Season Tickets 26/27 massive price increase

[ginger]

curious,,,,, would anybody know a rough figure of how many season ticket holders there are,,,,,

They said that there were over 1500 at the ST training session the other day, so more than that! Being a Tuesday night I'm guessing a lot didnt make it. We know of a few couples who didnt.

I'd have thought easily 3k, and more likely between 4k - 5k. Like with us and Cardiff, I suspect some 4d chess is in play. As ultimately owners don't want "too many" ST holders, and with some teams turning up near capacity average attendances, I think they want to jack up ST prices high enough to put a certain chunk of folk off renewing. Then that opens those seats up every night, and those former ST holders revert to picking and choosing games, which is more revenue per seat per night, with other casuals buying those seats for the games they don't attend.

All fine and dandy while your barn mostly sells out, but everyone is a bad season away from losing a big slice of attendees, and it's the ST holders who tend to always stick out the thin times.

It feels like a blunt, lazy, and unimaginative measure just to squeeze fans for more money per night to make more revenue. EIHL still has no TV deal or title sponsorship, Cup and Playoffs have no title sponsorship either far as I know. The commercial teams of all respective clubs just aren't doing enough to make the most of this being the UK's best attended indoor sport, and picking up more (or bigger) sponsors to bring in the additional income they want/need. They should tap and exhaust this side of things first, before asking fans to stump up more yet again.

And to play Devil's advocate, maybe they already have tried for TV deals and bigger sponsers but those companies don't see value yet in British ice hockey?

TV deals - obviously only good if on a major platform that already has a large subscriber base, or is free to view. Not going to get much if any money from free to view, and most viewers initially are likely to be existing fans. Sky/BT/etc are more likely, but when they are shelling out millions and more on football/F1/cricket, there's not much in the way of cash going to be thrown at a minority sport.

Sponsers - again, how much does it benefit them? Does 3k per game attendance when a good proportion are kids do anything for a large national/international business?

We all want both of the above, but got to be realistic about the offering the other way. And I suspect for most companies in either scenario, the numbers don't work.

[DiscoRay]

And to play Devil's advocate, maybe they already have tried for TV deals and bigger sponsers but those companies don't see value yet in British ice hockey?

TV deals - obviously only good if on a major platform that already has a large subscriber base, or is free to view. Not going to get much if any money from free to view, and most viewers initially are likely to be existing fans. Sky/BT/etc are more likely, but when they are shelling out millions and more on football/F1/cricket, there's not much in the way of cash going to be thrown at a minority sport.

Sponsers - again, how much does it benefit them? Does 3k per game attendance when a good proportion are kids do anything for a large national/international business?

We all want both of the above, but got to be realistic about the offering the other way. And I suspect for most companies in either scenario, the numbers don't work.

I just don't really buy much of that at all, not least because smaller indoor and outdoor sports in comparison have no issue with these. The British Basketball League for example picked both up, and that's with the pro sport here being a stability basket case. Whereas in contrast the EIHL has stood close to 25 years now, with much higher attendances. I think it's as simple as the club owners taking a "my ball" attitude, and aren't willing to do these things unless they also control them.

On the sponsor front, you have a near complete mix of people from all demographs attending games, including an almost equal male/female split. In short that's an advertiser's dream, there isn't a group missing that you couldn't market to. It's a huge advantage and selling point, one that I think the clubs don't seem to press, or at the very least it doesn't look like they are doing so. Then you look at the track-record to who they did get. Remember Predictor Bet's "muti-year sponsorship" of the Play-Off weekend? They only ended up sponsoring one year, then soon after you couldn't even view their website, it was gone and so was the company, though the twitter account is still up, only 7 years since their last tweet! Poor choices like that suggest to me it's ineptness on the corporate & due diligence side of the EIHL, rather than the lack of sponsors out there willing to take deals on.

The NIHL National at least has Planet Ice as a title sponsor. Ligue Magnus have Synerglace, ICEHL win2day, Metal Lagan in Denmark, Norway had GET-ligaen for 16 years. When you check elsewhere, it seems the EIHL is quite unique in the world in it's lack of headline sponsors, much in the same way they are adamant they "can't" do Play-Off series, a thing that every other professional league in the world can. The evidence suggest it's all by choice rather than inability.

[NinjaBreadMark]

curious,,,,, would anybody know a rough figure of how many season ticket holders there are,,,,,

You can have a rough guess (or count, if you have the time/inclination!) by logging on to the steelers hub site, choosing 'new season ticket' and seeing what's already taken. Should give you a decent idea how many there are this season.

I wonder if an AI would be able to count the number on a screenshot? I might give it a test.

Or just be a spreadsheet nerd who sees that kind of thing as a challenge and has worked it out by looking at the seating plan!

There are presently 3426 seats in the arena marked as 'Unavailable'.

[kivo1889]

curious,,,,, would anybody know a rough figure of how many season ticket holders there are,,,,,

You can have a rough guess (or count, if you have the time/inclination!) by logging on to the steelers hub site, choosing 'new season ticket' and seeing what's already taken. Should give you a decent idea how many there are this season.

I wonder if an AI would be able to count the number on a screenshot? I might give it a test.

Or just be a spreadsheet nerd who sees that kind of thing as a challenge and has worked it out by looking at the seating plan!

There are presently 3426 seats in the arena marked as 'Unavailable'.

Epic. I doff my Steelers bobble hat to you.

On an historical note I remember when the steelers went bust (circa 2011?) and the owner bogged off to Cardiff with the ST money of a reported £300k. I think they were about £300 each then, so about 1000 ST holders. When Tony S took over he immediately promised to honour the debt, to his great credit.

If it's 3.4 k at £600 a pop that's up to the thick end of £2 million.

[ginger]

And to play Devil's advocate, maybe they already have tried for TV deals and bigger sponsers but those companies don't see value yet in British ice hockey?

TV deals - obviously only good if on a major platform that already has a large subscriber base, or is free to view. Not going to get much if any money from free to view, and most viewers initially are likely to be existing fans. Sky/BT/etc are more likely, but when they are shelling out millions and more on football/F1/cricket, there's not much in the way of cash going to be thrown at a minority sport.

Sponsers - again, how much does it benefit them? Does 3k per game attendance when a good proportion are kids do anything for a large national/international business?

We all want both of the above, but got to be realistic about the offering the other way. And I suspect for most companies in either scenario, the numbers don't work.

I just don't really buy much of that at all, not least because smaller indoor and outdoor sports in comparison have no issue with these. The British Basketball League for example picked both up, and that's with the pro sport here being a stability basket case. Whereas in contrast the EIHL has stood close to 25 years now, with much higher attendances. I think it's as simple as the club owners taking a "my ball" attitude, and aren't willing to do these things unless they also control them.

On the sponsor front, you have a near complete mix of people from all demographs attending games, including an almost equal male/female split. In short that's an advertiser's dream, there isn't a group missing that you couldn't market to. It's a huge advantage and selling point, one that I think the clubs don't seem to press, or at the very least it doesn't look like they are doing so. Then you look at the track-record to who they did get. Remember Predictor Bet's "muti-year sponsorship" of the Play-Off weekend? They only ended up sponsoring one year, then soon after you couldn't even view their website, it was gone and so was the company, though the twitter account is still up, only 7 years since their last tweet! Poor choices like that suggest to me it's ineptness on the corporate & due diligence side of the EIHL, rather than the lack of sponsors out there willing to take deals on.

The NIHL National at least has Planet Ice as a title sponsor. Ligue Magnus have Synerglace, ICEHL win2day, Metal Lagan in Denmark, Norway had GET-ligaen for 16 years. When you check elsewhere, it seems the EIHL is quite unique in the world in it's lack of headline sponsors, much in the same way they are adamant they "can't" do Play-Off series, a thing that every other professional league in the world can. The evidence suggest it's all by choice rather than inability.

Did those other sports pay to get TV coverage? And as you say, BBL is a stability disaster so did the TV deal do anything for it? Did the broadcaster see any uptick in subscription? Would a TV deal effectively replace potential lost income from webcasts?

Sponsership again isn't as easy as "here's a group of people, surely you want to advertise to them" - what's the total number of eyes, what's the conversion rate, so what's the cost/benefit? I'm not saying there aren't potential sponsors out there, but equally without all the data it's hard to say properly how attractive it is.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am saying that it's hard to pin all the blame on the owners/league. There's a lot of variables and data that we are just not privvy to. And it's probably a little of column A and and little bit of column B in reality.

[DiscoRay]

Did those other sports pay to get TV coverage? And as you say, BBL is a stability disaster so did the TV deal do anything for it? Did the broadcaster see any uptick in subscription? Would a TV deal effectively replace potential lost income from webcasts?

Sponsership again isn't as easy as "here's a group of people, surely you want to advertise to them" - what's the total number of eyes, what's the conversion rate, so what's the cost/benefit? I'm not saying there aren't potential sponsors out there, but equally without all the data it's hard to say properly how attractive it is.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I am saying that it's hard to pin all the blame on the owners/league. There's a lot of variables and data that we are just not privvy to. And it's probably a little of column A and and little bit of column B in reality.

As far as I can see, yes they did get money for those deals. Like with all businesses, some products make profit, and others can make losses, broadcasters don't make money on every single sport they put on the airwaves. They'll do niche sports because either the costs or losses are low, and have other larger sports that coin the bulk of their revenue in. (I.E. mainly football in Sky Sports case.) Broadcasting a few games a month isn't going to hamper much webcast income, we're not talking about comprehensive coverage from day 1. Any deal will (and should) be an incremental one taking baby steps, that makes sense for both sides.

You know the base numbers via the avg attendance figures, and individual clubs can use non-identifiable demographic information based on their ST holders. That's been done for years, even in the EHIL, you can usually see this information in a club's corporate digital brochure published in the off-season when they're looking for additional sponsors, keep an eye out for the Steelers one next month after the season ends to see a first-hand example.

I could see your side of things more if we were having a title sponsor or tv deal for a couple of years here, a gap for a couple of years there, then we have another one in again for a couple of years. When we're talking about a decade by now without either, that makes it look like a choice, rather than an inability, or "bad luck". Though for argument sake, what do you think makes UK ice hockey specifically unattractive to get a title sponsor and/or TV deal in a decade+ of time? That's quite unique in a bad way, so there must be something astonishingly wrong with the sport here for that to be the case.

[ginger]

For TV, firstly, hockey doesn't translate well to TV generally as well as other sports, and requires well trained camera operators to keep coverage where it should be (how many times do webcasts mess this up and they must have been doing them for a while). It needs access to multi camera replays, all of which need to have kept up with the play. Add in rinks which don't necessarily support broadcast quality equipment to the same level of the arena based teams and it's another sticking point.

When the cost of the major sports broadcast rights keep increasing, it pushes out budget for others - only have to look at Sky Sports now and see how much the traditional big names have disappeared, and more social media personalities (who I guarantee are cheaper) are being used. Less and less other sports are being shown because everything has become 'content' rather than live sport, and why bother on expensive, awkward live broadcasts for a niche sport with a fairly low ceiling on viewers/new subscribers, when you can pay 2 or 3 social media personalities a bit of cash and chuck them in a studio for discussion/entertainment.

Ultimately though, Sky etc won't pay money for something they don't see as beneficial.

So just as you can look at it from the league not trying angle, because we don't have the data/financial info, its also equally possible the broadcasters don't see value in it.

The truth no doubt is in the middle, and probably the webcast revenue across the leagues is in excess of £30k, per club per season, and possibly more. Somewhere there'll be sticking points that can't be solved, and I suspect that revenue is a big part of it - broadcasters not willing to meet what teams need to cover loss

[greeny]

Another £10 to go on top of ticket price,,,, £5 plastic card and £5 postage,,,,, more to think about