But would it really be much different for the team's overall finances at only 95% capacity? Explain please.
It might really make that much of a difference, given the size of the arena. Sellouts are what drive the value of season tickets. You can get away with 95% capacity in a large building because the volume means the organization isn’t completely dependent on selling every single ticket. But in a much smaller building, you’re really relying on selling out in order to drive up pressure and prices.
This is especially true of season ticket sales. In a small building, you absolutely need to sell out your season ticket supply. If that doesn’t happen, supply pressure goes away and seasons ticket holders start bailing. It’s one thing for that to happen when you have 16K season ticket holders and they’re just going to turn around and buy nosebleed seats instead. When the base is more like 10K and there are no nosebleeds, that’s a problem. It’s almost like having a completely empty upper deck and a partially empty lower bowl. There’s a point where the price pressure falls off a cliff and face value prices are suddenly WAY higher than resale value, which causes season ticket holders to flee in droves (especially if the team isn’t a contender, which is the other big reason to hold on to season tickets).
@tantalum said upthread that they reduced the prices of season tickets and still barely increased sales. I hadn’t heard of that before but if accurate, it’s a really bad sign that they are approaching the cliff. Reducing the price of tickets is damn near unheard of in the modern NHL, and the lack of response from the customer base suggests the prices are still beyond the actual market value of the tickets. Which means attendance will continue to drop, or the team needs to cut prices even more which is a non-option.