Sean Liska Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 Yeah, I don't get the point of working a capacity number. I guess it's not impossible since all of this attendance stuff is so shady, but I wonder if this is a case of Dave getting confused like thinking the NFL schedules Pats-Colts every year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 My experience is that attendance always goes by tickets sold. I think a team generally wants to build higher attendance figures because that makes fans feel they need to buy tickets in advance to avoid getting burned by a sellout, and that builds upon itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 If anything, I'd think it would be more likely for teams to work on the low end, for reasons cited here (skimming money for taxes).Do they pay their taxes based on the claimed number of asses in seats? I would assume not. You've got different prices for different seats, plus comps and other freebies to figure in. Â I would be interested in exactly which cards Dave is talking about. Nitro, Thunder and the PPVs by 1998 had a stage and stuff blocked off. What non-Nitro/Thunder/PPV cards can he point to that we can go look up the capacity of that same arena for the NBA.He said that it was before they started blocking seats off, which I guess would mean the pre-Nitrotron days, probably in the earlier hot streak of the nWo era circa 96-97. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Morris Posted March 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 I tend to believe the Silverdome seating capacity number generally tossed around is legit. Whether or not the actual attendance figures are made up or not is another matter. Â Dave really needs to be asked where he heard the number for the Pope's attendance... and maybe he needs to give us the real scoop on the attendance at the NBA All-Star Game that surpassed the WM3 number WWE tosses around and whether or not they really had any chance of breaking attendance records at this year's Super Bowl or if the added seating that didn't work out was just some publicity stunt gone wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 I really need to see Dave's tin foil hat collection someday. It's got to be amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 As someone who covers sports for a living, I can say with 100 percent certainty that attendance numbers are worked. I don't think a building's capacity is ever worked, but the number of people that attend each game definitely is. When you ask team officials about this, they say they count the number of tix distributed for the event (tix sold, given to radio stations or corporations for contests, given away to charity, given to sponsors, or just plain old given away to whomever wants one). Whenever I cover the NBA team in town and attendance for the night is announced, we all look at each other and roll our eyes. Â Working the attendance figures makes each game feel like more of an "event" than it actually is. It's done to create buzz. Obviously, there are several teams out there that do just fine w/ attendance and don't need to work the number, but there are several that do. Â I've always believed that the 93k number for Wrestlemania was a work, but now I'm not so sure. If the Lions said the football capacity for the Silverdome was 80k, I believe it. I have never heard of a team lying about how many fans its stadium could hold. 80k in the stands and 13k on the floor would make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 13k on the floor would make sense.That's the part which doesn't seem right to me. That football field doesn't look like it's holding anywhere near that number of people. To put it in perspective, I think about my old hometown arena, Nashville Municipal Auditorium (home of Starrcades 94-96). It doesn't hold more than ten thousand people in the stands, but the seating area covers a hell of a lot larger square-footage than a football field. I know at the Silverdome they were packing them in as tight as possible on the floor; but even visually in the pictures in this thread, it just doesn't look like it's even close to being 13K, I'm not sure it's even half that much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 When you ask team officials about this, they say they count the number of tix distributed for the event (tix sold, given to radio stations or corporations for contests, given away to charity, given to sponsors, or just plain old given away to whomever wants one). See personally I already knew all this and I just sort of assumed it's common knowledge. Maybe it isn't, but announced attendance numbers are on distributed tickets not actual attendance. I mean for one thing it's a hell of a lot easier than a true head count anyway. I don't consider it "working" the number in the sense it is meant here. Once or twice a year at CFL games in Edmonton you'll hit a day of shit whether (or even better shit weather at a preseason game) and the attendance number they announce of around 34K (which is about as low as it gets in Edmonton as your baseline season ticket number + assorted distributions) is clearly bullshit and everyone has a chuckle, but I'm pretty sure most people know what's up with that. Â I'm not sure buildings would lie about their actual capacity. Without any real knowledge of it, aren't there certain laws and regulations (I'm thinking fire codes, and the like), where declaring an actual maximum capacity in advance is required? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 23, 2011 Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 I think we all know that. "Attendance" is largely the number of tickets sold. There are freebies out there, but they're minor in sports compared to sold tickets, especially season tickets.  I think I mentioned earlier in the thread that at the Kings game on Monday it was a "sellout". Which it was: all the places where someone could actually buy a non-season ticket were packed... and it's not like there are a lot of non-season tickets at Staples Center.  In turn, the number in the building was far from filled. We were in our corporate highroller seats, and the row behind is was 70% empty. Our row was 50%.  People/Companies who have tickets don't always go. Or company doesn't put the tickets it doesn't use on StubHub or sell them to Barry's Tickets because there always an off chance that someone in the company at the last moment might ask for them. Of course the Lakers tickets get claimed instantly at the begining of every month (and some like the Heat game b fore the season ever started), and I don't get a whiff of them but once every few years. But Clipps (at least pre-Griffin) and Kings are often available, and we probably beg people to go to Sparks games... I don't know how many times I've begged off from *not* going when asked.  So while I as a fan and I'm sure CFCW roll our eyes when they announce 18K+ in Staples for a Kings game when there are empty seats all over the place... the reality is that those empties were Sold. For a shitload of money in the case of the row behind us, and the Kings ain't giving it back because the highrollers didn't show up.  Capacity *can* be worked. But that isn't relevant at all to the present discussion:  * FIFA no longer gives a shit about working capacity of World Cup stadium, especially in 1994  * The NFL no longer cared about working Super Bowl figures by the time it was held in the Silverdome  Take the Lions out of it, and the concept that they would even work capacity (rather than Attendance) for their games at the Silverdome. The Lions aren't relevant because we have FIFA and the NFL.  And while I'm willing to conceed that FIFA and the NFL are as much of lying dogs as Wrestling People (including folks like Dave's Sources), they just aren't working on capacity for the Silvedome in the 1994 World Cup and the 49ers-Bengles Super Bowl. They just didn't give a shit enough to worry about working the numbers.  John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 I think we all know that. "Attendance" is largely the number of tickets sold. There are freebies out there, but they're minor in sports compared to sold tickets, especially season tickets. Depends on your definition of minor I guess. In my view, there are a lot more freebies than most people assume. A good chunk of those empty seats you see in lower level corners are freebies where people didn't show. And I've always been told the announced attendance is number of tix "distributed," not "sold." Â Freebies have been a fairly common practice in the NBA for years, but that's changed some recently. Teams are realizing that getting more people in the arena for free just diminishes the product's value. And people that use the freebie seats are not likely to become long-term fans unless the team starts winning consistently. Â Of course my view on the prevalence of freebies is probably a bit skewed. My beloved Wolves still love the freebies. You can get a pair of seats for buying a can of corn at the local grocery store. You can get season tix for joining a local health club. And you can get a partial season package for various other things. Â Anyway, WM 3........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 This depends. At Staples, every empty seat in our location were season/package holders didn't show that night. They were Premier Seats, and you don't buy them for just the Kings. Â The "lower level" empty seats are also very much season packages as well. They go $200+ a pop, and aren't given away as freebies, and are very much high in demand and sold. Center court on those are for much more than $200 a pop. Â It depends on the city. No one goes to Hawks games in Atlanta, so their "attendance" is wacky in terms of what gets sold. In Los Angeles, everyone wants to go to the Lakers, few of us can afford it, and those than can want to lock in their Laker tickets in addition to other "nights out on the town" even if it means they eat Clippers and Kings games. Â You can get the tickets section we sat in off Stubhub: for the Kings they go in the $90 to $130 range as people who aren't hockey fans want to dump them. For the Lakers against Nuggets, it looks like $369. Lakers-Clips it looks like $400+. Same game, lower level right infront of us goes from $450-$1165, and they'll probably find some high roller with a boner to go. Â When the Kings say a "sellout", the overwhelming majority of those seats are sold. It's a major reason why Sterling is willing to be the little sister of Staples: he gets a cut of those premier and luxary box and other package deals. It's almost certainly a smaller cut than the Lakers, the real anchor of the building, get. But it's more than he'd be getting down at the Pond if he actually had to rely on being good to sell tickets, especially the high roller tickets. Â John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 Does the WWE do a lot of freebies these days? A friend of mine at a radio station had access to bunch of freebies through the station the last time WWE was in town for a house show. He said they got a lot more than they were expecting for giveaways and promotions. Â Didn't Meltzer talk about a decent number of WM9 tix being given away on casino floors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 I don't think the WWE is drawing close to what the WWF was drawing back when wrestling was hot. Â John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted March 24, 2011 Report Share Posted March 24, 2011 WWE sets aside more seats than needed when they block off for staging, so there's always bound to be a few hundred available the day of the show. Plus the local radio stations get some of those too for freebies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Funny that Keith David narrated this, especially since he played a character in a movie named "Andre the Giant". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricR Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 My radio station got a lot of last minute tickets to Elimination Chamber. The seats weren't very great, but we got a row of them a couple days before the event. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 1, 2011 Report Share Posted April 1, 2011 Watching the documentary right now. It's so full of bullshit from the get go I don't know if I'll be able to get through this, despite being interesting in the backsatge stuff. One thing I hate about WWE documentary, is how the just put annoying background music *all the freaking time*. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Slickster Posted April 11, 2011 Report Share Posted April 11, 2011 So why does Vince prefer to use 'America the Beautiful' instead of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' to open WrestleMania? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted April 11, 2011 Report Share Posted April 11, 2011 So why does Vince prefer to use 'America the Beautiful' instead of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' to open WrestleMania?They discussed it in the documentary. IIRC it was to make WM different in addition to being a better song. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 11, 2011 Report Share Posted April 11, 2011 So why does Vince prefer to use 'America the Beautiful' instead of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' to open WrestleMania?They discussed it in the documentary. IIRC it was to make WM different in addition to being a better song. Didn't Reba McEntire sing Star Spangled Banner at WM 8 ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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