2012 WDF Attendance

[sj-roc]

So much discussion over something we have no control over...should the Lions sell out the WF under these circumstances??? Yes...will they? Probably not...life goes on...the only thing that matter Sunday is how well the Lions play...if there is one lesson the Lions brass will likely learn from this season, is to take your suggestions and make those 2nd level seats a much better price, or perhaps even package them...at the end of the day, the Lion's have a strong following across the Province and are making money...that's it...

Now can we please talk some football??? Where is Blitz?

It needn't be an either/or proposition. No reason to choose exclusively between on or off field aspects to discuss. We can have it both ways.

Besides, we don't really have any control over the outcome of the game either by the above logic. We might win or lose. And life will go on. All the analysis in the world on here of whether we can shut down Cornish and Lewis or whether our somewhat-of-a-patchwork O-line can hold off the pass rush isn't going to change that. But I would never want to silence anybody who wishes to ruminate on these matters.

TBH, I'd argue we actually have more influence on the attendance. We the fans are the ones buying tickets and encouraging others to do so.

[almo89]

Interesting that News1130 is reporting that over 40k has been sold, but nothing from the club about this. It would be nice for the club to announce this to generate a bit more hype.

[sj-roc]

Interesting that News1130 is reporting that over 40k has been sold, but nothing from the club about this. It would be nice for the club to announce this to generate a bit more hype.

I know, and I couldn't believe how they completely buried that in a story also covering three other lower tier hockey games after yesterday morning's tease.

[B.C.FAN]

Interesting that News1130 is reporting that over 40k has been sold, but nothing from the club about this. It would be nice for the club to announce this to generate a bit more hype.

TSN is also reporting over 40,000 sold here and over 47,000 in Montreal.

[almo89]

Interesting that News1130 is reporting that over 40k has been sold, but nothing from the club about this. It would be nice for the club to announce this to generate a bit more hype.

TSN is also reporting over 40,000 sold here and over 47,000 in Montreal.

I remember in 2004 when 40k was announced, the sales really picked up. It's a little different this time around since there isn't enough time to have that snowball effect, but I still think it would be cool for the club to announce it. Hopefully it happens before the end of the day and that it will get people to order last minute tomorrow.

[Ravi]

I don't mean to dump on the great work being done here but I have to wonder why people are so obsessed about the attendance for the game in the first place. The crowd is going to be whatever the crowd is going to be. As long as they are loud and cheering for the Lions, then I don't care how many are there.

For whatever reason, people seem to think that a crowd of 40,000 shows the market doesn't care about the Lions. I thought we were past these market based insecurities. The reality is that there is a hardcore contingent of Lions fans that come to the games and it generally sits around 30,000 people. It fluctuates up or down depending on the opponent and what's at stake, but I think that's probably about what the market is in BC and that's just fine. Looking around at some of the "good" markets in the CFL, Edmonton didn't crack 40K for their labour day matchup with the Stamps, and the Stamps barely cracked 30K for their playoff game against the Riders (where supposedly their entire province shows up for each and every game home or away).

40K+ will be the biggest crowd of the year in the CFL. Sounds like similar sales numbers for the Eastern final. Those numbers are just fine and show that the Lions will have a big crowd of supporters cheering them on to hopefully another Grey Cup appearance.

You were reading my mind Big Time. Yesterday I started and stopped on a couple of posts to this thread with exactly the same thoughts you have in your opening paragraph. The market is what the market is. Lion fans seem to be getting stressed over these numbers yet are they of any more concern than are those in other cities. When it comes to playoffs the attendances in other markets are often some of the lowest of their seasons. Last year the Eskimos hosted their first playoff game in 7 seasons and it was against rival Calgary. It was their poorest gate of the season behind only the season opener against Hamilton. In 2010 after a totally sold out regular season the Riders didn't sell out was the West Semi-Final against BC. Calgary's worst attendance in 2009 was for the West Semi-Final against Edmonton. Ditto for Winnipeg in their 2007 playoff game. After averaging 27701 in the regular season they drew 22843 for the playoffs. Yet here was are griping and grumbling about what will be our best crowd of the season.

If Skulsky is killing the Lions then he has company in other organizations. Edmonton's attendance has been in slow decline every year since 2005 with only one increase blip in 2008. Their numbers are off 7500/game from '05 (34318 this year vs 41933 in 05). The only increase they've seen since '05 came in 2008. After dropping from 37870 in '06 to 36843 in '07 they popped back up 37383 in '08 before continuing back on the annual down hill trend. Calgary's numbers have eroded as well in the past 4 years. They had a spike in 2009 thanks to the temporary GC seats being in place for half of the season. In '08 they averaged 32523. Aside from 2009 every year has seen a reduction in attendance since 2008. This year's 28665 was nearly 2000 less than last year's 30601. Mosaic's capacity starting 2008 was 28800. They added a section of temporary seats part way through that season raising capacity to 30945. This year they added nearly 3400 seats. Starting with Game 4 in 2007 the sold out 38 of the next 42 games through to the end of last season. This year they had only 3 sellouts. Montreal had pretty much sold out every game at capacity-challenged Molson Stadium starting early in 2002 through 2010 when they added 5000 seats to the venerable old stadium. They filled all 25012 seats every game in 2010 and haven't sold out a game in 2 seasons since. This year The Argos, Riders and Ti-Cats led the way with average increases of 3672, 2329 and 2048 respectively. BC was next at 631 with an asterisk due to the Empire factor last year. The other 4 clubs saw attendance declines; Esks down 307, Bombers down 1580, Als down 1601 and Stamps down 1936.

probably b/c ppl don't want to freeze their balls off in those cities.. we have a climate controlled cover stadium, no excuses here.

We also have had a championship caliber team past few years. If Lulay sticks, then we have a quarterback and RB to build this team around for years, young receiving core too.

Apples with the BC orange comparison.. our situation is ideal our city is bigger our stadium is nicer and our team is better our weather is purrfect. so where are the fans? It's gotta be the price structure as the biggest variable in this particular market

Additionally, you also can't compare division semi-final attendance with division final attendance. When was the last time that the Lions hosted a division semi-final game anyway? 1986? Semi-final games are notoriously tougher sells than Final games.

[Buonosjanet69]

Now can we please talk some football??? Where is Blitz?

wrong thread

[sj-roc]

Interesting that News1130 is reporting that over 40k has been sold, but nothing from the club about this. It would be nice for the club to announce this to generate a bit more hype.

TSN is also reporting over 40,000 sold here and over 47,000 in Montreal.

I remember in 2004 when 40k was announced, the sales really picked up. It's a little different this time around since there isn't enough time to have that snowball effect, but I still think it would be cool for the club to announce it. Hopefully it happens before the end of the day and that it will get people to order last minute tomorrow.

Yes, I recall that surge as well. At the time it was widely attributed to bandwagon effect as you suggest, that the game had taken on a life of its own and tons of folks — people who probably hadn't even dreamed of attending just a week or two before — ended up going just to be part of the crowd. But as I've mentioned, it could also be accounted for by procrastination: who knows how many of these late buyers were already long since firm in their decision to attend and, rather than putting aside other more urgent matters, waited closer to the last minute to finally make the purchase? Closing the transaction on time is more critical to the individual consumer than how early it closes. Isn't that the way most of us pay off our credit cards, our tax and utility bills?

So if that's true, then how early the 40k threshold is reached shouldn't matter quite as much as if there were merely a bandwagon effect driving the market. In a related matter, I remember one of the talking points from that ticket buying surge that emerged on here in the last few days leading up to that game was, would all these "newbies" impact negatively in terms of getting too loud, etc. at the wrong times? It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect this from people supposedly less familiar with football cheering protocol. Indeed, there was plenty of evidence of this on display during the regular season as the crowds grew in response to the team's success so there was every reason to expect this issue to compound for the WF. But I distinctly remember that 55k crowd as being VERY *ON*. For the most part they knew when to turn it up and when to stifle it. I even called Jeff Paterson's radio show that night to express my pleasant surprise at this happenstance and IIRC he was in full agreement. So maybe all those extra late buyers weren't such bandwagoners after all.

[almo89]

Yeah I was really surprised at how well the fans were for the 04 game. All year long the fans were cheering at the wrong times, but for that one game you could hear a pin drop when our offense was out there and it was bedlam when our defense was on the field.

[vanhalendlrband]

3 point i'd like to make

The prices between the Seahawks and Lions. I don't think that's a bad different. Are you saying the NFL is a better product than the CFL? With Canadians filling every roster, the difference of the game, the politics of the NFL, i'd say it's apples and oranges, or maybe apples and crabapples?

BC Place stadium is newer than Seahawk Stadium, and someone mentioned, we don't have near the same TV contract or revenue of the Seahawks, and our tickets are still ten bucks cheaper. As well if Seahawk Stadium had a CFL field, or tried to accomade one, it would go from 65,000 seats to 45,000 seats if they engineered it and pretty much rebuilt seahawk stadium which i'm sure would be necessary to even accomadate a CFL field. BC Place can hosue both fields and if it was engineered for an NFL field, it was previously reported at 80,000 cuz its bigger than Pontiac Silverdome which had 76,000 seats. People always go, especially NFL fans, BC Place only holds 59,000 and when I found that out I threw that in all their faces. Just like even right not as is if they changed it to NFL BC Place would hold 74,500 nearly 10,000 more seats than Seahawk Stadium. And don't get me wrong i'm not dissing NFL or Seahawks just saying things to put things in perspective from all the facts. Just being Spock about it, if you catch what I mean.

And my dad always used to tell me years ago, maybe this was true when he had seasons tickets in the 80's, but i'm pretty sure he said we get about 7,500 walkup. Maybe not true in the regular season anymore, but I think might apply to playoffs. I'm not sure really. I'm thinkin expect 47,500 I still haven't bought my ticket yet either but I will today.

[J5V]

On Sportstalk with Dan Russell tonight on CKNW 980 Dave Sheldon says that they are well over the 40,000 mark. Dan Russell is saying he's heard the Lions think that 50,000 is still a real possibility.

[Toppy Vann]

yes, they say that Vancouver is a huge walk up market apparently.

[sj-roc]

On Sportstalk with Dan Russell tonight on CKNW 980 Dave Sheldon says that they are well over the 40,000 mark. Dan Russell is saying he's heard the Lions think that 50,000 is still a real possibility.

Keep in mind though all the talk about 40k being a possibility for the reg season finale vs Ssk only to have it stall at 36,357. How many times have the Lions floated some number as a possibility or what they were aiming for over the years only to have it fall short every last time? I'll believe 50k when they say 50k SOLD and/or when I see it on the video board Sunday.

I'm baffled as to why the Lions aren't touting this 40k+ figure on their website. The 36k number from Monday is the latest they've released officially.

[Rammer]

On Sportstalk with Dan Russell tonight on CKNW 980 Dave Sheldon says that they are well over the 40,000 mark. Dan Russell is saying he's heard the Lions think that 50,000 is still a real possibility.

Keep in mind though all the talk about 40k being a possibility for the reg season finale vs Ssk only to have it stall at 36,357. How many times have the Lions floated some number as a possibility or what they were aiming for over the years only to have it fall short every last time? I'll believe 50k when they say 50k SOLD and/or when I see it on the video board Sunday.

I'm baffled as to why the Lions aren't touting this 40k+ figure on their website. The 36k number from Monday is the latest they've released officially.

Once you put out there that the 40K amount is surpassed, the increase factor of an event happens and sales begin to take on the snowball effect. It is surprising that we haven't heard much of this number, as it is the single biggest promoting factor to gain additional sales the two days prior to the WDF.

[sj-roc]

On Sportstalk with Dan Russell tonight on CKNW 980 Dave Sheldon says that they are well over the 40,000 mark. Dan Russell is saying he's heard the Lions think that 50,000 is still a real possibility.

Keep in mind though all the talk about 40k being a possibility for the reg season finale vs Ssk only to have it stall at 36,357. How many times have the Lions floated some number as a possibility or what they were aiming for over the years only to have it fall short every last time? I'll believe 50k when they say 50k SOLD and/or when I see it on the video board Sunday.

I'm baffled as to why the Lions aren't touting this 40k+ figure on their website. The 36k number from Monday is the latest they've released officially.

Once you put out there that the 40K amount is surpassed, the increase factor of an event happens and sales begin to take on the snowball effect. It is surprising that we haven't heard much of this number, as it is the single biggest promoting factor to gain additional sales the two days prior to the WDF.

Frankly I'm beginning to have my doubts about this 40k sold figure. The first place I saw it was buried on a fairly broad News1130 article today on much of the sports action in BC this weekend, and it was stated without any attribution to the club. B.C.Fan also pointed out a TSN report that also gave a 40k figure, again with no attribution. Then there's Dan Russell's show saying 40k and this Province article today which says "a glance at a Ticketmaster map Friday morning suggests well over 40,000 tickets sold so far." But nobody seems to be sourcing this number from anyone official. It's baffling enough the Lions seem to be completely mum on this, but doubly so after yesterday morning's tease about a forthcoming figure that has YET to be consummated. Maybe Skulsky will have something to say on Tom Mayenknecht's show in the morning; he'll be on there for a whole hour (10-11am) as I recall hearing from TM himself on 1040 this afternoon.