Attendance Problems Begin on Halloween Night
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The New Jersey Devils opened at the Prudential Center on Oct. 27, the same night that New York’s Rangers and Islanders were “coincidentally” also hosting home games. This is the first of several problems which can easily be fixed.
While the Devils won their first game at the Rock on Oct. 31, aka Halloween, their former arena pals, the New Jersey Nets, successfully opened their 2007-2008 NBA season in a 112-103 overtime thriller at the Izod Center.
If you are trying to promote a new state-of-the-art $375 million facility, then what I just told you should not occur with regularity, especially in the New York area. The Devils front office should have aligned, or rearranged the Devils schedule in such a way that they would generate sellout crowds, or close to the 17,625 seats in the building. The Devs should never have opened the same night as the Rangers/Islanders or even the Nets.
The only way to defend such stupidity is to blame George R. Zoffinger, president and CEO of the NJSEA, an agency established by the state to oversee the Meadowlands Sports Complex. If he wanted “to screw” the Devils, this was a darn good method of doing so (for the Nets to play on the same night). My research indicates that both the Devils and Nets host a total of 13 games on the same night this season. It’s one thing if Zoffinger accidentally forgot to check his calendar, but it’s another when 12 more contests are scheduled at the same time slot. I didn’t even include the Rangers or Islanders in my investigation, which would be more difficult to avoid yet another factor that should have been considered when making the open dates at the arena.
The first game was sold out, but tickets were still being offered (at their ridiculously sky-high prices) on Ticketmaster within a few weeks of the inaugural Prudential Center game. 21,000 Penn State student tickets (to the entire season) sold out in 59 minutes. The moral of the story is to get more college students, especially in the surrounding Newark area into Devils games. And the way to do that is with lower prices, student discounts, and cheap ticket packages.
The Devils posted an embarassing attendance last night, as an announced crowd of 13,218 shuffled into their seats. Fans in attendance witnessed a Devils massacre over the Bolts (6-1), but many stayed home and went trick or treating or traveled to East Rutherford for the Nets’ home opener, the first time that both teams played home games on the same night. Naturally, this is the first of many in the upcoming season, as I previously mentioned.
After my visit of the arena on Sunday, I knew that people would complain about the cramped seating conditions. Someone made reference to the seats being more confined than sitting in coach on an airplane (I was more scared about sitting higher up in the Devils new arena than a plane at its usual 33,000-foot altitude).
The team spent two years planning and stressing, and eventually constructing this building, but forgot to take into consideration the human body. In the U.S., the average 20-39 year-old male is about 5 ft 10.1 in, and average 20-39 female is 5 ft 4.6 in.
The seats at the Rock, specifically upper deckers containing the cup holders (didn’t know the Devils are showing Titanic any time soon), were spaced for toddlers and infants, not for Devils fans. The Devils might need an orthopedist specializing in broken hips for diehard fans still attending each game (Thank God for you guys). Unless they remove those cup holders of course.
If I had two years to build a new arena, well, let’s not go there. I’m just embarrassed by the continued organizational failure to cater to its fans (even if that means I will never receive credentials to access the media room and cover the Devils, one of my childhood dreams) while it continues to deal with poor TV ratings, expensive ticket prices, and another small crowd (It’s a shame they never hired me for marketing!). I need not remind them of the 14,176 average live audiences (19,040 capcity) in the former Continental Airlines Arena per game last season, over 2,000 below the NHL’s 16,486 average capacity crowd.
“The announced attendance tonight was 13,218, but the crowd appeared to be smaller than that, said Tom Guliti, in his Fire and Ice blog post after the game. “There were thousands of empty seats. That's not good for just the second game in the building. Capacity is 17,625.”
“The big story for me was the fans, or lack of them,” said Steve Williamson, who is en route to visiting 30 teams in 30 days. “The announced attendance was 13,218, but I'd say half of them dressed as empty seats for Halloween!" Jokes aside, the one thing the Devils have never been good at is maximizing the potential of their fan base. Lou knows how to put winning hockey on the ice but lets face it, he sucks at generating interest and selling tickets.
While the Devils (specifically Jay Pandolfo with his career NHL hat trick not on Hat Day though) were successful last night, they might have forgotten something important - the fans. The way to bring them in is through better interaction with those fans and a willingness to make the necessary changes and start selling out games.
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What is wrong with you?
I did not appreciate your witless and uninformed discussion—the article makes no sense to me. First off, I can tell you right now that very few hockey and basketball fans watch each others sports. The fan bases are so different, it wouldn't matter to attendance if the Devils and Nets opened on the same night. And once the Pru gets going, "Izod Center" and this NJSEA you speak of will be no match, regardless of who runs it. That said, being a hockey fan, I also know enough that Rangers and Islander fans could give two piles about Devils games unless their team is playing them. So that definitely wouldn't have mattered either.
I was there to watch the Devils rip apart the Lightning on Halloween, and I thought the whole experience was excellent. So the crowd was 13,218 out of 17,625?(which you kindly mentioned 3-4 times) I think that is somewhat respectable for a hockey audience especially being on Halloween (in Newark) and during the middle of the week. I sure didn't expect a sellout. The seats were fine for my friend and I; we are both about 5'10" and 150 lbs and sat in the balcony behind the goal. You also forgot to mention average weight along with the other meaningless dimensions of the human body. I guess you were just interviewing the "average-sized" folks.
You also wonder why a lot of the seats were empty during the game. It's because the fans, I included, were exploring and indulging in everything the arena has to offer such as the Fire and Ice bars/lounges, the team shop, and the food vendors within a short walk. Everywhere around the arena, whether you were getting food or using the restrooms, you could always see the game on a TV or through the open terraces.
You also cannot blame Lou Lamoriello for everything. His first priority is to build a winning hockey team so people would want to come, root for them, and watch them play. Yes, he isn't big on grabbing fans off the streets, but he is a manager, not a salesman. That job was supposed to go mainly to Prudential Financial when they signed sponsorship to the arena. If anything, it's mostly their fault. Who do you think set the high ticket prices in an area of low interest? They are just being impatient in getting their investment back, like any other large, faceless corporation would. I do agree with you on the high ticket prices though. It is appalling and I feel it is the primary reason for the "not-a-sellout" attendance you kept mulling about. Honestly, I couldn't have afforded those tickets had they not been student discounted. What is more appalling though, is the amount of tickets sold to Penn State. THAT IS WRONG!! Seriously, how many Penn State students are Devils fans?? But, once again, deep pockets rule corporations, not us local student fans. I think Prudential needs to work with Lou and tweak their marketing of the Devils and the arena, take us local fans into better consideration, and then it will finally get going to where YOU thought it should have been. That is all.
Another thing
Have the Devils ever advertised on other sites, television stations, etc? When I watch seinfeld, maybe a Devils ad would convince me to attend games (me being the average person)... it cannot hurt at this point, they need seats filled... desperately...
Agree to Disagree... Sometimes
The Giants, Jets, Yankees, and Mets have succeeded in the metropolitan area. There are millions of individuals living in New York alone. I think the problem for poor attendance has to do with expensive ticket prices, even though the Yankees still managed to amass 4 million fans per season.
The metropolitan market is the only one that can possibly handle this many teams. With the advertisements, marketing techniques, fans can be convinced to come to games. Promoting games on college campuses, group deals... just look at the publicity generated once Rutgers football took off last season... abnormal, thousands of fans on this year's waiting list for season tickets... just because of one good season.... New Yorkers tend to jump on the bandwagon when their teams have success, not Devils or Nets fans (both team have been to the finals or have won the big game since 1995) but still have attendance problems... this season, the Nets and Devils are hosting home games at least 12 times on the same night...
There needs to be planning, Super Bowl-esque planning and organizing when it comes to scheduling tri-state area professional sporting events... I understand that the Devils just built a $375 million new arena in Newark, but does that give the team the right to double the prices? If you do the math on the expensive ticket prices, maybe the Devils would earn back enough money to cover the cost of the arena, but not if the building is 79% full...
How many franchises are in your area?
Devils got here 25 years ago and compete with the following teams:
Giants
Yankees
Jets
Mets
Rangers
Islanders
Nets
Knicks
that's right...including the Devils there are NINE PRO Franchises within a 1 hour drive, 8 of them are within 30 MINUTES of each other....not to mention at the bottom end of Jersey, the Flyers are just across the river...so you could argue 10 PRO TEAMS....can you say oversaturation of a market?
Devils Small Fan Base
GM Lou Lamoriello needs to improve his fan base. A $375 million arena needs to be filled on a constant basis. The Prudential Center might make some money from other events taking place there, but it's prime cut is the Devils. The arena is built with a practice facility on-side for gosh sakes, and a Devils store. It has over 70 suites, 16,000 amazing seats, from which you see the ice at every angle (even if the seats are high up).
Lou must hire someone, an expert in marketing to deal with his poor clientele before it's too late.