Niagara Icedogs 2024-25 Season, Part I

[frontsfan67]

I think Niagara is unique. If you ask people here if we have an NFL team, they will tell you we do and they are the Bills. From St. Catharines the stadium is an hour away. From Niagara Falls it’s even closer. When Covid hit and there were issues crossing the border, the Bills said they had 8000 Canadian season ticket holders. Most are probably from Niagara. Personally I am not a football fan but a lot of people in Niagara are.

I know fronts season ticket holders that would rather watch football rather than go to the fronts games. If the season ticket holders are like this imagine the casual fans. Our Sunday attendance has always sucked.

Surprised yours is so good. Good for you guys.

 

[Sam14]

Guess we'll have to rely on the reported attendance, which will be closer to actual, what with the massive decline of STH. For the Sunday, NFL games we'll have to rely on the subjective bums in seats equation to see how many attendees are dressed like empty seats.

Oct 13, 2023. Announced attendance was: 2700 (as a point of reference that would be the arena half full)

Actual Attendance was: approximately 900-1000

A have several picture examples of these attendance figure discrepancy of various games throughout the season. There were a few that matched a little more closely, but never a game that represented the announced attendance. Most games I attended live, the announced and the actual where not close. What was your experience with that?

 

[WorkHardEveryShift]

Last year on Sundays

Sunday March 17 - 4538
Sunday Feb 18 - 4856
Sunday Feb 4 - 5021
Sunday Jan 7 - 3872
Sunday Dec 31 - 4624
Sunday Dec 3 - 4384

Average Sunday attendance - 4549

Average attendance for entire season - 3878

Hope I didn't make a mistake with the data but that is a pretty compelling argument to increase Sunday home games.

You can't argue with numbers. But people will. Clearly it's drawing families who probably don't care about the NFL. Not everyone does. And if you're getting the kids out, hopefully it's growing the game

 

[Dogs Enthusiast]

It has always been like that Sam14.. The attendance figure is sold tickets and not people in the building.

 

[knowescape]

Oct 13, 2023. Announced attendance was: 2700
Actual Attendance was: approximately 900-1000

A have several picture examples of these attendance figure discrepancy of various games throughout the season. There were a few that matched a little more closely, but never a game that represented the announced attendance. Most games I attended live, the announced and the actual where not close. What was your experience with that?

View attachment 912390

Last year was the start of the massive STH exodus. Even though many had already paid for their seats and were counted in the "attendance" numbers, there was plenty of absenteeism. Most of my row was STH and many times it was empty.

Without the STH numbers, it is walk-ins, pre-sales and value-packs which will fluctuate significantly. I've speculated there are only 1,500 STH left, at best. That translates to an average attendance in the 2,000's.

Great picture, would love to see a collage of stand photos 30 minutes into each game. Look for the concessions to be consolidated into one or two locations.

 

[Sam14]

You can't argue with numbers. But people will. Clearly it's drawing families who probably don't care about the NFL. Not everyone does. And if you're getting the kids out, hopefully it's growing the game

Just clarify no one is arguing, we are discussing numbers because IceDogs do not have a complete set of Sunday numbers during the NFL season to compare.

What we do know is that Saturday night in Niagara has traditionally draws exceptionally well. DD has flipped IceDogs primarily game day from Saturday to Sunday.

Now if Sunday, throughout the NFL season, proves to draw better (actual fans) than the past history of Saturday nights, then we’ll call that a good move, if not it will be a bad move. That’s really the discussion here.

It has always been like that Sam14.. The attendance figure is sold tickets and not people in the building.

DE I trust you to give us an actual fans in seats estimate on Sunday . I’m recording the game. I won’t be watching until Monday morning

 

[Dogs Enthusiast]

Great picture, would love to see a collage of stand photos 30 minutes into each game. Look for the concessions to be consolidated into one or two locations.

For a handful of games last season they actually did close a couple of concession stands.

My prediction, last years attendance will be very close to this years attendance. Which is poor by our standards. Bet we get 2 sell outs this year.

Sam14:
DE I trust you to give us an actual fans in seats estimate on Sunday . I’m recording the game. I won’t be watching until Monday morning

I will report at what I think the actual attendance looks like. I do agree there was 5 or 6 games last year that looked like around a 1000 people. Back in the glory years I remember announced sell-outs that was only 3/4 full. I used to joke the 50/50 winning amount was the actual attendance.