WPG & QC Attendance vs. PHX & ATL Attendance

[Douggy-D]

I notice that a lot of Joke and Thrasher fans tried pointing out over the last couple of years that their teams had better attendance than the Jets (And sometimes Nordiques). One thing they forget is that 1) Their teams give away thousands of free tickets each game. 2) The League Average was much lower when the Jets and Nordiques were in Existence. Let's analyze.

Mikecubs from Jetsowner posted the Jets & Nordiques Attendance figures in comparison to the League Average over there, so I'm going to use that. Mikecubs, if you are reading this please give me the link to where you found those figures.

So here we go:

Here is the entire Jets Attendance history. They were close to league average most years. The only crappy year was the last year. For the other 16 years attendance was steady. The 1st 5 years were above league average the rest a little below but not bad. Overall Winnipeg was 591 people away from being league average counting all 17 years vs the NHL average. 4.35% off the league average.

Here is the entire Jets NHL Attendance history. They were close to league average most years. The only crappy year was the last year. For the other 16 years attendance was steady. The 1st 5 years were above league average the rest a little below but not bad. Overall Winnipeg was 591 people away from being league average counting all 17 years vs the NHL average. 4.35% off the league average.

Winnipeg League Ave
13,284 12,540
13,265 10,726
13,382 10,710
12,889 11,020
12,400 11,359
12,994 13,849
13,620 13,834
13,594 14,114
12,681 14,425
12,816 14,783
13,106 14,975
12,931 14,695
12,931 14,510
13,550 14,045
13,297 14,748
13,013 14,797
11,316 15,986

13,004 13,595 Totals


Now for Quebec, in 10 of the 16 years in the league they were ABOVE league average in attendance!! The 1st year they were below league average attendance by 14.34%. Other than that the worse they did in a year was less than 6% off. Some years they were 30-40% OVER the league average!!!!!

Nordiques League Ave
10,742 12,540
12,227 10,726
15,120 10,710
15,058 11,020
14,986 11,359
14,868 13,849
14,784 13,834
14,832 14,114
14,943 14,425
14,545 14,783
15,080 14,975
14,188 14,695
13,666 14,510
14,981 14,045
14,614 14,748
14,395 14,797

14,314 13,446 Totals

Overall the Nordiques were 6.46% over the league average in attendance in the 16 years they were in the league with an average of 869 people more per game than league average. Bring back the Nordiques.


Now for Phoenix, in not one of their 14 years of existence have they been above the League Average.

Phoenix League Ave
15,604 16,548
15,405 16,195
15,548 16,311
14,991 16,359
14,224 16,549
13,161 16,486
13,229 16,591
15,469 16,534
15,582 16,955
14,988 16,486
14,820 17,309
14,875 17,475
11,989 17,072
12,188 17,122

14,434 16,714 Totals

Overall, Phoenix was 13.6% below the League Average. Let's not forget the fact that it was revealed in Court documents that Phoenix only really averaged about 12,000 since moving there and 11,000 since the lockout. They also only averaged about 12,000 in Paid attendance. Unfortunately, with all of the teams that inflated their attendance with giveaways we may never know the League Average for those numbers, so I'm not going to compare them. I think it should be apparent that Winnipeg and Quebec are the superior markets here.

Now for Atlanta. If mikecubs could fish up the Atlanta Flames attendance figures compared to the League Average during that time we could make a comparison of them too.

Atlanta League Ave
17,206 16,359
15,263 16,549
13,368 16,486
13,476 16,591
15,121 16,534
15,550 16,955
16,229 16,486
15,824 17,309
14,626 17,475
13,607 17,072
13,469 17,122

14,885 16,813 Totals

Overall, the Thrashers were 11.53% lower than the League Average. The first year they were above it, the next few years it was pretty bad. It got better in the mid 2000's, but it was very bad the last few years. And let's not forget, their announced crowds were thousands higher than the real ones, just the same as the Coyotes.

I think if you took the time to read the post you will realize that everything those fans say about Winnipeg is complete hogwash and isn't anything to take seriously.

[mikecubs]

Yep i'm reading this. Here is where i found that from. It was on HF boards. A guy had a word data base of the NHL attendance since 1960-1961 until the 2006-2007 season. I checked some of the later data and it was accurate so i assume the whole thing is. Its hard to find any NHL attendance on the net before the 1989-1990 season.
hfboards.com/showpost.php?p=10422443&postcount=89

If your not a member of HF boards you can't download the word file. I'll e-mail it to you if you want. You got to do some copy and pasting to make a chart like i did.

[mikecubs]

Here is the Atlanta Flames attendance starting in 1972-1973
Flames League average
12,516 13,743
14,162 13,847
13,444 13,224
11,963 12,644
12,259 11,894
10,501 11,842
11,441 11,408
10,024 12,540

12,039 12,643 total

604 total seats below league average. 4.78% below league average. The Omni Arena had a capacity of 15,191. In reality Winnipeg arena had a capacity of 13,000. 2,000 seats were completely obstructed crappy seats. So you have to look at seating capacity % filled counting non obstructed seats.

[mikecubs]

Here is what i also wrote regarding % of seats filled to capacity

Here is the percent capacity of Winnipeg Arena seats sold for the jets by year starting with the 1st year in the NHL. Then i figured out the percent capacity of non obstructed seats filled. I figured 13,000 seats at Winnipeg Arena were non obstructed seats. One flaw in this is by having the obstructed seats they did sell some which made up for the times some unobstructed seats weren't sold. However this method is close to showing how many seats would have been sold percent wise with no obstructions.

The 1st category is the % capacity overall the 2nd is the non obstructed seats that were filled.

86.30% 102.18%
86.18% 102.04%
86.94% 102.94%
83.73% 99.15%
80.56% 95.38%
84.41% 99.95%
88.48% 104.77%
88.31% 104.57%
82.38% 97.55%
83.26% 98.58%
85.14% 100.82%
84.01% 99.47%
84.01% 99.47%
88.03% 104.23%
86.38% 102.28%
84.54% 100.10%
73.51% 87.05%

84.48% 100% Totals

As you can see in the Jets 17 years in the league on average they sold out 100% of the non obstructed seats. Oddly enough when the Jets returned to Winnipeg they sold out 100% of the seats since they were all non obstructed. No one should have been suprised when the Jets sold out in 2 minutes.

Here is the % capacity of seats filled at each game at the Colisee starting with the 1979-80 season.

70.78%
80.57%
99.63%
99.22%
98.75%
97.97%
97.42%
97.73%
98.46%
95.84%
99.37%
93.49%
90.05%
98.72%
96.30%
94.85%

94.32% Overall

One note, I figured the capacity of the Colisee was 15,176 every year. For Winnipeg Arena i figured the overall capacity to be 15,393. If they were smaller starting out then all my percentages are wrong for the capacities.

[mikecubs]

Here is where Winnipeg and Quebec City had a big edge. Here is the Atlanta Flames overall Percent of seats sold by year

82.39%
93.23%
88.50%
78.75%
80.70%
69.13%
75.31%
65.99%
79.25% TOTAL

Something else to throw at those bonehead Joke and Thrasher fans faces is the Forbes franchise value list besides attendance.

www.forbes.com/lists/2010/31/hockey-valuations-10_rank.html

The Jokes were last in franchise value,last in operating income and 2nd to last in revenue. The Thrashers were 2nd to last in franchise value, 2nd to last in operating income and 3rd to last in revenue. The Islanders were last in revenue due to Nassau Colieum being a dump. Ask the Thrasher/Joke fans if they would like to bet that the franchise values and revenue and operating income improve big time in Winnipeg in future Forbes franchise value list.

They will probably say forbes is making things up but they are accurate. A few years ago in baseball the Florida Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates financials were leaked to the press and guess what? They matched Forbes numbers almost completely.

2thinkgood.com/2010/08/23/florida-marlins-profitable-as-charged/
www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=13427
deadspin.com/5615096/mlb-confidential-the-financial-documents-baseball-doesnt-want-you-to-see-part-1
espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/5050/does-revenue-sharing-work

[NHLWinnipeg]

You are wasting your time with bogus data.

The real attendance figures for the Coyotes for all years in PHX up until the bankruptcy were about 12,000 fans per game -- that's paid AND actual attendance. This data was revealed in the bankruptcy proceedings. It was posted at jetsowner.com in a sticky but it is no longer there. I will see if I can find the document which was submitted to the court at some point.

Bottom line is announced attendance numbers for these newer teams are padded and bogus. Some teams have been padding attendance figures by as much as 4,000 per game. That's right. Many teams have been giving away 1000s of tickets for free each game and counting that as attendance regardless if anyone with the free ticket actually shows up at the game! This was shown in the leaked data published by the Globe & Mail below. You can see that in 2005-06 the Coyotes gave away 3,435 free tickets per game (and counted that as attendance regardless if anyone showed up).

[NHLWinnipeg]

Here are the actual turnstile and paid, not "announced," attendance figures for the Phoenix Coyotes according to documents submitted to the bankruptcy court:

[jetsorbust]

Yup... we can look at all the figures we want but the pictures inside Phoenix / Atlanta never lied... those were some empty barns anytime they played a non-Canadian team or Detroit.

Funny how this all gets so complicated, free tickets, padded attendance, arena recovery fees paid out for tickets given away when no one even showed up... becomes hard to account for and to track/manage financially.

Then you just put a team in a hockey hotbed, sell every ticket for market value and own your own building and it seems so easy!

[Douggy-D]

Guys, I know that the attendance figures in Atlanta and Phoenix and in most of the other sunbelt markets are made up. It's just that you can't compare those figures to what the NHL League Average would be if they only counted paid and actual attendance. Those empty seats in Atlanta usually aren't paid for either. In Detroit the Red Wings' attendance is higher than the real numbers but at least the empty seats there are paid for and they charge real NHL Prices.

[Guardian]

All I know is when I watched the Flames play in Atlanta or Phoenix it was like a home game when they scored!

[Ric O.]

Yeah, when people look at attendance rankings this year they're going to see Winnipeg near the bottom...would be in 24th based on 2010/2011 numbers. Another meaningless stat since the only one that really matters is the actual gate/ancillary revenue per game.

Funny, looking at the ESPN attendance stats, they're already tagging us with Atlanta's crappy attendance!
espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

[Douggy-D]

Aug 12, 2011 21:59:11 GMT -6 Ric O. said:

Yeah, when people look at attendance rankings this year they're going to see Winnipeg near the bottom...would be in 24th based on 2010/2011 numbers. Another meaningless stat since the only one that really matters is the actual gate/ancillary revenue per game.

Funny, looking at the ESPN attendance stats, they're already tagging us with Atlanta's crappy attendance!
espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

They always do that when a team moves. If you go to the attendance for the NBA and you go back a few years you will still see the OKC Thunder instead of the Sonics. Same for the MLB and the Nationals/Expos.

[jetsnordiquesfan]

For Jets/Nordiques stats you guys have to keep in mind that:

1) Both arenas had obstructed-view seats (More in Winnipeg if I remember. In QC all 41 corporate boxes and the last 8 rows of the eastern/western blues were obstructed-view).

2) Quebec Colisée seating capacity until December 1980 was only 10,006. This is why the attendance for the 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons are so low. After the renovations the capacity was 15,399 until the 2007 ones.

[mrconfusion87]

Aug 12, 2011 21:59:11 GMT -6 Ric O. said:

Yeah, when people look at attendance rankings this year they're going to see Winnipeg near the bottom...would be in 24th based on 2010/2011 numbers. Another meaningless stat since the only one that really matters is the actual gate/ancillary revenue per game.

Funny, looking at the ESPN attendance stats, they're already tagging us with Atlanta's crappy attendance!
espn.go.com/nhl/attendance

True and don't forget the percentage of seats filled up each game stats! For me that and the per-game revenue are the things that should matter most!

[Douggy-D]

Aug 24, 2011 11:59:21 GMT -6 @jetsnordiquesfan said:

For Jets/Nordiques stats you guys have to keep in mind that:

1) Both arenas had obstructed-view seats (More in Winnipeg if I remember. In QC all 41 corporate boxes and the last 8 rows of the eastern/western blues were obstructed-view).

2) Quebec Colisée seating capacity until December 1980 was only 10,006. This is why the attendance for the 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasons are so low. After the renovations the capacity was 15,399 until the 2007 ones.

No, the capacity was actually 15,750 until the 2007 renovations. And I'm pretty sure the Colisee doesn't have any Luxury boxes, or at least didn't while the Nordiques were there.