Steelers (for sale, price, club)

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

Originally Posted by erieguy

It's certainly easy to tell the non football fans. Stiller fans have much higher standards than Bucs fans. Stiller fans expect a good product, not gimmicks to put them in the seats.

Were the Pirates selling out PNC during all of the losing years? I don't think so....attendance was bad. Pirates fans were not OK with all of the losing. But, after a while, most were somewhat hardened and resigned to the fact that the team was going to stink. The gimmicks were an attempt to drum up attendance that rarely worked very well (aside from fireworks nights). Quality baseball is what is putting the butts back in the seats these days, not gimmicks.

I'd imagine the Steelers would suffer a similar fate if they didn't break .500 over the next decade.

[dbsteel]

There are people who want season tickets and sit on a waiting list who would actually go to the game, and there are season ticket holders who have them and either try and sell them or don't go because its below 50 degrees. These aren't your fans of the 70s. You almost need a refresh.....

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by SlurmsMcKenzie

Were the Pirates selling out PNC during all of the losing years? I don't think so....attendance was bad. Pirates fans were not OK with all of the losing. But, after a while, most were somewhat hardened and resigned to the fact that the team was going to stink. The gimmicks were an attempt to drum up attendance that rarely worked very well (aside from fireworks nights). Quality baseball is what is putting the butts back in the seats these days, not gimmicks.

I'd imagine the Steelers would suffer a similar fate if they didn't break .500 over the next decade.

Attendance was never bad by Bucs standards, but you're right that tix are selling because a better product has been put on the field...but gimmicks have made Nutting a huge profit up until the product became good...and when the product again goes bad, gimmicks will keep people in the seats. Standards are just lower.

Stillers fans will not give in to gimmicks. It's a good product or they'll stay home. The tix are already paid for. Money, big screen tv's, parking, beer prices, etc..., has nothing to do with empty seats at Stiller games. It's all about winning.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by dbsteel

There are people who want season tickets and sit on a waiting list who would actually go to the game, and there are season ticket holders who have them and either try and sell them or don't go because its below 50 degrees. These aren't your fans of the 70s. You almost need a refresh.....

Temperature has nothing to do with it. Those that want tix can get them on a secondary market. The fans of the 70's wanted to see winners the same as fans now. Those that don't recognize how lousy this team is obviously has no idea about or watches football other than maybe the Stillers. The worse the team plays/gets, the less people will go. It's the same thing that happens to most every other team in every sport.

[Copanut]

Originally Posted by erieguy

HD has been out for what, 10 years?

8 games doesn't matter. They stink.

The NFL wants 18 regular season games rather than 16. The more the Stillers stink the less people will go. It's pretty universal.

The waiting list is 50 years. Don't get excited into thinking the Stillers are losing popularity and the Bucs will overtake them. Never happen.

Of course not, baseball is chess, football is checkers. Most yinzers don't play chess.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Of course not, baseball is chess, football is checkers. Most yinzers don't play chess.

That's funny right there. The scenarios of baseball wouldn't fill 5 pages of a Pop Warner team playbook. You're talking a comic book vs a Pgh telephone book. Nothing about Baseball involves chess, unless you feel choosing between 3 pitches, whether or not to shift, lefty lefty, right righty, etc... is really that hard to figure out. And even then one can learn both chess and checkers around 7 years old.

[sskink]

HDTV and RedZone have a negative effect on attendance and it's not even arguable. Pick your link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=effe...x-a&channel=sb

But, let's be clear what we're talking about - there's a big difference between a 4.5% decline in NFL attendance since 2007 and 9,000 no-shows at Heinz (which would be around 14%). Tickets are still being sold. Fans buying game-day tickets are likely showing up. The no-shows would appear to be mostly folks with comfortable enough incomes who don't have to worry about making back their full investments in PSLs and season tickets. It's still an event for the "average" (not particularly wealthy) fan.

Increasing television ratings are all you need to know that football isn't going away as a sport despite whatever unsavory things continued to be reported about it.

And I'd guess that if the no-shows re-sold their tickets well below face value, there would be buyers. But if you go to StubHub, you'll see the lowest price for the Ravens game in two weeks is >$90. Maybe that game will be a packed house anyway due to the rivalry, maybe it won't due to the Steelers' record. Who knows. But there are no aggressively priced tickets online at the most popular resale site. You have to go Craigslist or other venues for bargains.

There's a reason why Jerry Jones put the world's largest HDTV into the new Cowboys Stadium - in a market where football rules (at least according to Gnutella, lol). And why other teams are doing all sorts of things to ensure wifi bandwidth for fans who are in attendance (and why do the Pats have something called "YinzCam" instead of the Steelers?). It's to replicate - and try to improve - the home viewing experience because that is the competition.

And it isn't always "product" quality that affects attendance. The Bengals had a pretty solid season last year. Didn't help attendance much. In MLB, the Indians were in the playoff hunt for much of the season, but had 2nd worst attendance in MLB. Maybe the Ohio economy sucks more than other places. And college football attendance is down as well, even in historically strong markets.

Plus, attendance is down in other sports and with other teams that had not be particularly vunerable to the economy, most notably NASCAR and the NY Yankees (which has the double whammy of an unremarkable new stadium and ridiculous prices for decent seats, and only Jeter saved them this year). The KC Royals couldn't hit 2 million attendance despite their best season in 29 years.

Pittsburgh is a strong football market and will be relatively immune to the overall trend. Heinz will continue to sell out. Whether people show up is another story, but any financial losses attributable to no-shows in terms of buying beer/food/souvenirs pale in comparison to the cost of the ticket itself, which is already sold.

[erieguy]

All of that and it has zero effect("immune")on the Stillers, the subject at hand, as the tickets are already sold for the next 50 years.

If the Stillers were 5-2 or 6-1 the stadium would be full. Instead they're lucky to be 4-3 and will be very lucky not to get whooped on in their next 2 games.

[Copanut]

The Sublime to the Ridiculous: Baseball is Chess; Football is Not


What he said.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by Copanut

The Sublime to the Ridiculous: Baseball is Chess; Football is Not


What he said.

I laugh with him, and at him, too...as those who debate it obviously don't know football.