2024 CanPL attendance

[shermanator]

Attendances from yesterday:

• Ottawa vs York - 4049
• Forge vs Cavalry - 7395
• Pacific vs Halifax - 4367

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

If you want to discuss the announced numbers as if they always correspond perfectly to exactly how many people are actually in the stadium there is another thread for that. Have fun with that if you only accept the announced number as being the topic worthy of discussion that's the place for you. I am starting this thread to discuss quirks in what we actually see happening on Onesoccer webstreams and with all those blue dots on Ticketmaster in a search for explanations more than anything else.

The Forge crowd yesterday looked a lot better than usual to me but there is something I find very puzzling. When I look at the Ticketmaster seat plan there are seven active blocks of seats opposite the camera with the back five rows tarped off during regular season games and not available for sale as far as I can tell. That means there appear to me to be 20 rows actually in use. Five of those sections are about 30 seats wide on average while the two outer ones (corresponding to where the supporters section is at one end and its mirror image at the other end) are about 25 seats wide on average. 5x30x20=3000 and 2x25x20=1000 so there appear to me to be around 4000 seats actually in use on that side. On the camera side only the mezzanine tier appears to be in use in terms of tickets that are generally available on Ticketmaster. That has 7 rows across eight subsections that are good for about 140 seats on average so that can provide around another 1000. Possibly another 150 or so if the other three subsections actually do get used.

There appears to me to be somewhere in the 5000-5200 range in terms of capacity they are selling tickets for in other words.  They sometimes announce significantly higher than that though including yesterday apparently. Setting aside for now that even yesterday the active sections did not appear to be full am I missing something on where more than 5200 spectators could be issued with tickets within this stadium in the configuration that the Forge are using for regular season games? There is also a luxury sponsors suite level on the camera side so I guess that might be part of it. The idea with that is to have a few high rollers that want to avoid the common herd rather than packing people in like sardines, so I doubt that's enough to explain it if my other assumptions are correct. 

Edited April 14 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Aird25]

20 minutes ago, shermanator said:

Attendances from yesterday:

• Ottawa vs York - 4049
• Forge vs Cavalry - 7395
• Pacific vs Halifax - 4367

Good turnout for Forge. Pacific usually struggle with 2 games in a week, and also with week night games, so I imagine we'll see a lower number Friday 

[narduch]

I don't think we need a 2nd thread for this.

Mods should combine this with the other thread.

This is just borderline trolling at this point.

Ozzie is out of control 

[StillOnFire]

1 hour ago, shermanator said:

Attendances from yesterday:

• Ottawa vs York - 4049
• Forge vs Cavalry - 7395
• Pacific vs Halifax - 4367

It's a shame Ottawa have no fans facing the camera, you can hear they are well supported (unlike a York home game). 

[StillOnFire]

Mate, you need to cool it down on this. Please merge or delete this thread.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Still waiting for someone to actually respond to the topic of how they can announce 7000+ as the tickets distributed number for the Forge game when there only appear to be 5000-5200 seats actually available for ticketing.

Edited April 14 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[longlugan]

Keep waiting. 

[kacbru]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Still waiting for someone to actually respond to the topic of how they can announce 7000+ as the tickets distributed number for the Forge game when there only appear to be 5000-5200 seats actually available for ticketing.

Hey Einstein - instead of counting blue dots, why don't you go to a Forge game and see for yourself. 

[Kent]

7 hours ago, narduch said:

I don't think we need a 2nd thread for this.

Mods should combine this with the other thread.

This is just borderline trolling at this point.

Ozzie is out of control 

I am just seeing this now. Looks like OTP created a thread and it got merged with the attendance thread? Honestly, I think it'd be great if he had his own thread about his personal count of attendance per game that we could ignore, and then have a separate thread where us mindless fans could just use announced numbers as a best estimate and get on with our lives.

[shermanator]

Vancouver vs Valour drew 4038 today. Good crowd. 

In order to validate this figure I spent hours counting all the blue dots, and my analysis determined Ozzie is a cunt.

Edited April 15 by shermanator

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

11 hours ago, kacbru said:

Hey Einstein - instead of counting blue dots, why don't you go to a Forge game and see for yourself. 

^^^would normally just ignore this guy but for the record in the hope that this pathetic jibe doesn't keep getting repeated ad nauseam this season, the reason that I don't go to Forge games is because I don't live and work anywhere near Hamilton, Ontario. Ditto other CanPL teams as well so that's why I have a Onesoccer subscription instead. Was hoping to get to a Forge game in June when I will be in southern Ontario for a few days for work related reasons but they are playing away the weekend I could have gone.  

Back to the attendance numbers though. No takers for how the announced Forge attendance can be around 2000 higher than the number of seats in the sections of the stadium they are issuing tickets for on Ticketmaster where regular season games are concerned? You don't need to carefully count blue dots to know that the capacity of the stadium when all sections are in use for Ticats games is 24000 and that the Forge are only using around a quarter of that (if you ignored the tarps at the top of the sections opposite the cameras anyway, which actually lower it down quite a bit from there).

I am sure I am not the only person who looked at an announced number that is significantly greater than a quarter of the THF stadium capacity and had a bit of a WTF moment. If I am correct with all my assumptions and haven't missed something, it's a bit like Halifax announcing 8000+ as their season opener crowd when the stated capacity of the Wanderers Grounds is only 6500.

Edited April 15 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Aird25]

8 hours ago, Kent said:

Honestly, I think it'd be great if he had his own thread about his personal count of attendance per game that we could ignore, and then have a separate thread where us mindless fans could just use announced numbers as a best estimate and get on with our lives.

Me too. Preferably on a different forum though 

[narduch]

14 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Still waiting for someone to actually respond to the topic of how they can announce 7000+ as the tickets distributed number for the Forge game when there only appear to be 5000-5200 seats actually available for ticketing.

Have you considered you may not have all the information necessary to make sweeping attendance judgments?

Trying to extrapolate real attendance from Ticketmaster dots may not be possible 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^doesn't appear to grasp that the reason for posting was already carefully explained in the thread that he campaigned to have merged with this one:

18 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

...I am starting this thread to discuss quirks in what we actually see happening on Onesoccer webstreams and with all those blue dots on Ticketmaster in a search for explanations more than anything else...

 

Edited April 15 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Unnamed Trialist]

9 hours ago, Kent said:

I am just seeing this now. Looks like OTP created a thread and it got merged with the attendance thread? Honestly, I think it'd be great if he had his own thread about his personal count of attendance per game that we could ignore, and then have a separate thread where us mindless fans could just use announced numbers as a best estimate and get on with our lives.

It's his occupational therapy thread. 

[Kingston]

I was very happy to have underestimated Hamilton's crowd size.  That's a great way to start the season.  

I'm always especially happy when a team draws a big crowd for their home opener because it indicates that people were thinking of the team on their own before they were reminded about it by news reports of game scores and so on.  It's an indication of an engaged fan base.

[Kingston]

Dear Mods:  Could you please unmerge OTP's thread about questioning the attendance figures from this thread about discussing them?

When I (although it could have been anyone) started this thread, I specifically requested that we take the attendance figures as given.  That request was respected and we had a good discussion going.  Now, in one weekend with the merged threads, it has already degenerated to the point where over half the posts on the most recent page are arguments about the validity of the numbers instead of discussion about the numbers.

Thanks!

[Unnamed Trialist]

1 hour ago, Kingston said:

Dear Mods:  Could you please unmerge OTP's thread about questioning the attendance figures from this thread about discussing them?

When I (although it could have been anyone) started this thread, I specifically requested that we take the attendance figures as given.  That request was respected and we had a good discussion going.  Now, in one weekend with the merged threads, it has already degenerated to the point where over half the posts on the most recent page are arguments about the validity of the numbers instead of discussion about the numbers.

Thanks!

They are not even arguments because he bases himself on a priori shibboleths, unfalsifiable and thus logically irrational, and then harps on about them. It's his occupational therapy session, only why should we be party to it? Just give him another table to sit at where he can count dots and eyeball highlight reels, only just to be sure: he's not Rain Man counting matches. 

Sure, if you go regularly to a stadium, then regularly see attendance figures, you can get to the point where you can predict attendance based on what you see somewhat closely. I can do this at Camp Nou, and for BC Place lower tier, because I've gone countless times. But only because you get official attendance, so that is the foundation. He never goes to any stadium, and does not trust the official stats, so is baseless from top to bottom.

It has gotten to the point it becomes insulting directly to your face. I go sit in a stand at Langley, the east side has less fans in the sun on a blistering hot day, and he insists that if that side, the only one he sees on the screen, is sparse, where you are sitting, which he can't see, is equally sparse.

He's the sort of guy who sees a wedding photo of the bridesmaids, with their flowing pink taffeta dresses, and insists the photographer was also wearing a matching pink dress. 

 

Edited April 15 by Unnamed Trialist

[Tigers]

10 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^would normally just ignore this guy but for the record in the hope that this pathetic jibe doesn't keep getting repeated ad nauseam this season, the reason that I don't go to Forge games is because I don't live and work anywhere near Hamilton, Ontario. Ditto other CanPL teams as well so that's why I have a Onesoccer subscription instead. Was hoping to get to a Forge game in June when I will be in southern Ontario for a few days for work related reasons but they are playing away the weekend I could have gone.  

Back to the attendance numbers though. No takers for how the announced Forge attendance can be around 2000 higher than the number of seats in the sections of the stadium they are issuing tickets for on Ticketmaster where regular season games are concerned? You don't need to carefully count blue dots to know that the capacity of the stadium when all sections are in use for Ticats games is 24000 and that the Forge are only using around a quarter of that (if you ignored the tarps at the top of the sections opposite the cameras anyway, which actually lower it down quite a bit from there).

I am sure I am not the only person who looked at an announced number that is significantly greater than a quarter of the THF stadium capacity and had a bit of a WTF moment. If I am correct with all my assumptions and haven't missed something, it's a bit like Halifax announcing 8000+ as their season opener crowd when the stated capacity of the Wanderers Grounds is only 6500.

THF only seats 22,500 (IIRC correctly). 24-25 games are when they're selling standing room only.

So, #seats + 2k standing room

In a Forge scenario that's 5k + 2k = 7k.

 

Edited April 15 by Tigers

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Was there any indication that the standing room space at the end with the big scoreboard was actually in use on Saturday?

[Cicero]

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Was there any indication that the standing room space at the end with the big scoreboard was actually in use on Saturday?

No, it wasn't. I'd estimate the crowd was ~5200. A good crowd, and if none of it was giveaways, I think a good sign that attendance is going to continue moving up at a 5-10% rate. Cross our fingers. Rather than constantly debating it, probably better to just accept that they inflate by 20-25% at Forge. More at the lower attended teams. Why do they do this at Forge? I have no idea. Maybe significantly more are sold than show, but not 2k. It's obvious with the struggling teams it's to give an impression that things are better than they are. Problem is that no one in the community even knows they're playing, that's really what they should focus on. Local media aren't broadcasting York's attendance numbers, but maybe it's for the benefit of future investors who might look at these numbers. That raises questions, they better do their due diligence.

If they are consistent in the way they report, it still gives an idea of trends. There's really no point in discussing it every week. We're not going to be able to figure out an accurate revenue number from these published attendances. Some on this board seem to be in denial about it for whatever reason. The published data combined with observations indicates a gradual, consistent increase since Covid at Cavalry, Forge and Ottawa, continued strength at Halifax, probably a holding pattern at Pacific and Valour (but who can blame them), continued low numbers at York and a weaker start at Vancouver than we would have hoped, but trends still unclear.

[RJB]

VFC crowd was announced at 4038 I think.  Although I think there was more there.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

I could provide a detailed rationale for why I think that's not the case with Vancouver FC but I'm not going to go there. I neglected to do the screenshots that would be needed to back up part of the argument. Agree with most of what Cicero wrote above but think 4500 (or around 90%) might be more like it on the actual crowd if my assumptions on how many seats are in use this season are accurate. The sections opposite the camera were a lot fuller than they usually are but still weren't what you would expect for a complete sellout. Also think it's not as safe to look at trends as he is maybe suggesting. Think there was a big change on how the Forge were arriving at their announced attendance numbers on moving from 2019 to 2022 and then again from 2022 to 2023. 

[Unnamed Trialist]

2 hours ago, Cicero said:

No, it wasn't. I'd estimate the crowd was ~5200. A good crowd, and if none of it was giveaways, I think a good sign that attendance is going to continue moving up at a 5-10% rate. Cross our fingers. Rather than constantly debating it, probably better to just accept that they inflate by 20-25% at Forge. More at the lower attended teams. Why do they do this at Forge? I have no idea.

It actually makes no sense to inflate attendance, because if you are saying you sold more than you actually did, when you are officially audited, income from those tickets will be missing. 

Basically, what Ozzie and others are arguing is that teams inflate to bolster their image. Ignoring that if you are saying you sold 4000 when it was really 3000, Revenue Canada, after a proper audit, could rightly argue that the sales of 1000 tickets not reflected on your books was income sent under the table and you are probably laundering it. 

I've made this argument before, but the point is basic: you emphasize expenses, which you can write off (if they can be justified) and diminish revenue, in any case, or roll it into expenses, to avoid having to pay taxes on it. 

The eyeballing Ozzie approach is illogical as it assumes a CPL club would rather expose itself to a tax inspection for the sake of making marginal gains in hype. 

The only thing that can be said is that Canadian standards allow you to report paid attendance, not real gate. In other countries, like where I am, this is illegal, you report exact gate (there are reasons related to safety and security that make this a more solid policy). You report both exact gate, and exact ticket sales too, since you are going to have to declare them as revenue.