|
Post by domi on Apr 28, 2014 12:00:24 GMT -6
I don't find the seats at MTS any smaller than most other NHL arena's I've been to. Certainly not smaller than Vancouver's Roger's Arena, or Anaheim's Honda Center.
I think perhaps Tru North could expand a section of seats to make them bigger and charge some sort of premium for those seats, but I don't think Winnipeg is at a disadvantage there.
I agree with being careful for what you wish for concerning more seats. Right now, True North can fill that place on season ticket holders alone. If you throw in another 2,000 crappy-view seats, there will be a few "less-than-capacity" games. If that happens, the news will jump at the chance to say "Winnipeg can't support an NHL team, again".
Heck, there were articles saying that even though every game has been a sell-out so far and there are thousands of people on a waiting list for season tickets!
A new arena will come, many year's down the road, but let's not do it prematurely.
|
|
|
Post by lenny on Apr 28, 2014 19:34:31 GMT -6
^Metro areas in the US don't translate to hockey fans and why they have big arenas. If that was the case Atlanta would have been a huge sustainable market. The same goes for 10 US franchise NHL teams which are losing money. Everyone is in a bigger market than Winnipeg. Want to know who lost the most money last year? Minnesota Wild. Minneapolis/St. Paul population - 3.2 million. It's all about hockey fans. So 740,000 pop in Winnipeg easily translates to a bigger arena not only because of the sufficient resource of population but the fact this is a hockey crazed market. My only comparisons with Edmonton is that we share a common characteristic - hockey crazed fans. We share much more in common to Edmonton than anywhere else. Even if Edmonton is the best comparison in terms of corporate structure and sporting interest of the populace, Edmonton is 60% larger than Winnipeg. So to have as many seats per person as the MTS center has for Winnipeg currently it would equate to a 24000 seat arena. Comparatively to population size the MTS center is larger than the new Edmonton rink. That makes no sense. So by your rational Green Bay Wisconsin metro area of just over 300,000 should not have a stadium for the Packers, Lambeau Field which capacity is over 80,000. It should have a stadium of roughly 20,000. Edmonton, when it's pop. was 650,000 or so in the latter 70's should not have increased its stadium by 2000 to 17,500. It's people who have small minds who think that Winnipeg should just have a good little stadium that couldn't at just over 15,000. And to those worrying about perception of some empty seats, do you how much fretting, Florida, Tampa Bay, Phoenix, etc. etc. have when these types of arenas have not a few hundred but thousands of empty seats. The answer is ZERO.
|
|
|
Post by TheDeuce on Apr 29, 2014 7:25:20 GMT -6
Fretting over empty seats aside, why would TN want more seats at MTS? I've not seen a good argument in favour of more seats.
m.
|
|
|
Post by Tim on Apr 29, 2014 8:41:43 GMT -6
Fretting over empty seats aside, why would TN want more seats at MTS? I've not seen a good argument in favour of more seats. m. More seat??? Hmmm since we are one of the busiest arenas in North America, True North would generate more dollars per event annually because of expansion, (Truce is if they new then what they know now they would have a built a 17,000 minimum seat arena, True North never expected the success this arena has had, and it all came down to it being run right and taken out of government hands) when they build again and they will, lets see if they stick to the 15K supply and demand plan, NAFC! Would also have be nice to have that opportunity as some of us had when we were kids to open up a McDonalds or a 7-11 section were kid could buy discount price seat so they could attend games to see there heroes live, the way it stands today if I was a kid today the way I grew up, I would never been able to afford to attend a game. Hey some people couldn't care less about making it affordable for all, but IMO it sure would be nice for all the kids in this city to get a real chance to see a live NHL game, and more seat would allow this and it would not hurt this teams bottom line one bit, not the way the league is run today. May not be a good argument to you, but I was that kid standing in line for McDonald seats back in the day, ands that's how I was able to go, would be great if other kids got a chance to see Jets 2.0 that way.
|
|
|
Post by Grumpz on Apr 29, 2014 10:47:42 GMT -6
Fretting over empty seats aside, why would TN want more seats at MTS? I've not seen a good argument in favour of more seats. m. You are being sarcastic, right? The average person spends what, $90 per seat, plus concessions? Even if you only added 500 seats, and generate $150 per, you pocket $75,000 per game. In HRR alone, you generate $3,150,000 per season. Or am I missing something?
|
|
|
Post by TheDeuce on Apr 29, 2014 14:54:02 GMT -6
The added seats would be at the cheapest end of the spectrum. $50 per seat, 500 seats = $25,000 per game. On 44 games we're looking at $1.1 million per season. And that's just gross revenue. From that we deduct the added cost of personnel to service those seats, cost of those concessions (the markup is insane but it's not 100%). I suspect adding those 500 seats wouldn't survive a cost benefit analysis since a discounted payback period on the cost of adding those seats would be so out there that it's a non-starter.
Using $90 average per seat plus $60 in concessions per person for each and every game with zero expenses against it is business planning that TL Hocking would be proud of.
m.
|
|
|
Post by Grumpz on Apr 29, 2014 17:06:39 GMT -6
The added seats would be at the cheapest end of the spectrum. $50 per seat, 500 seats = $25,000 per game. On 44 games we're looking at $1.1 million per season. And that's just gross revenue. From that we deduct the added cost of personnel to service those seats, cost of those concessions (the markup is insane but it's not 100%). I suspect adding those 500 seats wouldn't survive a cost benefit analysis since a discounted payback period on the cost of adding those seats would be so out there that it's a non-starter. Using $90 average per seat plus $60 in concessions per person for each and every game with zero expenses against it is business planning that TL Hocking would be proud of. m. If they hang off the front of the 300 level, these seats will be over $70 a piece. I don't know what the cost is, but it seams rather feasible that adding the seats will easily pay for themselves in the life time of the arena. 500 x $70 = $35000 per game plus concessions. We're talking $1.5 million per season plus concessions. How much do you think it'll cost to add 500 seats? This arena has 15 yrs minimum. So unless it costs $22.5 million to add them, the seats pay for themselves. I for one am no architect, but if this is in fact doable, I'd think it wouldn't even cost $10 million.
|
|
|
Post by jetsorbust on May 5, 2014 12:28:05 GMT -6
Wait are there people actually trying to argue we don't need a bigger arena with BIGGER seats? I am. We don't need a bigger arena with bigger seats. But it sure as hell would be high on the list of 'wants' - at least the 'bigger seats' part. Capacity wise I'm good with 15000. Don't be fooled by the 'pent up demand' argument. There were a lot of non-prime tickets going unsold on Seat Exchange once the Jets were out of the playoffs. Exhibition games? Fuhgeddabout it. Those tickets sold like coldcakes on a Sunday night. Single tickets on Ticketmaster for weeknight games against unpopular teams like Florida and Carolina? Easily available. The new team smell is off this bunch and increasing supply isn't needed. m. I agree and disagree. Certainly some of the honeymoon feeling has startd to go, but that was unavoidable. The first season was magical and no matter how good support is always going to be, logically it had to be at it's peak the first season. But as far as saying we don't need more supply I can't say I agree. I think a 17,000 seat arena would have been better, BUT I think we are stuck with what we have, because modifications to add 2000 seats simply aren't going to be worth it. I also don't blame TNSE for building the size they did before they knew for sure if we'd ever have an NHL team. As far as demand goes though, sure exhibition tickets don't sell well at all but my understanding is that is true in all markets, even the other Canadian ones. Frankly it's ridiculous that they charge full price for exhibition - so far I have sold 2 or 3 out of four pre season tickets each season, but the last 2 years I sold for a bit below cost. To me, the exhibition games are only truly worth maybe 15 or 20 bucks. The rest of the cost you can add up and divide by 41 and tack that on to the true cost of regular seasont tickets, so roughly 8-10% of your per game ticket price. Anyways, my point is that I know exhibition games don't sell well in any market, particularly when ticketexchange tries to charge full price plus fees to interested buyers. As far as selling tickets against "lower grade" opponents late in the season when the team is out of the playoff hunt - I can't say with as much certainty but I would wager the same problem exists everywhere. It's hard to wanna pay full price plus fees for a ticket to a meaningless game (thus why I only made it to 1 Bomber game last season). 2000 additional season tickets though? Those would sell no problem, they would just add to the difficulty in "reselling" tickets to meaningless games.
|
|
|
Post by Tim on May 12, 2014 9:50:09 GMT -6
The added seats would be at the cheapest end of the spectrum. $50 per seat, 500 seats = $25,000 per game. On 44 games we're looking at $1.1 million per season. And that's just gross revenue. From that we deduct the added cost of personnel to service those seats, cost of those concessions (the markup is insane but it's not 100%). I suspect adding those 500 seats wouldn't survive a cost benefit analysis since a discounted payback period on the cost of adding those seats would be so out there that it's a non-starter. Using $90 average per seat plus $60 in concessions per person for each and every game with zero expenses against it is business planning that TL Hocking would be proud of. m. But just like TL Hocking you are only basing it on 44 Hockey games and leaving out important information, how many events is it including hockey a year, where are your numbers now, True North owns the arena so it's not just a hockey thing and I think it's close to 100 events a year. Seats will cost about 5-7k a seat to install so by my calculations by the middle of year two they will be generating full revenue on each seat, maybe a bad deal if they plan on building a new rink in the next 5 years, like that will ever happen!
|
|
|
Post by jetsfan85 on Aug 29, 2014 20:37:04 GMT -6
5-7k per seat to install?! Ya if they were made out of solid gold.. geeze
|
|
|
Post by Ric O. on Aug 30, 2014 9:29:06 GMT -6
^ To engineer and install the structure, the railings, seats, etc., $5-7k per seat doesn't sound out of whack to me even if the actual seats are only made of plastic and cloth.
|
|
|
Post by jetsfan85 on Sept 1, 2014 10:26:07 GMT -6
Again., even with all that. Per seat is absolutly not 5-7k . Maybe $500-1k . Railings etc are not per seat. Nor is the structure. Those are different entities.
|
|
|
Post by wolfmannick on Sept 2, 2014 1:44:04 GMT -6
^ Still part of the cost of installing the seats though
|
|
|
Post by Tim on Sept 2, 2014 5:44:52 GMT -6
5-7k per seat to install?! Ya if they were made out of solid gold.. geeze I can tell you have nothing to do with construction, engineering, or design, or haven't received a bill for theses services, it's not like folding out a lawn chair but thanks for your comment... 500 new seats hanging off the 300 level, 2.5 to 3.5 Million dollar project I'd put money down my numbers would be close.
|
|
|
Post by Tim on Sept 2, 2014 5:58:01 GMT -6
Again., even with all that. Per seat is absolutly not 5-7k . Maybe $500-1k . Railings etc are not per seat. Nor is the structure. Those are different entities. Well if you can do that job for $500,000 they may scrub that idea and ask you to build them a new arena with the larger padded seats!
|
|