The real reason, and possible solution, for the Steelers decreased attendance

[hawaiiansteeler]

The real reason, and possible solution, for the Steelers decreased attendance

Attendance at Heinz Field has dropped by an average of about 6,000 fans per game the past two seasons. What can the Steelers do to get those fans back? With the game-day experience being so great from home these days, there might not be an easy answer.

By Anthony Defeo
Jul 14, 2018

The hot topic (well, mildly warm topic) this week — a week that falls just short of mid-July, thus still too far away from the start of Steelers training camp — has been a recent decline in attendance at 68,000-seat Heinz Field.

Why have less people been showing up to Heinz Field each and every week — according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, an average of 62,471 fans were in attendance last year, representing a nearly 2,000-person decline from 2016?

to read rest of article:

https://www.behindthesteelcurtain.co...field-nfl-news

[ALLD]

Give out passes to Kennywood for the next road game.

[FrancoLambert]

Article nailed it.
The amount of money you have to shell out is ridiculous.
Gouged for parking, herded like cattle for security, excessive prices for food and drink, lines at the restrooms, traffic coming and going.....and the ticket prices.
It's great to be at a game but why when you can have the best seat in the house....your own.

[tube517]

Every event is like this now, Football games, Concerts, Amusement parks, Water parks, etc.

For my family of 3 to go to Busch Gardens is over $200 total in park admission. Add in food, parking, gas, souvenirs and it ends up probably $300-$400 total. Football games are much much much more expensive. Now I know why my mom used to pack food on road trips to Florida.

How much does it cost to just stand where all those fans are watching on the stairwells at Heinz Field (like you see on TV)?

[hawaiiansteeler]

each season I think about flying to see the Steelers play somewhere, but each time I calculate how many hookers I could buy instead I just end up watching the games from home.

[teegre]

Four families gather to watch Steelers games at one house on DirecTV (as opposed to buying four separate NFL Ticket packages).

Many people that I know have gone a step further, and use some sort of streaming (which cuts into the “TV” numbers).

SUMMATION:
Fans still watch, but we’ve gotten fiscally smarter.

[Craic]

While all of that is true, I think there's several other reasons as well, beginning with PSLs. People get them, then sell the tickets only attending one or two games themselves. If they sell just half the tickets, it recoups their cost. If one or two don't sell, who cares? Then, there's the corporate element of it. How many corporations have season tickets and several of those tickets go to waste because of this, that, or the other thing.

[steelreserve]

Every event is like this now, Football games, Concerts, Amusement parks, Water parks, etc.

For my family of 3 to go to Busch Gardens is over $200 total in park admission. Add in food, parking, gas, souvenirs and it ends up probably $300-$400 total. Football games are much much much more expensive. Now I know why my mom used to pack food on road trips to Florida.

How much does it cost to just stand where all those fans are watching on the stairwells at Heinz Field (like you see on TV)?

You're right, this is not just restricted to sports. Over the past 10 or 20 years, there has been this huge shift in mentality in all kinds of entertainment and events.

Previously it was, "You will have a lot of fun as long as you get in the gate, and you can splurge on more if you want." Now everything is, "This is not a baseball game or an amusement park, it is an Experience. With a capital 'E.' The way to enjoy it is on our terms, which is by being in awe of the scale and expense of everything, and jumping in with both feet."

Unfortunately, I think there is a whole generation of people who actually do embrace this wholeheartedly. When I used to go to Vegas, the fun was in gambling with good odds, and getting awesome deals on food and drinks and shows. Now it's about paying through the nose for everything and they're not even shy about it. Gambling isn't even the focus anymore, it's about "We went to the VIP area of a nightclub and dropped $1,500 a person on bottle service, and posted about it on social media. Look at how cool we are, the act of spending a ton of money for the sake of spending it raises my social status! Making sure the world sees the outward appearance of me having fun is more important than actually having fun!"

I have cousins and their friends in their 20s, and they not only don't know any better, they actually enjoy this and think it's how they're supposed to act. They have bought into it completely. Personally, since I'm not a millennial idiot, when I pay for something I can't help but consider the cost of what I paid in comparison with the enjoyment I got out of it. $20 for front-of-the-line access at Kennywood? Worth it. $5,000 at a strip club to get a few drinks and a boner? Not so much.

tl;dr version - pro sports have reached the tipping point of where people are starting to realize the cost far outpaces what they get out of it. But there is a whole army of idiots that will soon ride to the rescue and tip that balance back the other way, because they never saw a way to throw money away that they didn't like.

[Steelerchad]

This is a trend for sure and one the NFL should be wary of. The Steelers are a model franchise and are still feeling the effect. I'm a season ticket holder living in VA., so I don't attend all the games. I have seen the resale value come down during the last few years. There are other franchises that are absolutely bleeding to include the Ravens and Bengals. The Bengals are selling something called a jungle pass this year, that is $200 for the season for all 10 games ($20 per game). The tickets are mobile only and are non transferable. They are delivered to your mobile devise just a few hours before kickoff so you can't resell them. The Ravens have dramatically dropped the cost of concessions this year to try to get people back into the stadium. They were experiencing upwards of 20k empty seats down the homestretch last year while they were in a playoff hunt. The prices look more like minor league baseball now (hot dog for $2).
home viewing convenience and quality is big, but don't discount the other factors recently such as the anthem kneeling and emphasis on CTE and concussions on turning some fans off as well.

[Mojouw]

People just simply have less disposable income than at other stretches in time. If you are having a hard time making rent and saving anything, then tickets to a sporting event kinda go out the window.

Plus, how is it better than my own living room?

[DesertSteel]

Football was made to be played inside of television sets.

[katmandu]

each season I think about flying to see the Steelers play somewhere, but each time I calculate how many hookers I could buy instead I just end up watching the games from home.

LMAO !!!

[Steeldude]

Player salaries will continue to increase to even more absurd amounts.

The middle class ticket holders are becoming poor.

[Neversatisfied]

The quality of the TVs/ broadcasts is far better than in years past, the expense and hassle of attending games has also attributed to lower attendance.

[Steeldude]

The quality of the TVs/ broadcasts is far better than in years past, the expense and hassle of attending games has also attributed to lower attendance.

I have always found TV superior to the stadium. It's more relaxing, free parking, free food, clean bathroom with no waiting, no traveling, no costs...

I watch the games on the Net. I don't give a dime to the NFL.

[Bluecoat96]

We just got a 60" TV. I'm looking forward to watching games on it.

Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk

[teegre]

when I pay for something I can't help but consider the cost of what I paid in comparison with the enjoyment I got out of it.

So true.

Just last Friday, the wife & I had a date night. We were going to do a simple dinner & a comedy show... but, the comedy show was $40 per person (plus, a two-drink minimum). We did not feel that that particular comedian was worth $100; so, we used that money towards upgrading our dinner instead (Donovan’s).

[Mojouw]

Seems none of this is actually impacting the bottom line.

https://deadspin.com/all-the-controv...nue-1827646752


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[AtlantaDan]

Seems none of this is actually impacting the bottom line.

https://deadspin.com/all-the-controv...nue-1827646752

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Works as long as the broadcast rights bubble keeps inflating - as this article on dysfunctional families owning NFL franchises notes, it is hard to lose $$$ on a NFL franchise no matter how incompetent the ownership given the % of revenue that is not dependent on franchise-specific factors

The NFL is also the league with the highest percentage of franchise revenues—roughly 80%—coming from leaguewide sharing outside the local market. What this means is that even a poorly run franchise is assured of making great sums of money, reducing pressure for profitability and cash flow.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/07/16/nf...adams-mccaskey

Maybe the future for the NFL is to go to smaller stadiums (baseball did that after the multi-use stadiums like Three Rivers which had aged out were replaced with smaller baseball only facilities like PNC Park) with less crappy seats since ticket revenue is less important and those attending the game increasingly serve as a studio audience to provide background atmosphere for a TV show.

Hard to sell a season ticket package for the last rows of upper deck corner end zone seats at Heinz when you can watch on the big screen at home

[steelreserve]

Seems none of this is actually impacting the bottom line.

https://deadspin.com/all-the-controv...nue-1827646752

Yeah, when TV revenue is static (or possibly designed to increase slightly year-over-year), licensing deals are long-term, and most of the tickets are sold well in advance, in the grand scheme of things it does not really matter than much whether 10% of the ticketholders decide not to show up and eat the cost of the ticket they already paid for.

It's worth noting that for all 32 teams to sell out every game, it would take about 2 million season-ticket holders, which is around one-half of one percent of the population. Probably about one-quarter of one percent when you consider that it's usually one guy holding tickets for two or four seats, and companies buy some of them. So the affordability to the average person is not really the issue with selling the tickets themselves.

One other interesting thing, the Steelers lowest attendance home games by far in 2017 were a Thursday night game and two Sunday night games that all started at 8:30 p.m. Nobody wants to leave the stadium at midnight when they have to go to work the next day. Plus they drag the game out to 3 1/2, 4 hours when it's the only one on television, so those are even less fun to see in person than usual. The rest of the games were all 65,000-plus. But still, three games means almost half the home games were late at night.

I do still think that's a good indicator of one thing: Even if you have unlimited money to spend on it, going to a game is a major pain in the ass. And the cash-frenzy mentality of it is probably turning a lot of regular people away, despite the fact that there are enough big spenders willing to take their place and fill up the seats.

[tube517]

We just got a 60" TV. I'm looking forward to watching games on it.

Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk

Yep. And you can get some decent priced 4k UHD TVs now. Sorry, Art II, one day I'll make it to Heinz Field but I can see Ben's meme clearer on TV than in the stands.

[Fire Goodell]

I bought a ticket at a 'good' price at $290 back in 2013.

I can't imagine doing this every weekend and not being broke as hell despite having a good job.

It all boils down to ticket prices going up and middle class wages not going up.

[AtlantaDan]

I bought a ticket at a 'good' price at $290 back in 2013.

I can't imagine doing this every weekend and not being broke as hell despite having a good job.

It all boils down to ticket prices going up and middle class wages not going up.

Same with me - I make an annual trip to Heinz in September or October before the weather turns bad (will be home opener against the Chiefs this year) and go with good seats

Would be hard for me to justify laying out the $$$ for those seats weekly on StubHub or in a season ticket package - even leaving aside affordability, for me there are better ways to spend that amount of money

[Bluecoat96]

Exactly. I got a deal I couldn't pass up on a 4K UHD Vizio....and I can buy a 6 pack of my favorite beer for the same price as a good beer at Heinz....AND watch the game without any pants on.

Yep. And you can get some decent priced 4k UHD TVs now. Sorry, Art II, one day I'll make it to Heinz Field but I can see Ben's meme clearer on TV than in the stands.

Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk

[steelreserve]

I bought a ticket at a 'good' price at $290 back in 2013.

I can't imagine doing this every weekend and not being broke as hell despite having a good job.

It all boils down to ticket prices going up and middle class wages not going up.

Both are issues of supply and demand ... as long as someone is willing to keep paying the higher prices for tickets to sporting events, they will keep raising the price. But why would there be more demand for tickets if fewer people could afford them?

Overall, I think this can be boiled down to the league drawing more and more interest from people who are not really big football fans, but who want it to be well-known that they like cheering for things and going to Big Events and their life is fun. The same dickweeds who will do nothing but sit around checking their phone all day, then root for the Steelers to win but not score more than 10 points because they have the Patriots' defense in their fantasy league. Double the number of people who are interested in paying for something that has a limited quantity, and the price will go way up, regardless of who it is that wants to pay for it.

Either way, it's not like anyone is going to say, "Well, we're selling out the stadium every week - but let's lower the price of tickets because of WHO we think should be buying tickets." In fact, all that would do is create a black market with the final price being the same, and the scalpers and StubHub pocketing the difference. (If there's no black market, then you just create a shortage, as you see with things like government-run health care.) The effect of artificial price controls in action.

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly. I got a deal I couldn't pass up on a 4K UHD Vizio....and I can buy a 6 pack of my favorite beer for the same price as a good beer at Heinz....AND watch the game without any pants on.

I mean, you can still do that, it's just that if you do it at Heinz Field, you have to be a little bit more ... aggressive.

[ALLD]

I used to pay $35 for tickets when the Steelers went to Miami. If was fun, but drunk Dolphin fans often took the fun out of a win.I can't imagine paying $300+ for 1 ticket to anything except to meet the President or Jesus Christ himself.

[Cyphon25]

One thing I heard that I thought could be really cool was play by play gambling from your seat. Basically have some kind of screen or whatever at your seat with quick options to gamble from play to play and things of that nature.

If not that I could see something along similar lines where the team/stadium could offer rewards to fans for guessing plays and such right during the game, again, with some sort of screen needed at seats.

[43Hitman]

One thing I heard that I thought could be really cool was play by play gambling from your seat. Basically have some kind of screen or whatever at your seat with quick options to gamble from play to play and things of that nature.

If not that I could see something along similar lines where the team/stadium could offer rewards to fans for guessing plays and such right during the game, again, with some sort of screen needed at seats.

One could always just create a stadium app that users can connect to while on the stadiums wifi.

[tube517]

One could always just create a stadium app that users can connect to while on the stadiums wifi.

Knowing the league, they will charge $50/hour for the wifi and $49.99 for the app!

Then group it into a package with parking, food at the stadium and a John Kuhn jersey and a book of Tomlinisms - all for only $249.99!