by | Nov 19, 2024 | 7 comments
As the US Thanksgiving holiday nears, and the NHL season reaches its traditional early benchmark point, it’s an ideal moment to take stock of attendance across the league for the 2024-25 season. Before diving in, I want to provide a couple of disclaimers; attendance figures are based on team-reported numbers, which are defined as tickets distributed, not necessarily the actual number of people in the building. Additionally, the intent here is not to shame any team or fan base. Many factors influence attendance, including team performance, ticket prices, day of the week, and even weather.
Having examined attendance trends for years, I’ve observed that most teams experience some cyclical patterns, and all teams are capable of strong attendance. For context, at one point, the “Phoenix” Coyotes had stronger attendance than the Chicago Blackhawks and Pittsburgh Penguins, just to name a few.
Let’s get into it.
The league’s average attendance through this point in the season is up 1.5 percent compared to last season, now sitting at 17,225. This marks the highest average attendance for this stage of the season since 2016-17. Much of this growth is driven by the Arizona Coyotes’ move to Utah. Last season, the Coyotes played at Arizona State’s 4,600-capacity Mullett Arena. This season, the Utah Hockey Club is playing at the 11,131-capacity Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
Other growth areas include Winnipeg, Detroit, and Florida. Here is the attendance change by team compared to the same number of games last season:
With a two-season playoff drought, it’s not surprising to see the Penguins losing fans in attendance. However, I’m a bit surprised to see declines for the Kings and Islanders, especially since both teams made the playoffs last season. Perhaps the novelty of the new arena on Long Island is wearing off.
I’ve noted before that the NHL’s growth in attendance is constrained by the high number of sellouts. Historically, about 50 percent of NHL games sell out. This season, that figure has risen to 62 percent, the second-highest amount ever at this point in the season.
The increase in sellouts is a positive signal for the league’s overall health. Here’s the number of sellouts broken down by team.
It’s somewhat surprising that the Philadelphia Flyers haven’t had a single sellout so far this season. However, they also had no sellouts in their first 15 games last season. Given that they haven’t made the playoffs in four seasons, perhaps this isn’t entirely unexpected.
Here’s a detailed look at each team and how this season compares to the same point last season:
It’s also worth mentioning that October and November typically see the lowest attendance numbers of the season, so we should expect some increases as the season rolls on.
This analysis is relatively simple and doesn’t account for many contextual factors (e.g., ticket pricing, competing sporting events, or entertainment options). If you have any questions or insights into what might be driving attendance trends, feel free to share!
Worth noting that the two days Kings attendance dipped were both days the Dodgers were playing in the World Series – their game 2 had the dodgers @ Dodgers Stadium and their game 3 was the final game of the series when they won it all.
Interesting stats overall!
Ah that makes sense. Anytime there is an odd anomaly someone knows the details. (Several years back Buffalo had a drop in attendance of about 40% in one game….turns out there was an epic blizzard that shutdown the city.)
Getting to and from the Islanders arena is a huge pain in the butt. Plus the games typically start later (8pm) and often end after direct trains out to the further reaches of Long Island have stopped running and trains back to the city are only once every 30-40 minutes.
When I went to the Kraken game out there last February (won in a shootout), I didn’t get back to Penn Station until after midnight.
A couple of years ago I went to visit the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, only to discover that UBS Arena is less than a mile away. The place is surrounded by dead people.
I’m curious about the kraken numbers, I know that there has been a lot of people dropping out of season tickets as their contracts have been expiring. I would have expected that our numbers would have been down this season compared to last. There has been a big marketing campaign to get people into those seats and people that I know that didn’t renew have been getting a lot of call and emails. I’m very curious how we have the same numbers, any insight into this?
I expected the drop too, but to my surprise the games have been pretty well attended, even a Tuesday against Columbus. I do think there are a hand full of give outs to military families and other non-profit organizations.
My guess is the student rush campaign has been really successful too, at least based on the number of people i’ve heard talking about it. It’s a great discount if you can swing making plans the day of.
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