way way way* lower than the cost of gaining a net new customer. Thus, literally every decision the org makes comes back to a single question: "how does this affect the current customer base?"

So now, how do you get new season ticket holders?

When the team is losing, YOU DON'T.

When you're in a stretch where the team isn't going to win, and you know the team isn't going to win, you streamline your business. You focus on operations. You make sure that you're providing your season ticket holders the best experience at the best price, and once you know they're happy, you squeeze as much revenue out of them as you can without risking losing them. You cut payroll and focus on rebuilding the org.

And you ride it out until you win.

Why is missing the playoffs so, so, so bad? Simple: because that's when the team has the most leverage. Want a playoff ticket? Buy season tickets for next year. Mrs. Hank and I bought our first 24-game pack to get '06 playoff ticket priority, and we bought our first full season tickets to get '09 playoff ticket priority. Me and Mrs. Hank stuck it out year after year, but others have faded over time.

Get to the playoffs. Use that as the lever to build your base. Survive in the meantime. Period.

 

[Unsustainable]

Hmmm

 

[GoldiFox]

Pretty obvious, but common tactic to take the C out of the play in 3v3. Gets called 50% of the time but the Canes just got a call so he was playing the odds. Regardless of Aho whiffing, scoring, or generating a rebound it was the best play for the defender to make. Aho happened to send a wild puck the other way which guaranteed an easy breakaway.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Hmmm

So watching that play, you can see why Aho missed. Looks like the pass was a little tighter than he had lined up for and when he struck the puck, it was more out in front of him thus he sent it wide. Just goes to show how great some of those one timers are when the work because things pretty much have to go perfectly.

 

[FaulkYouAho]

supposidly skinner had "interference" right before the GTG. i saw the play on twitter and it looked to me skinners was watching the puck, didn't even see sedlac coming and sedlac was skating backwards and they collided. same thing could have been said there. but that tuevo play was a complete and total dirty play. he could have gotten a suspension for that. and we would have had ANOTHER 4-3 chance. and that was one of the few good spots. and sorry i have not gotten the chance to finish my 15-30 with me being busy over the weekends and the end of the 9 weeks being yesterday. i passed english civics & economics and band. meanwhile earth and enviornmental science got harder but i did pull my grade up from a 31 to a 43 in less than 2 weeks

 

[Vagrant]

there's part of me that's curious how this attendance is reflective of the organization taking such a hard line against ticket comping especially once PK got the impression that he was close to getting out of the team. he's no longer interested in growing the base by getting non-paying customers into the building. that's a long term strategy and he's on a short term mindset. it wouldn't shock me to learn that these paid attendance numbers are a reflection closer to what we've been getting on normal Tuesday night non-premium opponents in the last few years than an anomaly with comped tickets and promotions almost totally axed from the equation.

 

[geehaad]

the "compact with the fans" approach.

Trouble is, there's no compact that can get fans to pay to see a losing team

The T key is nowhere near the P key. Just sayin'.

 

[Lempo]

The T key is nowhere near the P key. Just sayin'.

But 'pact' is a 'contract'. I spy chess peeshes being moved around.

 

[Elsker]

Among the defenses deployed in Waddell's 11/18/16 press conference held to defuse moving rumors, the low attendance issue was dismissed as being less relevant to the business model since revenue sharing had increased to the point where gate receipts were now down to 30% of total revenue instead of a high of 70% of revenue at one point.

N&O focused on the moving rumors in their coverage, but Brian LeBlanc included more press conference details in his blog post about that presser.

Tuesday night's game was a tough draw for the monthly entertainment budget, particularly coming off a Saturday night all-hands game and with the state fair looming later this week, plus college football season in full swing.

As for the season ticket base dwindling, some is no doubt to "bad value" concerns during the past few years, but I broke our 14-season STH streak mostly over cost issues. Always viewed it more like a country club membership with access that I might or might not use.

But the cost of that membership literally doubled at every level over the last decade. Ticket price, parking, food, beverages...everything doubled. And, unfortunately, the fan experience deteriorated during this period of price escalation to the point where they priced themselves right out of our interest level to pay that amount to be a member of the club.

Still go occasionally. But not to all 43 (yeah, pre-season, too) games anymore. They killed this golden goose.

 

[geehaad]

First like! I popped Elsker's...uhm, like nodule.

 

[garnetpalmetto]

OK, so with regards to concessions, I spoke to my rep and it seems like @Aho Mitakuye Oyasin had the misfortune of having a FNG running the registers that night. From what I was told, there's absolutely no requirement that a credit/debit card be linked with your STM card or any money be placed on the card or anything like that and whoever told you that was "improperly trained." They're swiping the card to make sure it's a valid STM card and it should automatically apply the discount. From there they're asking if you want to pay for it with any credit that you have on your card (from your renewal) and you can either pay with some/all of it or put it entirely on an actual credit/debit card or pay with cash. So yeah, essentially what @HankAndTheGiantPeesh and I went through was the right way to go about doing it.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

Who knew getting beer at a f***ing hockey game could be so complicated.

 

[garnetpalmetto]

Who knew getting beer at a ****ing hockey game could be so complicated.

I blame those silly Bottoms Up beer taps, myself.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

I blame those silly Bottoms Up beer taps, myself.