Ticket/Attendance Discussion: The Sequel

[jetsmooseice]

That’s fair - I don’t live there so I cannot comment on that.

But a lot of the new immigrant demographics moving to Winnipeg at least, it will take a generation for them to latch on to the game. Those same demographics are big supporters of nhl teams in other markets especially in western Canada

It will happen, but it won't be overnight. I look at my kids' school which is extremely ethnically diverse, lots of immigrant kids and children of immigrants go there. The parents I talk to have zero interest in North American sports as a fan. But some of the kids do - a few of them play hockey, football, etc. and take an interest in the local teams. I'm sure some of them will grow up to be big Jets fans.

But the point is valid, people moving to Winnipeg largely aren't York or University of Ottawa graduates that are lifelong NHL fans. They're coming from the Philippines, Punjab or Pimicikamak and either don't care or don't have the means to buy Jets tickets. Which is fine, they have their own things going on. But their kids might become fans and ticket buyers, some day.

 

[wpg1]

12918 against the Avs, first place team playing a rival, kinda sad

From the looks of early on this season, it appears weekday crowds will be around 13k and weekends will bump that up. Tickets for Dallas tomorrow look almost sold out.

I'm going to assume like last season, attendance will continue to grow around the holidays and into the new year. Silver lining is we are significantly better than this time last year, and it looks like much of the league is below average attendance.

 

[jetsfan15]

From the looks of early on this season, it appears weekday crowds will be around 13k and weekends will bump that up. Tickets for Dallas tomorrow look almost sold out.

I'm going to assume like last season, attendance will continue to grow around the holidays and into the new year. Silver lining is we are significantly better than this time last year, and it looks like much of the league is below average attendance.

Yeah, my hope is it’ll get better during holiday season-onward. I went to a couple jets games this year already, but interestingly the games that I’ll be attending with my more extended group of friends that I often attend games with will be in the new year. We have 5 games lined up in January-March that we bought tickets to. For November, our outing is tomorrow for the football game. I wonder if there are approx 33k Winnipeg sports fans whose sport outing for the month is the football game (otherwise maybe they’d be buying a (or an additional, if already attending jets games) jets ticket for a game this month) but will quickly turn to jets games to fill those 2,000 seats per game once this upcoming weekend is done. Who knows. Based on last season, that is indeed what happened (whether that’s actually related to the Bombers’ playoff game, I don’t know though… just speculating).

 

[civic204]

Another huge change from the 3? seasons is that ST members can sell their seats on Ticketmaster below walk up prices. Anyone who wants is walkup ticket is likely buying from a ST member.

As a STM, I can buy discounted seats and flip them on TM and profit. I discovered this by accident when I couldn't attend a game. Does TN discourage this? Do they care? Is it just a perk of being a STM?

 

[voyageur]

I've heard from several people that the area around the arena has become much more sketchy in the past few years. I've lived in Calgary since 2022 and I have only been to I think 2 games in Winnipeg since moving here? Both games, I took the bus to the arena and basically needed to walk about 30 feet to the doors so I never noticed this.

Is that a "thing"?

The last game I went to I parked on the North side of the rink, where parking is free, and walked there and walked back. I am a mean enough looking guy that nobody gives me trouble, maybe asks for a smoke. I carriy a hockey puck for protection. I think there are some people who are intimidated by poor or in general native people, because they haven't seen them enough. Me I was talking to people about the game after outside the Quest Inn on the walk back. Just maybe a perception issue.

 

[MarkWheeler]

All I can speak for is myself, but I used to watch every game nearly religiously, and got to at least a few games a year. It’s over an hour drive one way, so it’s a decent commitment to go to a game for me.
Now I can hardly force myself to watch a game on TV, and can barely remember the last game I went to.
I think it’s a combination of many things.
Mainly I just can’t get any excitement going no matter how good they’re playing because I’d rather not get attached and get my hopes up for them to just collapse in the playoffs in humiliating fashion like they seem to do so often.
Another part of it is True North as an organization being so tone deaf for so long, doing so little to make it affordable, or even fun to attend a game. It’s painfully obvious even on TV how dull the atmosphere in there was the last few seasons. Then Chipman wants to guilt us into feeling like we’re the reason the team has attendance problems. A large part of me just doesn’t think he is the right person to be running this organization, and that just doesn’t make me keen to support the organization unfortunately.
As much as people want to pretend like it’s not, I know for a fact that going downtown is a huge deterrent for a lot of people. Especially rural people coming in from out of town.
That’s just the way it is to me anyways. I just can’t bring myself to get excited about a team rolling through the regular season when they’ve had one good playoff run in their 13 year history. And more often than not play like garbage in the playoffs. Which is a shame, because I really do want to be excited about them.