CPL 2023 Season Attendance

[Macksam]

12 hours ago, Ansem said:

Birdshit has been missing when attendance were strong and surprise surprise - he's back with his BS camera angle analysis and doomsday scenarios

Buy a f'n ticket or STFU

Lol, I was just thinking, didn't Vancouver FC just draw nearly 3,500 the match before the one everyone is referencing? 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

1013 announced for York vs Halifax:

https://www.fotmob.com/match/4113228/matchfacts/york-united-fc-vs-hfx-wanderers-fc

And 2706 for Pacific vs Valour:

https://www.fotmob.com/match/4113229/matchfacts/pacific-fc-vs-valour-fc

Edited June 22, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[CDNFootballer]

For the little parrot, 2149 is a tickets distributed number like MLS and other pro league's use.

 

These midweek games attendance's don't mean much at all, they don't draw as well. MLS has the same issue, a recent Vancouver Whitecaps game announced 12-13k when some fans were wondering if there was even 5k in the seats. More no shows and poorer attendance for midweek games is the norm.

Vancouver FC's Tuesday night game drew close to the 2200 they had on a Sunday recently, so guess they are progressing  to get that on weekday game that's only worse scheduling than a non holiday Monday game would be.

All CPL leagues teams attendance are up except for 2 teams that are pretty much the same, with Vancouver FC having nothing to compare to last season but doing very much better than the team spot it replaced in the makeup of the league's teams. League average is up at over 3800 as of last Sunday compared to just under 3200 last year, a positive for sure.

 

 

 

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Truly bizarre post given I have consistently been explaining in this thread and its predecessors that tickets distributed is not the same thing as tickets scanned and most importantly tickets bought and paid for at the regular advertised price. I did that in the context of a Whitecaps crowd if you go back to the top of page 14, so it's laughable to try to imply that I am unaware that this practice extends to other leagues.

The problem with much of the discourse in this thread is that it assumes that these tickets distributed numbers are significant in terms of the economics of the league rather than being an excercise in PR spin where several of the teams with major attendance issues are concerned. For example, York United usually announce 1000+ but it's obvious from the latest set of highlights that the crowd against Halifax was not substantially more than friends and family of the players sort of level. This was an exercise in PR spin even when a number as low as 1013 is involved.

Revenue is only generated when tickets are paid for and/or people actually show up for the game. The actual crowd level is more important than the tickets distributed number in other words and that makes the number of empty seats at the latest Pacific game highly concerning. People across Greater Victoria appeared to have no problem making it out on a weeknight when the opponent was the Whitecaps a few weeks back, so it says something significant about the overall interest level in CanPL as an entertainment product in that part of Vancouver Island 5 years in.

Beyond that where Vancouver FC are concerned there has also been a Sunday game with alarmingly low actual attendance so it's not a safe assumption at this point that the issue was only with it being on a Tuesday where the Forge game is concerned. CanPL badly needed another Halifax style success story to drive future expansion and municipal stadium builds. The last thing they needed was what appears to now be unfolding in Langley, but for whatever reason SixFive Sports saw doubling down on disrupting MLS markets as the way to go despite what had happened in the GTA with York United. Not much sign that people are embracing the dark side so far.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[jonovision]

3 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Revenue is only generated when tickets are paid for and/or people actually show up for the game. The actual crowd level is more important than the tickets distributed number in other words and that makes the number of empty seats at the latest Pacific game highly concerning.

The vast majority of no-shows on most nights are season ticket holders, ie: people who have paid for their seats. This is true locally, even with the Jets, but especially with minor league sports where the per-game cost that they are punting on is so low. There may be some exceptions but this has been my observation more often than not. 

Obviously it would be better if they would show up or sell or giveaway their seats so the team can make a bit extra in concessions, parking, etc. but I don't think there is an epidemic of freebies going unused. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

3 minutes ago, jonovision said:

The vast majority of no-shows on most nights are season ticket holders, ie: people who have paid for their seats...

It would be nice to think so but the wide distribution of available seasts in Ticketmaster and Showpass seat maps that are visible at certain times strongly suggests that season ticket holders are not numerous enough for that to be the case (Halifax excepted of course). 

[Aird25]

1 hour ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

It would be nice to think so but the wide distribution of available seasts in Ticketmaster and Showpass seat maps that are visible at certain times strongly suggests that season ticket holders are not numerous enough for that to be the case (Halifax excepted of course). 

We have 4 season tickets in the GA section and we've only been to 3 league games so far this season. I would like to have gone to more, but we've been very busy. I know another family that is similar. Pacific have built a multimillion dollar training facility, a 5 aside pitch in the community, and they're clearly invested in the product on the pitch. Ownership has also just started another team, gotten another stadium built, and set the stage for expansion in Langford if not for a change in council. I'll take my cues from these actions rather than someone that has cried wolf for years

[narduch]

This is a good point.

If Pacific were such a financial failure why would ownership start a 2nd team?

[jonovision]

Some other previously missing figures have been posted.

Forge - June 10th vs Pacific: 5013 (May 31st vs Pacific is missing)

Pacific's attendance for this past weekend (June 18th vs York) was corrected to 3318. Previously, the last match's figure had been repeated. 

York's June 9th match vs Ottawa: 891

The one May 31st figure for Forge vs Pacific is the only hole in the data now. 

[Watchmen]

5 hours ago, narduch said:

This is a good point.

If Pacific were such a financial failure why would ownership start a 2nd team?

1) Because they've always preferred to be in Vancouver (or "Vancouver").

2) Because I have heard that attendance is currently below what they anticipated. That doesn't mean they're walking away from VFC or anything, simply that it sounds like it's going to be more of a challenge than they anticipated. That the number of community teams that told them they'd show up has failed to materialize like they had been counting on.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

4404 announced for Cavalry vs York:

https://www.fotmob.com/match/4113219/matchfacts/cavalry-fc-vs-york-united-fc

[jonovision]

4036 for Valour vs Vancouver.

Edited June 26, 2023 by jonovision

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

No number on Fotmob for Forge vs Ottawa:

https://www.fotmob.com/match/4113217/matchfacts/forge-fc-vs-atletico-ottawa

[jonovision]

Coming up to Canada Day weekend, the unofficial mid-point of the season, the attendance story is looking mostly positive. All teams except York (and Vancouver, obviously) are ahead of their 2022 season averages, and even further ahead of their seasonally adjusted averages.

The biggest positive is Forge: it took 5 years but fans must have figured out that it's fun to show up for a team that almost never loses. Ottawa also has had a second consecutive year of strong growth. Halifax is up slightly, but were already strong without much room for growth. 

Cavalry and Valour are also up 10-15% from their averages at this point last season. Both would probably be hoping for more. Not sure of Cavalry's particulars, but Valour seem to be making baby steps towards listening to fans, and the success of the team (at least at home) might be helping too. They haven't lost at home since July 2022, and yesterday's crowd was their second-largest since year 1.

York, ugh. The attendance is a problem, but without an owner you can't even argue it's their biggest issue. Vancouver have had some good matches, some less good. Waiting for more evidence.

Pacific is an interesting case. Barely nudging last year's number. But they've had the worst schedule of any team for getting crowds (probably the best schedule for getting wins) with lots of early and back-to-back home dates, including weekdays. I imagine we'll see an uptick, especially with their success on the pitch.

 

Or maybe the numbers are all made up and in two years all these players will be riding the bus between Lethbridge and Red Deer.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

If you have an eight club league you are only one more club folding FCE style away from an existential crisis. No amount of talking up tickets distributed numbers including tickets that weren't necessarily even paid for or even necessarily translated into somebody actually showing up for the game as if they are the actual level of paid attendance changes that.

If this thread were more than an exercise in PR and pushing the narrative that everything is wonderful regardless of whether it actually is or not, the two questions that might be of interest at the moment would be:

(i) Firstly, why were there suddenly so many more apparent group sales in Winnipeg for this particular game?

(ii) Secondly, why are the end sections of the main stand in Calgary now the most empty part when it used to be the centre field sections that were the most sparse in crowd terms due to absurdly inflated ticket prices? 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Bison44]

Ah our good friend who is only here to look out for us.."watch out the league is about to fold, everyone hide in your basement!!"  Pushing the narrative that everything is terrible and gets angry when people dont agree. 

But he's already moved on from crowd shots, because the crowd shots of WPG yesterday clearly showed a lot more fans than usual and the numbers agreed with it. Talking point #1 nullified.   On to Talking point #2, papering the house.........

[jonovision]

51 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

(i) Firstly, why were there suddenly so many more apparent group sales in Winnipeg for this particular game?

(ii) Secondly, why are the end sections of the main stand in Calgary now the most empty part when it used to be the centre field sections that were the most sparse in crowd terms due to absurdly inflated ticket prices? 

I'm not saying this is the only reason, but I heard there was a sales promo for somewhat discounted tickets that went out to Blue Bombers STHs (2 adults and 2 kids for $50 or something like that). I'm sure you'll find a way to spin this negatively, but others will simply call it actual marketing, something the team has been previously reluctant to do.

Also, group sales to youth soccer teams are always going to be popular at this time of the year, as for most it is the end of their season and a good time for a wind-up event.

These are still paying customers. Some will even come back and pay full price. 

 

My larger point is either all of the teams are lying even more aggressively about crowd sizes than in past seasons, or that there is a general positive trend in attendances. Take your pick.

[Kingston]

5 hours ago, jonovision said:

Coming up to Canada Day weekend, the unofficial mid-point of the season, the attendance story is looking mostly positive. All teams except York (and Vancouver, obviously) are ahead of their 2022 season averages, and even further ahead of their seasonally adjusted averages.

The biggest positive is Forge: it took 5 years but fans must have figured out that it's fun to show up for a team that almost never loses. Ottawa also has had a second consecutive year of strong growth. Halifax is up slightly, but were already strong without much room for growth. 

Cavalry and Valour are also up 10-15% from their averages at this point last season. Both would probably be hoping for more. Not sure of Cavalry's particulars, but Valour seem to be making baby steps towards listening to fans, and the success of the team (at least at home) might be helping too. They haven't lost at home since July 2022, and yesterday's crowd was their second-largest since year 1.

York, ugh. The attendance is a problem, but without an owner you can't even argue it's their biggest issue. Vancouver have had some good matches, some less good. Waiting for more evidence.

Pacific is an interesting case. Barely nudging last year's number. But they've had the worst schedule of any team for getting crowds (probably the best schedule for getting wins) with lots of early and back-to-back home dates, including weekdays. I imagine we'll see an uptick, especially with their success on the pitch.

 

Or maybe the numbers are all made up and in two years all these players will be riding the bus between Lethbridge and Red Deer.

You provide a good summary.

Looked at from another angle, we now have three teams, instead of just one, that are drawing big enough crowds to be long term sustainable.

We have four more that are still too low, but aren't terrible.  Two of these are at least moderately positive and one is too new to say.

We have one team that is failing.

Overall, this is progress.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

1 hour ago, jonovision said:

...My larger point is either all of the teams are lying even more aggressively about crowd sizes than in past seasons, or that there is a general positive trend in attendances. Take your pick.

You can't sensibly spin a general positive trend when York United continues to be a complete basket case and it's frankly beneath contempt that you have used the word "lying" like that. A tickets distributed number is just that and should be treated as such when there is an obvious discrepancy between the announced number and what eyeballing tells you is happening. From the last page:

On 6/21/2023 at 10:39 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

...has been replaced by a club with broadly similar spectator appeal rather than another Halifax type success story...

Just a reminder that when things actually do go well and the seating is as full as it needs to be for the announced number to be credible as a reflection of the actual attendance rather than a "generously announced" tickets distributed number, I call it what is which is a success story.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[jonovision]

16 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

You can't sensibly spin a general positive trend when York United continues to be a complete basket case and it's frankly beneath contempt that you have used the word "lying" like that. A tickets distributed number is just that and should be treated as such when there is an obvious discrepancy between the announced number and what eyeballing tells you is happening.

I think you will find that many phenomena are described as "trends" despite there being an obvious exception. 

As for the rest, forgive me. Whether or not teams are papering the house by distributing many freebies, there's no reason that they'd be doing more of this than in past seasons. If the distributed number is going up, then butts in seats are up too, even if to your eagle eye there is a discrepancy between the two. 

[shermanator]

7 hours ago, jonovision said:

Coming up to Canada Day weekend, the unofficial mid-point of the season, the attendance story is looking mostly positive. All teams except York (and Vancouver, obviously) are ahead of their 2022 season averages, and even further ahead of their seasonally adjusted averages.

The biggest positive is Forge: it took 5 years but fans must have figured out that it's fun to show up for a team that almost never loses. Ottawa also has had a second consecutive year of strong growth. Halifax is up slightly, but were already strong without much room for growth. 

Cavalry and Valour are also up 10-15% from their averages at this point last season. Both would probably be hoping for more. Not sure of Cavalry's particulars, but Valour seem to be making baby steps towards listening to fans, and the success of the team (at least at home) might be helping too. They haven't lost at home since July 2022, and yesterday's crowd was their second-largest since year 1.

York, ugh. The attendance is a problem, but without an owner you can't even argue it's their biggest issue. Vancouver have had some good matches, some less good. Waiting for more evidence.

Pacific is an interesting case. Barely nudging last year's number. But they've had the worst schedule of any team for getting crowds (probably the best schedule for getting wins) with lots of early and back-to-back home dates, including weekdays. I imagine we'll see an uptick, especially with their success on the pitch.

 

Or maybe the numbers are all made up and in two years all these players will be riding the bus between Lethbridge and Red Deer.

Speaking to Cavalry, it's really a combination of things that has led to the bump. It's not a drastic bump that will impress those who think that only an attendance of 5,000 will do but it's still a good news story.

Cavalry have put a lot of effort working with local youth clubs with their Club Program. The program is doing a good job of getting youth teams out to games and I believe the attendance bump can be largely attributed to that. 

Supporters wise, we have had a lot of new faces show up this year and I think many of them have been converted via the atmosphere at games. The section has been packed, in large part thanks to word of mouth and also due to one supporter in particular bringing a few dozen of their friends for the Ottawa win a few weeks back. Many of those people are converted, and they bring the type of energy I wish I still had when I and 5 others started the Foot Soldiers almost a decade ago which is infectious on game days.

There are some folks in the media scene as well who genuinely enjoy the game and their social media followings help get the word out there.

[CDNFootballer]

5 hours ago, Bison44 said:

Ah our good friend who is only here to look out for us.."watch out the league is about to fold, everyone hide in your basement!!"  Pushing the narrative that everything is terrible and gets angry when people dont agree. 

But he's already moved on from crowd shots, because the crowd shots of WPG yesterday clearly showed a lot more fans than usual and the numbers agreed with it. Talking point #1 nullified.   On to Talking point #2, papering the house.........

Little parrots papering the house is null and void as well as he has no proof.

Good to see over 4000 for the Valour game and the league overall having improvement over last season.

[CDNFootballer]

Re Vancouver FC attendance, thoughts from the "Wanderers Notebook" writer who reached out for comment from the team :

I also asked Vancouver’s media manager about the club’s attendance record to date. As an expansion club in a young league, Vancouver had its work cut out for them to stand out in the noisy B.C. sports landscape. As of their week 10 numbers, the club has been averaging 3,662 fans, which isn’t bad and ranks in the middle-tier of CPL clubs. Their home opener, on May 7, stands as the highwater mark. “We know we are still working to build brand awareness which will come with time and help to boost the attendance numbers overall,” wrote public relations and communications coordinator Katelyn White in an emailed statement. “However, the reception we have received thus far has really proven that this project is worth it.”

https://wanderersnotebook.ca/2023/06/25/8-cpl-thoughts-transfer-window-to-open-as-clubs-fight-to-keep-pace-with-pacific-fc/

[Cheeta]

6 hours ago, jonovision said:

I'm not saying this is the only reason, but I heard there was a sales promo for somewhat discounted tickets that went out to Blue Bombers STHs (2 adults and 2 kids for $50 or something like that). I'm sure you'll find a way to spin this negatively, but others will simply call it actual marketing, something the team has been previously reluctant to do.

Also, group sales to youth soccer teams are always going to be popular at this time of the year, as for most it is the end of their season and a good time for a wind-up event.

These are still paying customers. Some will even come back and pay full price. 

 

My larger point is either all of the teams are lying even more aggressively about crowd sizes than in past seasons, or that there is a general positive trend in attendances. Take your pick.

Been one of the louder voices against ticket give aways, and always will be.  I can't thing a better way to devalue your product, but marketing is marketing.   Inevitable that often includes addressing price points within specific windows.  As-it-should.  Bait that hook.

Don't know what's happening around the league but the $100 family pack (all in, fees taxes, parking)  being offered by Valour is an example of "This is not That".  It's good marketing and the organization has been better at crowing about it, clearly, in the right circles.

Still, its a marathon and not a sprint.  There are literally thousands of footie fans who gave Valour a chance in year one who came away with a negative impression.  Getting them back isn't going to invoke a family pack.  Marketing to those people needs to be done from the field.  Just an example of how you have to target different customers in a different way.

 

[jonovision]

13 hours ago, Cheeta said:

Don't know what's happening around the league but the $100 family pack (all in, fees taxes, parking)  being offered by Valour is an example of "This is not That".  It's good marketing and the organization has been better at crowing about it, clearly, in the right circles.

+ 4 hotdogs, 4 chips, 4 fountain drinks. Tough to beat, value-wise. Cheaper than the movies.