Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

[Tipsy McStagger]

Was in downtown Minneapolis last night with some fellow SCSU alumni. While we normally would go to the WCHA tourney whether we were in it or not, we did not do so this year. $130 was better spent drinking at the local haunts. Not that we can't afford it, the pricing just doesn't make sense. I don't know if getting down in the $20 per game ($40 per day) would deliver bigger crowds, I have to believe it would. Even if SCSU and UMD had been in the tourney, I still don't think you get much more than 10k in there.

I know many would lose their minds over this idea, but I wouldn't mind seeing the NCHC moving to a smaller venue. Heck, maybe even rotating through the schools that have a 5k or bigger arena and then allocating tickets to the schools in as fair of a way as possible. I don't know, it just isn't much fun seeing the sterile atmosphere of empty buildings.

And the regionals. Can't wait to see what Cinci looks like.

Give me a break. You could have gotten into the building for 60 bucks for all 4 games. That is 15 bucks a game. You could have then gone down to the lower level. Instead YOU CHOSE to spend that money at the bar. There was no price point that would have brought you in if 15 bucks a game was too expensive.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

According to last night's announcers, he's not using it as an excuse, but Jeff Jackson isn't all that thrilled with the Boston plane rides. There may not be many non-stops from South Bend to Boston, but a flight must require less time than a bus. Hopefully the players all signed up for the frequent flyer program and can give the miles to their parents at tournament time.

Notre Dame contracts with Delta to charter their flights, and all are non-stops. But two hours in a plane is more physiologically taxing than twice that in a bus due to the high altitude. That is a biological fact. The planes are pressurized to between 8 and 10,000 feet (closer to 10,000) and your organs and muscles are somewhat oxygen deprived at the end of a two hour flight. This is one of the reasons I DIDN'T want to be in Hockey East. There were drawbacks and benefits to whatever conference all of the teams joined in the switches, and this was one of the bigger drawbacks for Notre Dame. They'll get used to it and figure out to make it work better, but it probably took this season to do so.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

But seriously I have no comment on the Eastern leagues. As for the West - the premier conference in the NCAA got broken up and we were left with a huge conference of leftovers that no one wants to watch, a conference of football/basketball teams where everyone makes the post season tourney and a conference of "elite" programs where fans won't travel more than 100 miles to watch their team. Then pile on the fact that two of the three conferences had the great idea of holding their tourneys the same weekend in the same city. The Big Ten could have had their tourney last weekend (with no first round playoffs) and at least had their own weekend of attention. Egos got in the way and everyone thought fans would all flock to their conference party and in the end all three parties sucked.

Ryan J

This.

[FireKnight]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

Actually, the turnout in Lake Placid for the ECAC final wasn't horrible. It was higher than any of the 3 years of mistakes in Atlantic City and AC had the advantage of a 3rd place game. The 2010 attendance in Albany was about 1650 higher than this year's Lake Placid adventure but that was also Cornell (the biggest and best traveling team) v. Union (a virtual home game and, I believe, their first ever appearance in the title game). The 2009 attendance in Albany was about the same as LP this year.

The 2014 ECAC final had a lot of things going against them. First, no Cornell, RPI, Clarkson and SLU. Cornell and RPI are the best travelers and Clarkson and SLU are the closest to LP. Second, Colgate has never traveled well and Union, although getting better, hasn't developed the generations of a fan base that the older programs have. Third, Clarkson had a good sized contingent in Hamden (and hopefully will again today). Fourth, the weather was horrible for travel, not quite the Albany blizzard from several years ago, but not good.

[DLG]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

Actually 12,000 for hockey east final was not bad- also helps overall league to energize new fan base in Lowell and one that had gone stagnant in Durham
the one disaster was playing two tourneys in the Minn-St Paul area
We should see improved attendance at NCAA regionals this year as the way teams are line up benefits the chosen sites

[MeridianStreet]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

According to last night's announcers, he's not using it as an excuse, but Jeff Jackson isn't all that thrilled with the Boston plane rides. There may not be many non-stops from South Bend to Boston, but a flight must require less time than a bus. Hopefully the players all signed up for the frequent flyer program and can give the miles to their parents at tournament time.

Notre Dame flies charter from the South Bend airport so they can go and return as convenient.

[claver2010]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

Correction: "13,738 for the next night for the UML-BU championship" You know, Lowell, reigning HEA and NCAA NE Regional Champion...

And FF participant, and other way you can reword the same accomplishment in order to raise a banner

Yeah I was surprised at the lack of Notre Dame fans. Didn't expect a huge contingent from Indianna but was surprised they didn't send a busload or 2 besides their band. Also expected many more Notre Dame gearhead posers. There were more UNH fans watching the first period of UML-ND than ND fans. Not having a sngle "green line team"(BU, BC, NU) really hurt attendance I think.

Really?

It's how long from South Bend? They were in the NCAAs before this weekend, no need to treck halfway across the country.

Granted, I would've never invited them to HE but that horse is out of the barn.

No BC/BU/NU/Maine killed it.

[Darius]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

Notre Dame contracts with Delta to charter their flights, and all are non-stops. But two hours in a plane is more physiologically taxing than twice that in a bus due to the high altitude. That is a biological fact. The planes are pressurized to between 8 and 10,000 feet (closer to 10,000) and your organs and muscles are somewhat oxygen deprived at the end of a two hour flight. This is one of the reasons I DIDN'T want to be in Hockey East. There were drawbacks and benefits to whatever conference all of the teams joined in the switches, and this was one of the bigger drawbacks for Notre Dame. They'll get used to it and figure out to make it work better, but it probably took this season to do so.

No doubt. I used to travel a lot and started taking the train to NY City from Boston in lieu of flying for the reasons you mentioned plus no baggage or security hassles and the train, like a bus, takes you to your final (hotel) destination not an airport which is a distance away. Charter baggage and security is likely less hassle than commercial, but still, players get on a bus, transfer to a plane, fly, get on a bus...long day, not to mention winter weather issues.

Nothing against the B1G, but it will take half a generation for college hockey to recover from realignment, perhaps never fully doing so. It must suck for MN, ND(x2), etc. to have their main rivals now out of conference. Nothing against the Irish, but HockeyEast? Really? Indiana is in the east? This is a peeve of mine as are schools in coast conferences that are nowhere near coasts, in pacific conferences nowhere near any ocean let alone the pacific and conferences with numbers in their names where the number of schools in the conference is not equal to the number in the name.

What conference should ND have joined and don't get me started on the whole does the NCHA need to exist because I think it would have been nice to somehow keep the WCHA and CCHA.

[Split-N]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

...Nothing against the Irish, but HockeyEast? Really? Indiana is in the east? This is a peeve of mine as are schools in coast conferences that are nowhere near coasts, in pacific conferences nowhere near any ocean let alone the pacific and conferences with numbers in their names where the number of schools in the conference is not equal to the number in the name....

...umm, it's all about the benjamins, which know nothing about math or geography. And nobody knows that better than ND.

But WRT the question posed by this thread, I would offer up these four factors;

1. The "Netflix Effect." We have been quickly developing into a nation of slackers addicted to watching whatever it wants, whenever it wants to, and wherever it wants to. And if circumstances take you away from your ginormous big-screen TV, you can always catch what you're looking for on the tablet or smartphone (been to a bar or restaurant lately?) and that's before we ever get into time-shifting thru DVRs and the like. Attendance has been trending down for both hockey and hoops but seemed to accelerate this year as students/alums/casual fans asked themselves why they should trudge to the rink/gym in sub-zero weather when they could see the action in HD from their cozy dorm rooms/apartments/homes. What this portends for hockey and hoops in the future might make for an interesting off-season thread.

2. Conference tournaments have become relatively irrelevant in the PWR age. Really, the only compelling reason to attend conference tournaments these days is to see if Cinderella makes an appearance and steals an autobid. With the NCAA field now set at 16 and most of the teams that make it through to conference semi-finals assured of moving on anyway, the conference tournaments have lost much of their luster. Given the choice between paying for a trip to a conference tournament and a trip to the regionals, the financial decision is obvious.

3. Cost. Personally, I thought that the cost structure for the B1G and NCHC tournaments was borderline insane. Hockey East at least had $10 student tickets while others could get pretty good seats for about $30. Not cheap but not over the top either. (Didn't check on ECAC prices)

4. Spring Break. Spring break for some schools apparently stretches into tournament weekend and no matter how much of a hockey fan you are, booze and babes are always going to trump hockey tournaments for most students. Students at schools where spring break is over are tapped out so #3 applies.

[Snively65]

No BC/BU/NU/Maine killed it.

Championship game Hockey East attendance was decent, despite the lack of Boston schools. USCHO figures below seem about right for the Garden last night. My estimate based on UML fans standing up after their four goals was about a third of the total, with perhaps half that number UNH fans (sixth of total), and about half the total others there without a horse.

12,051 Hockey East
10,153 BiG10
8139 NCHC
4850 ECAC
3968 WCHA
1264 AHA

[The Rube]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

Give me a break. You could have gotten into the building for 60 bucks for all 4 games. That is 15 bucks a game. You could have then gone down to the lower level. Instead YOU CHOSE to spend that money at the bar. There was no price point that would have brought you in if 15 bucks a game was too expensive.

I agree. I bought 2 cheap seats for $20 each for the MN-OSU game on Friday night, and after the first period, moved down to the lower level, seemingly along with quite a few other people. The section I moved to had about 2 dozen people in it in the first, and was easily half full for the rest of the game.

Also, I know of one person who bought a Thu afternoon ticket for a dollar, and was offered free normal tickets for that game from other people. For the Thu night game, a couple people had said that the scalpers were non-existent starting about 30 minutes before game time. Apparently they couldn't even give those tickets away, either.

As for attendance, I had NO interest in any of the games not involving MN. I think part of it was still the "not one of us" mentality that the OWCHA fans had. There were also a few fans that are still boycotting the B1G and refused to buy tickets to the games. Still others, knowing it wouldn't draw the crowds/wasn't the same as before, just decided to not go, whereas before they'd go "just for something to do," because it was an event.

For that last part, like someone said earlier, instead of having one big event, it's now three events, and the crowds are split, with the on-the-fencers just not going to any of them.

[CLS]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

...umm, it's all about the benjamins, which know nothing about math or geography. And nobody knows that better than ND.

But WRT the question posed by this thread, I would offer up these four factors;

Excellent points all. Just a couple of comments.

...

2. Conference tournaments have become relatively irrelevant in the PWR age.

Not only irrelevant, but repetitive also. If you've been following a team all year, you've already seen your team play whoever they will play in the conference tournament. That's largely the reason that I've rarely attended conference tournaments.

Given the choice between paying for a trip to a conference tournament and a trip to the regionals, the financial decision is obvious.

Given the attendance at Regionals, it would appear that increasingly, the obvious answer is "neither". Though a countervailing factor in the cost comparison is that the conference tournament is in a pre-determined location and usually is closer, and therefore travel is significantly easier to arrange and cheaper.

[The Rube]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

Excellent points all. Just a couple of comments.

Not only irrelevant, but repetitive also. If you've been following a team all year, you've already seen your team play whoever they will play in the conference tournament. That's largely the reason that I've rarely attended conference tournaments.

Given the attendance at Regionals, it would appear that increasingly, the obvious answer is "neither". Though a countervailing factor in the cost comparison is that the conference tournament is in a pre-determined location and usually is closer, and therefore travel is significantly easier to arrange and cheaper.

Ask MI, UND, and WI about PWR and conference tournaments.

As for regionals vs conference tourneys...for the oWCHA, the conference was a big deal, almost like an in-town vacation. It had little travel costs for a majority of the fans, and the tickets are fairly cheap. With the re-alignment, all of the above remains the same, except I can get tickets for even cheaper if I did the work (ahem, scalpers) due to lack of demand. If the regional wasn't in St Paul, I wouldn't go. Between taking even more time off from work and greater travel costs the week after the conference tourney....just not worth it.

[chickod]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

You're kidding, right? No school would find many takers for the prospect of a 15 hour bus ride for 1 guaranteed game. Especially with the game on tv and even more when we know there's a certainty of a game with much more importance next week, and it was almost assured to be less than half the distance away. And after watching a good portion of all the conference tournaments there were just a handful of schools with good turnouts, and other than North Dakota, all were probably within an hour drive of the games.

It was a ludicrous idea to have Notre Dame join Hockey East in the first place. There is nothing remotely "east" about Notre Dame. EVERY team in Hockey East is in New England and is less than a five-hour ride from Boston (only because of Vermont and Maine) - all of the others are less than an hour (except for UMass which is only 70 miles). What did they expect they were going to get? 2000 ND fans? These people are delusional.

[chickod]

Re: Why does playoff turnout everwhere seem so low?

According to last night's announcers, he's not using it as an excuse, but Jeff Jackson isn't all that thrilled with the Boston plane rides. There may not be many non-stops from South Bend to Boston, but a flight must require less time than a bus. Hopefully the players all signed up for the frequent flyer program and can give the miles to their parents at tournament time.

I don't blame him. Like I said, why aren't they in a conference in the middle of the country? It's ridiculous. Oh...that's right. It's all about money. Well then they reap what they sow.