Riders vs. Lions, October 4th - Attendance/Seating

[sj-roc]

• The currently available sections are 430 through 453, which leaves 401 through 429 sealed off, plus 454. So 30 closed sections, really 31 since for each of the 430 and 453 end sections, only the half that abuts the rest of the continuum is open.

I just had look at the TM map once more and see they've opened up three more sections: it's now at 428 through 454, so this adds about 1500 seats and revises my capacity estimate to about 40,300.

[Rammer]

• The currently available sections are 430 through 453, which leaves 401 through 429 sealed off, plus 454. So 30 closed sections, really 31 since for each of the 430 and 453 end sections, only the half that abuts the rest of the continuum is open.

I just had look at the TM map once more and see they've opened up three more sections: it's now at 428 through 454, so this adds about 1500 seats and revises my capacity estimate to about 40,300.

I am sure that they will open on a need to basis, so following that TM seating availability should give us a better indication on what the attendance expectation truly is. Taking into consideration that I would expect the outside sections to dwindle in actual seats sold.

[notahomer]

......You can see from the link that the 40k figure was also getting kicked around for last year's Rider visit.

Which means we're prob in for another 36k crowd.

Some chuckle at why we would care? I have no answer. I guess I'm just interested and want the Lions to get lots of fans.

I missed one years late Rider game (I was on a business trip in Tokyo). That was definitely not a 40K night as it was at Tempire Field. You are probably right, sj-roc, 36K. I'd love to see a non-playoff game be a SELLOUT but can't see it happening with the current market.

[sj-roc]

......You can see from the link that the 40k figure was also getting kicked around for last year's Rider visit.

Which means we're prob in for another 36k crowd.

Some chuckle at why we would care? I have no answer. I guess I'm just interested and want the Lions to get lots of fans.

I missed one years late Rider game (I was on a business trip in Tokyo). That was definitely not a 40K night as it was at Tempire Field. You are probably right, sj-roc, 36K. I'd love to see a non-playoff game be a SELLOUT but can't see it happening with the current market.

We haven't even sold out a playoff game since the 1980s (I don't count GCs since these have lots of out-of-market buyers).

We might see a little more than 36k what with the three extra sections opened since my post above that you quoted but I'm sticking with under 37k for now.

[vanhalendlrband]

Yeah but I been to two western finals in the last decade that were over 50,000. The 2004 Western Final had more people than the new configuration currently can hold, so does that not count?

The difference between the numbers last year and this year is the numbers are selling a lot faster this year.

Already in the few hours those sections have opened the first few rows have already nearly sold out, even in the darker colored sections on each end.

I really think this is going to be a lot more than 36,000 and I stand by my numbers that we are probably sitting around that number right now and that the walkup crowd will push it up to near 39,000, and i'm not counting the amounts the new sections have sold.

We can only hope tho right? I mean i'm sure you would like to see more show up right? lol Lets hope we see a lot more sell going up to Friday with words of the bigger crowd in place.

At this point its already a great crowd. And you'd have to be crazy to not be there, or just unable to such as myself. You can guarantee i'll be watching like when I didn't miss a game living in Ontario. I had to put my hands over my mouth when Damon Allen to Alfred Jackson with no time left against Montreal way back for the 110 yarder to win the game. lol

[notahomer]

We haven't even sold out a playoff game since the 1980s (I don't count GCs since these have lots of out-of-market buyers).

We might see a little more than 36k what with the three extra sections opened since my post above that you quoted but I'm sticking with under 37k for now.

I'm sure you are right about not even the playoff games selling out. That being said, those BIG crowds are amazing. I feel bad saying that because the small crowds are FILLED WITH DEDICATED FANS, but the big crowds just have an energy to them.

I am sure this will be a great crowd even if it doesn't break 37K or 40K or whatever. Its fun to contemplate and then compare to the actual posted number. Sometimes I think a crowd in attendance is smaller but then the announced figure it higher than I thought. IOW, tickets maybe sold, but will they show?

[notahomer]

Sj-Roc, hey I might have misheard, but I just watched a couple of videos on BCLions.com and I swear I heard DeMarco make a guess of 41K! Lets hope he's right but methinks he's a bit optimistic. Either that or I gotta clean out my ears.....

[sj-roc]

We haven't even sold out a playoff game since the 1980s (I don't count GCs since these have lots of out-of-market buyers).

We might see a little more than 36k what with the three extra sections opened since my post above that you quoted but I'm sticking with under 37k for now.

I'm sure you are right about not even the playoff games selling out. That being said, those BIG crowds are amazing. I feel bad saying that because the small crowds are FILLED WITH DEDICATED FANS, but the big crowds just have an energy to them.

I am sure this will be a great crowd even if it doesn't break 37K or 40K or whatever. Its fun to contemplate and then compare to the actual posted number. Sometimes I think a crowd in attendance is smaller but then the announced figure it higher than I thought. IOW, tickets maybe sold, but will they show?

True, I wasn't trying at all to dismiss what great crowds the 2000s playoff games had. Just meant that these were technically short of a sellout, even though they are otherwise hard if not impossible to fault, especially considering we've had two or three Grey Cups here that didn't draw as well.

In response to vanhalendlrband's post I wouldn't retroactively label these playoff games as sellouts. It would be like sitting in Empire in 2010 and retroactively labelling as sellouts all the 30k+ crowds of the 2003-2009 era. You don't know going forward what your capacity will be. Would we go back next year and label this week's game a sellout if we permanently (physically) removed the upper deck in January?

I think it will be extremely difficult to achieve a sellout ever again regardless of capacity because right now the Lions have no way of controlling the creation of single isolated seats which are a tough sell and often remain unsold. I actually took 10-15 mins last night to count up the ones in just the lower bowl, I forget the exact number but around 500, which makes sense, typically about 10 per section on average in about 50 sections and it adds up to what would typically be a full section's worth of seats. I don't think this ever happened in the days before fans could pick and choose exactly which seats they wanted on TM, at least not as extensively because either the live human sales person would consciously avoid it, or the old TM customer interface was engineered to do so. So I think the best we will ever do regardless of capacity as long as this issue continues is a sellout up to singles, which could still leave you over 1000 well-scattered seats shy of a true sellout. I suspect the Canucks manage this issue very well if their multi-season sellout streak is to be believed.

I don't know if all NFL clubs have this sales policy (probably yes) but I was looking at one team's stadium map on TM recently (I think it was the Chiefs) and it explicitly said that any sale that leads to creation of a single isolated seat will not be processed. I guess you can afford to turn folks away like this when you're the top dog.

[SammyGreene]

With the exception of the re-opening of BC Place, these seem to be the 3 biggest regular season crowds during the Wally era (2003-13).

Nov. 5 2005 vs. Saskatchewan 38,847 (Grey Cup host year, high season ticket base and a game that would have clinched 1st place for BC during their massive 2nd half slide. They lost but got help and lost the WF 2 weeks later at home).

Sept. 13, 2008 vs. Saskatchewan 38,608

Oct. 20 2007 vs. Edmonton 37,011

What I find remarkable is there throwing the 40,000 number around for Friday's game when they couldn't hit that number during their peak years of season ticket holders (24,000). Anything in the mid to high 30s is a significant accomplishment when your base is currently at 18,000.

[sj-roc]

With the exception of the re-opening of BC Place, these seem to be the 3 biggest regular season crowds during the Wally era (2003-13).

Nov. 5 2005 vs. Saskatchewan 38,847 (Grey Cup host year, high season ticket base and a game that would have clinched 1st place for BC during their massive 2nd half slide. They lost but got help and lost the WF 2 weeks later at home).

Sept. 13, 2008 vs. Saskatchewan 38,608

Oct. 20 2007 vs. Edmonton 37,011

What I find remarkable is there throwing the 40,000 number around for Friday's game when they couldn't hit that number during their peak years of season ticket holders (24,000). Anything in the mid to high 30s is a significant accomplishment when your base is currently at 18,000.

The Edm game ranks 4th; there was also this one you left out:

2008/07/18 Wpg 18 @ BC 27; 37,174

This was the Ackles's tribute game (first one after he died). 2008 remains the peak year of the Buono era attendance-wise, presumably at least partly on account of Ackles's contributions having had the greatest amount of time to take hold and then falling off soon thereafter. Season avgs:

2002...18,507
2003...23,653
2004...26,697
2005...32,614
2006...31,190
2007...32,456
2008...34,083
2009...28,610
2010...24,327 (Empire)
2011...29,725 (5 Empire, 4 BCPII)
2012...30,356
2013...27,619 (as of Sep 15)

It's worth pointing out that in the Lions' 60 year franchise history there are only three instances of averaging more than 30k in a season for a stretch of at least three years. One is in the list above. Previously it was the 1980s when BCP first opened:

1982...25,088
1983...45,799
1984...42,354
1985...42,336
1986...46,638
1987...36,514
1988...32,205
1989...31,800
1990...29,985

And finally we have the Joe Kapp era:

1962...26,051
1963...31,464
1964...32,500
1965...31,350
1966...29,291

There are only four other years in franchise history not listed above when it surpassed 30k:

1959...30,390
1970...30,967
1991...40,889
2012...30,356

This is why I feel some of the handwringing we occasionally engage in when falling short of attendance expectations based largely on a 50k+ capacity is a little overwrought. We've fallen short of 30k so often that it's really the norm. Against the rest of the franchise numbers, the 80s crowds that we all get so nostalgic over were basically a one-time anomaly that have proven all but impossible to recapture. In fact it almost makes you wonder why anyone in the 1970s thought such a large stadium would be a good idea for the Lions. 1970 was the last year Empire averaged better than 30k. According to cfldb.ca, its capacity was even reduced in 1974 from 32,375 to 30,229 (although some subsequent games exceeded this figure — SRO?).

After the last hurrah of 1970, the average reg season attendance at Empire over the rest of its original lifetime (96 games) was 24,124 with only 14 games surpassing 30k, half of which came in 1971-1974. So at this remove some 35-40 years later it's tough for someone like me, who wasn't living here at the time and would have been too young to take it all in anyway, to believe that someone in the late 1970s looked at the numbers and said to themselves, "Wow, our attendance is off the charts! We simply MUST get ourselves into a stadium TWICE as large to exploit this burgeoning ticket demand, stat!" Certainly the team was community-owned at the time and the stadium is a gov't concern (Whitecaps were also around then, too), and I doubt it would have all come to fruition with only private dollars. But if we were in a 30-35k stadium right now, which is a more typical capacity in this league, and getting the kind of numbers we've been getting for the last 25 years — some good, some pretty bad — would Braley or any private owner want to foot the bill for a new 55k stadium?

[Centrum22]

Apparently, BC Place was built, in part, to attract a Major League Baseball franchise.

I disagree with your reasoning that since there were many seasons in the past in which average attendance was similar to what it is now, the organization is not substantially underperforming today. Compared to some of those eras, Vancouver has twice the population now. Today, there is also a modern rapid rail transit network (Expo Line, Millennium Line, Canada Line) capable of quickly and conveniently delivering tens of thousands of people to the doorstep of BC Place in a matter of minutes. And the organization has now had the benefit of 60 years to grow its brand. And what does it have to show for it? An average attendance that is equal to or less than most other eras. In other words, despite all the advantages of a much larger population, a modern rapid transit network connecting that larger population directly to a state-of-the-art stadium, and sixty years to grow their brand, the organization has failed to move the needle on attendance compared to most other eras and has even regressed compared to other eras. The Lions have substantially less attending fans per capita now than 50 years ago. A successful organization grows its attendance over time. But not only are the Lions failing to grow its attendance, they are not even keeping pace with the growing population; they are shrinking.

That's a failure, by any standard.

[Hambone]

• The currently available sections are 430 through 453, which leaves 401 through 429 sealed off, plus 454. So 30 closed sections, really 31 since for each of the 430 and 453 end sections, only the half that abuts the rest of the continuum is open.

I just had look at the TM map once more and see they've opened up three more sections: it's now at 428 through 454, so this adds about 1500 seats and revises my capacity estimate to about 40,300.

I think that 40K will still be tough to hit. Full sellout at GC 2011 was 54313. With the additional sections being opened it still leaves a full half of the upper bowl closed off. Assuming lower bowl capacity is around 28K that leaves 26K upstairs. If 13K is still not available a complete sellout of all tickets currently available will be needed to push 41K. Still a long ways to go to get there.

[Rammer]

Did you take into consideration that availability of HD and just how many more fans are tuned into the local game than previously? Also, look at the bite that MLS is putting into the entertainment dollar.

[sj-roc]

Apparently, BC Place was built, in part, to attract a Major League Baseball franchise.

True, I'd heard this before but forgotten it. Although even for MLB its capacity would have been fairly large. All but three of today's MLB parks are under 50k; the median is about 42.2k. I know some of the seating sections from the original 59k capacity were always temporary and it was intended that these would be removed for a baseball configuration (I'm thinking of what is now Sections 236-239 or thereabouts, which is where the outfield would be). But I think it still would have been one of the larger capacity MLB parks had it come to this. Right now its football configuration capacity of 54k+ exceeds that of the largest MLB park (Dodger Stadium, 53,275).

[Centrum22]

Did you take into consideration that availability of HD and just how many more fans are tuned into the local game than previously?

Of course. Which underscores my point even further. The Lions have more exposure today than they have ever had before. Yet attendance has failed to grow or even keep pace with the growth in population.