Will the Sabres drop STH prices in 23-24?

[LabattBlue]

Probably not happening, but anyone think the Sabres would drop STH prices in the off-season in order to build their base back up?

…and before anyone suggests that the STH price is reasonable compared to other teams, it is all about supply and demand.  Knock the price down, build the base up, and by then the team will be playoff caliber, and fans more likely to stomach the increase.  

[IKnowPhysics]

Respectfully, not only no, but hell no.

In order to receive critically necessary league revenue sharing, the team needs to develop and execute plans that project increased team revenue, and the league simply won't accept a plan in which average ticket prices go down.

The Sabres might throw all sorts of giveaways and merchandise discounts and concessions discounts and special events and 50/50 raffles and other incentives at STHs, and they might even change what STHs pay for seats in different sections, but there's basically a zero percent chance that the average STH price decreases.

Especially after the team and league revenue losses of Covid.

[tom webster]

No. 
 

I know it’s not scientific, but speaking from my own experience, our group will expand by two or four more tickets and I have had no trouble selling any tickets this year. I believe the demand is there for a fairly significant increase.

I expect they will have a healthy increase this year.

[Getpucksdeep]

17 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

Probably not happening, but anyone think the Sabres would drop STH prices in the off-season in order to build their base back up?

…and before anyone suggests that the STH price is reasonable compared to other teams, it is all about supply and demand.  Knock the price down, build the base up, and by then the team will be playoff caliber, and fans more likely to stomach the increase.  

I would love for it to be the case - and the crappy attendance at the Carolina game would be an example of "something is broken". But how do they fix it?  Above my pay grade, but yeah not expecting price to go down.

[Norcal]

No. Prices are only going up from here.

Just like the value of the team. 

In a few years the Sabres could be valued at over $1 billion. 

Add one or more Stanley Cups to that and look out. 

 

[Taro T]

Really don't see prices going down.  Golisano dropped them a bit when he took over, but that was pre-revenue sharing and the salary cap.

Could see an early renewal policy like they had this year which let STHers lock in the new season at the current season's prices.  (And the team makes out as they collect interest on the early payments.)

But they won't even let "Sabre Bucks" carry over into the next season anymore.  (Used to be able to save them for up to 3 years and then use them on something nice.  Thought they liked that too as they had use of the money w/ no interest due the STHers for an extended time.  Guess, they didn't like the minor hit to the books that they saw when non-renewing ticket holders finally got around to buying something w/ them.)

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, IKnowPhysics said:

Respectfully, not only no, but hell no.

In order to receive critically necessary league revenue sharing, the team needs to develop and execute plans that project increased team revenue, and the league simply won't accept a plan in which average ticket prices go down.

The Sabres might throw all sorts of giveaways and merchandise discounts and concessions discounts and special events and 50/50 raffles and other incentives at STHs, and they might even change what STHs pay for seats in different sections, but there's basically a zero percent chance that the average STH price decreases.

Especially after the team and league revenue losses of Covid.

Factually inaccurate. The Sabres only wanted people to believe that the CBA required them to increase ticket prices in order to get revenue sharing. The reality is much more nuanced.

[LabattBlue]

1 hour ago, tom webster said:

No. 
 

I know it’s not scientific, but speaking from my own experience, our group will expand by two or four more tickets and I have had no trouble selling any tickets this year. I believe the demand is there for a fairly significant increase.

I expect they will have a healthy increase this year.

Well, my STH days have been done for several years now, but I look forward to seeing how this works out for them. 

[PromoTheRobot]

14 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

Well, my STH days have been done for several years now, but I look forward to seeing how this works out for them. 

For the sake of the franchise in Buffalo it needs to.

[matter2003]

18 hours ago, Getpucksdeep said:

I would love for it to be the case - and the crappy attendance at the Carolina game would be an example of "something is broken". But how do they fix it?  Above my pay grade, but yeah not expecting price to go down.

Is there something broken?  Attendance is up 46% and will keep rising as the Sabres become better and better. Hard to say there is "something broken" with numbers like that. Especially when factoring in how abysmal the attendance was at the start of the year before anyone knew they would actually start turning the corner.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2023/02/01/Franchises/buffalo-sabres-attendance-growth-keybank-center.aspx

Edited February 8, 2023 by matter2003

[Contempt]

Yachts don't pay for themselves. Price decrease. Lol. You're looking at a 5 percent bump at least.

[Taro T]

12 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Is there something broken?  Attendance is up 46% and will keep rising as the Sabres become better and better. Hard to say there is "something broken" with numbers like that. Especially when factoring in how abysmal the attendance was at the start of the year before anyone knew they would actually start turning the corner.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2023/02/01/Franchises/buffalo-sabres-attendance-growth-keybank-center.aspx

What people keep forgetting is that through pretty much the entirety of the era from MMArena opening through THE lockout, attendance was always poor in the fall but picked up after the Bills season ended & we got into "hockey weather" and then from February through the end of their run the attendance ranged from good to sold out building. 

The difference between then & now is, poor attendance was 12-14k (though even that was gained during the criminals' era by freebie seat giveaways goosing attendance) on a weeknight vs the Thrashers or Whalers or the like and now it is 4-8k on a weeknight.  Really expecting poor attendance at the beginning of next year will be in the 10-12k range on those poor draw opponent weeknight games rather than as bad as last year or even this year.  But like the old days, they should be selling out or getting reasonably close to sellouts in October on weekends.

Even that Cane game that people were decrying the poor attendance was 2/3's full which is a big improvement over weeknight non-name opponents this past October.  (And, yes, the Canes are very good, but the casual fans still don't give a rat's rear end about them.  We're the ones that find them a good team to watch & measure the Sabres progress against.)

IF the team is as good as this kid expects them to be next season, by mid-January they'll be selling out nearly every night & '24-'25 could see close to Slug Era attendance.

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, Contempt said:

Yachts don't pay for themselves. Price decrease. Lol. You're looking at a 5 percent bump at least.

Awful!

[Getpucksdeep]

1 hour ago, matter2003 said:

Is there something broken?  Attendance is up 46% and will keep rising as the Sabres become better and better. Hard to say there is "something broken" with numbers like that. Especially when factoring in how abysmal the attendance was at the start of the year before anyone knew they would actually start turning the corner.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2023/02/01/Franchises/buffalo-sabres-attendance-growth-keybank-center.aspx

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure, but sharing perspective from my son and people his age (early 20s) who can "see" events every day on their socials/phones.  When they "see" the Sabres games over the past 5 years the environment looks terrible to them. Then when they choose to try and go, like one of them who's a Cane's fan despite growing up in ROC (puke) did last week, they question it.  "Why not lower seats prices? We go to Sens games for $5" (presume resale).  "It's sold out and fun in Nashville"  And in Pittsburgh they have that Student Rush promo at $30 on game days to fill seats cheap.  Do the Sabres do any of these things?  Family 4 pack I guess, which is fine for revenue, but tbh is that the demo to get the place rocking?  More likely it's a bunch of people who don't mind the damn whistle!

Definitely tricky with season tickets factored in.  But also definitely improving!  Coincidentally I spoke with my rep today, and he shared that all remaining home games are trending towards sell out.  

@Taro T completely agree w/ this " (And, yes, the Canes are very good, but the casual fans still don't give a rat's rear end about them.  We're the ones that find them a good team to watch & measure the Sabres progress against.)"    

[matter2003]

4 minutes ago, Getpucksdeep said:

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure, but sharing perspective from my son and people his age (early 20s) who can "see" events every day on their socials/phones.  When they "see" the Sabres games over the past 5 years the environment looks terrible to them. Then when they choose to try and go, like one of them who's a Cane's fan despite growing up in ROC (puke) did last week, they question it.  "Why not lower seats prices? We go to Sens games for $5" (presume resale).  "It's sold out and fun in Nashville"  And in Pittsburgh they have that Student Rush promo at $30 on game days to fill seats cheap.  Do the Sabres do any of these things?  Family 4 pack I guess, which is fine for revenue, but tbh is that the demo to get the place rocking?  More likely it's a bunch of people who don't mind the damn whistle!

Definitely tricky with season tickets factored in.  But also definitely improving!  Coincidentally I spoke with my rep today, and he shared that all remaining home games are trending towards sell out.  

@Taro T completely agree w/ this " (And, yes, the Canes are very good, but the casual fans still don't give a rat's rear end about them.  We're the ones that find them a good team to watch & measure the Sabres progress against.)"    

Bottom line is the Sabres have been very bad for 11 years straight and been through a failed rebuild(two if you count Botterill's attempt to fix TMGM's mess). They lost a lot of fans during that time and deservedly so.  Just like they didn't lose them all at once, they aren't going to get them back all at once either.  But I would expect once this team shows they are a playoff team again fans will be back in full force to the arena.  They still are watching on TV, they just aren't going as much right now.

[PerreaultForever]

I would suspect that they will be higher next year, just a question of how much. 

I'm not in the area so idk what they do for tickets and they might do this already, but if they are smart they will package up some of the stinker/dud games at a discount with the usual high demand games in order to drive up crowd sizes but overall it doesn't matter. If they win people will come. 

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, Contempt said:

Yachts don't pay for themselves. Price decrease. Lol. You're looking at a 5 percent bump at least.

Why is Terry expected to subsidize the Sabres?

[PromoTheRobot]

33 minutes ago, Getpucksdeep said:

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure, but sharing perspective from my son and people his age (early 20s) who can "see" events every day on their socials/phones.  When they "see" the Sabres games over the past 5 years the environment looks terrible to them. Then when they choose to try and go, like one of them who's a Cane's fan despite growing up in ROC (puke) did last week, they question it.  "Why not lower seats prices? We go to Sens games for $5" (presume resale).  "It's sold out and fun in Nashville"  And in Pittsburgh they have that Student Rush promo at $30 on game days to fill seats cheap.  Do the Sabres do any of these things?  Family 4 pack I guess, which is fine for revenue, but tbh is that the demo to get the place rocking?  More likely it's a bunch of people who don't mind the damn whistle!

Definitely tricky with season tickets factored in.  But also definitely improving!  Coincidentally I spoke with my rep today, and he shared that all remaining home games are trending towards sell out.  

@Taro T completely agree w/ this " (And, yes, the Canes are very good, but the casual fans still don't give a rat's rear end about them.  We're the ones that find them a good team to watch & measure the Sabres progress against.)"    

The Sabres have various seat discount programs. College students, Buffalo News subscribers, etc.

[Contempt]

9 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Why is Terry expected to subsidize the Sabres?

Because we are expected to subsidize his football team.

[JohnC]

Is variable pricing (hate it) factored into season ticket prices? In my view if variable pricing is a fact of life, it should be for week day games at a discounted price. 

[JohnC]

5 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

For the sake of the franchise in Buffalo it needs to.

I understand your position but it is not going to happen. The demand for tickets will go up as the team becomes a more serious team. And it is moving in that direction right now. And not surprisingly, steadily the attendance numbers are going up. 

[Taro T]

42 minutes ago, Getpucksdeep said:

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure, but sharing perspective from my son and people his age (early 20s) who can "see" events every day on their socials/phones.  When they "see" the Sabres games over the past 5 years the environment looks terrible to them. Then when they choose to try and go, like one of them who's a Cane's fan despite growing up in ROC (puke) did last week, they question it.  "Why not lower seats prices? We go to Sens games for $5" (presume resale).  "It's sold out and fun in Nashville"  And in Pittsburgh they have that Student Rush promo at $30 on game days to fill seats cheap.  Do the Sabres do any of these things?  Family 4 pack I guess, which is fine for revenue, but tbh is that the demo to get the place rocking?  More likely it's a bunch of people who don't mind the damn whistle!

Definitely tricky with season tickets factored in.  But also definitely improving!  Coincidentally I spoke with my rep today, and he shared that all remaining home games are trending towards sell out.  

@Taro T completely agree w/ this " (And, yes, the Canes are very good, but the casual fans still don't give a rat's rear end about them.  We're the ones that find them a good team to watch & measure the Sabres progress against.)"    

My understanding is that the Sabres have started generally selling tix at a discount for the rest of the season & the Canes game was the 1st game they were doing that for this year.  Don't have the details on it, bit expect they're on the Sabres website.  (Thought they were offering some $20 seats, but not positive on that.)

As @PromoTheRobot mentioned, through their partners like LECOM they have been offering discounts for different groups, but pretty sure those are all cases where the 3rd party (LECOM, TBN, etc.) pays the difference between the discount price and at a minimum the ST price.

They have to be careful just what they offer on their latest discount program because am pretty sure they still advertise that STH are supposed to get the cheapest available prices.  If they don't then could see where somebody would sue over it.  Don't believe people should, but just because they shouldn't doesn't mean they can't & won't. 

5 minutes ago, JohnC said:

Is variable pricing (hate it) factored into season ticket prices? In my view if variable pricing is a fact of life, it should be for week day games at a discounted price. 

It was in the past.  Not certain it was this season.

[PromoTheRobot]

11 minutes ago, Contempt said:

Because we are expected to subsidize his football team.

You want an NFL franchise in Buffalo? Sadly this area can't swing it without sweeteners. Hey, I support you taking a hard line with billionaire owners. Just don't shed any tears when the moving vans arrive.

Edited February 8, 2023 by PromoTheRobot

[matter2003]

20 minutes ago, Contempt said:

Because we are expected to subsidize his football team.

That's the cost of doing business with an NFL team. For ALL NFL cities.  Let's stop pretending like somehow this only happens here like we love trying to do with anything Bills/Sabres related.  Some people simply need to broaden their horizons and understand how things actually work around the leagues outside of these two teams. Funny people always bring this stuff up, but you have no issue subsidizing something in NYC that none of use tho right?  That's how things work.  Some things you pay tax dollars on you don't use.  Like people who own houses with no kids that pay school taxes.  That's just how it is. Get over yourself already.

8 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

You want an NFL franchise in Buffalo? Sadly this area can't swing it without sweeteners. Hey, I support you taking a hard line with billionaire owners. Just don't shed any tears when the moving vans arrive.

No area swings it.  That's life in the NFL. It's the cost of doing business with them.

Edited February 8, 2023 by matter2003

[PromoTheRobot]

39 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

That's the cost of doing business with an NFL team. For ALL NFL cities.  Let's stop pretending like somehow this only happens here like we love trying to do with anything Bills/Sabres related.  Some people simply need to broaden their horizons and understand how things actually work around the leagues outside of these two teams. Funny people always bring this stuff up, but you have no issue subsidizing something in NYC that none of use tho right?  That's how things work.  Some things you pay tax dollars on you don't use.  Like people who own houses with no kids that pay school taxes.  That's just how it is. Get over yourself already.

No area swings it.  That's life in the NFL. It's the cost of doing business with them.

Some do. LA, Dallas, Boston. But almost every market has to put something in, like infrastructure improvements. Bob Kraft paid for Gillette but the state also committed to improving Route 1 and train access.