2024 CanPL attendance

[SpursFlu]

@Ozzie_the_parrot takes hate watching to another level. Im trying to understand the dynamic over there. Does he fire up OneSoccer every weekend standing 6 inches from the screen with clenched fists just mumbling empty seats, empty seats, lies, lies, how dare they fly in planes, should be a regional league like Junior Hockey, die CPL die CPL

Maybe at halftime he puts on lipstick, smokes a cigarette and collapses on the chesterfield with a gratifying exhale just to do it all again in the 2nd half

Either that or it's the most determined pointless troll job I've ever come across 

Edited April 16 by SpursFlu

[Cicero]

1 hour ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

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.

If there were actually 7200 people paying for seats on Saturday, then that's great. There's just no way there were 7200 people in the stands. Ozzie is right on this one, it's simply not possible. There are a total of about 5900 seats made available for sale and only two extra rows in the centre section were opened, so 50 extra seats. I don't know what the logic of this is, but it's been pretty consistent over the team's existence.

[Unnamed Trialist]

7 minutes ago, Cicero said:

If there were actually 7200 people paying for seats on Saturday, then that's great. There's just no way there were 7200 people in the stands. Ozzie is right on this one, it's simply not possible. There are a total of about 5900 seats made available for sale and only two extra rows in the centre section were opened, so 50 extra seats. I don't know what the logic of this is, but it's been pretty consistent over the team's existence.

I believe the standard in the US and Canada is to announce paid attendance. 

You regularly see NBA games that are empty but the attendance comes out as full or near full.

Arguing this is pointless: they are announcing a figure that corresponds to the convention, or standard. Then, if there is fudging, you can't just assume they are inflating to hype. It could be equally reasonable, or even more reasonable, to deflate gate to avoid having to declare the corresponding revenue.

We are not in a situation, as currently with Financial Fair Play in top European leagues, where you want to show as much income as possible, from a diversity of sources (gate, but also transfers), as that allows you to spend more on signings, and not be limited when it comes to overall spending.

 

[Cicero]

6 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Arguing this is pointless: they are announcing a figure that corresponds to the convention, or standard. Then, if there is fudging, you can't just assume they are inflating to hype. It could be equally reasonable, or even more reasonable, to deflate gate to avoid having to declare the corresponding revenue.

The problem with this is that if it's actually paid, then Forge somehow knew that 1300 or so of them were not going to show, and thus didn't open any other sections.

[Unnamed Trialist]

33 minutes ago, Cicero said:

The problem with this is that if it's actually paid, then Forge somehow knew that 1300 or so of them were not going to show, and thus didn't open any other sections.

What's the logic then?

I'll tell revenue Canada to audit them if that'd help.

I think the principle of an accurate gate is fundamental for security problems. If you had a breach, a bomb, a riot, an earthquake, fan confrontation, you should know how many people are in the stadium. You should know when providing provisional emergency services. For me, its irresponsible in situations where security may make a difference. 

[Cicero]

8 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

What's the logic then?

I'll tell revenue Canada to audit them if that'd help.

I think the principle of an accurate gate is fundamental for security problems. If you had a breach, a bomb, a riot, an earthquake, fan confrontation, you should know how many people are in the stadium. You should know when providing provisional emergency services. For me, its irresponsible in situations where security may make a difference. 

I don't know what their logic is. Most likely would be to appear more attractive to new investors and advertisers.

[Kingston]

22 minutes ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

I think the principle of an accurate gate is fundamental for security problems. If you had a breach, a bomb, a riot, an earthquake, fan confrontation, you should know how many people are in the stadium. You should know when providing provisional emergency services. For me, its irresponsible in situations where security may make a difference. 

I imagine most teams know both - the number of tickets sold (or distributed) and the actual turnstile count on game day.

For purposes of this thread, I'm fine with tickets sold.  I'm interested in attendance mainly because it speaks to revenue and thus to the financial viability of the teams.  If a ticket is sold but not used, it's still revenue.  Obviously I' prefer the atmosphere of a full stadium because it makes things fun which increases future attendance, but once the ticket is sold, the team gets the revenue.  It's not like the team can sell it again if someone stays home.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

It's very much standard practice across all pro sports in North America in contexts where sellouts are not the norm to distribute outright freebies or heavily discounted tickets as a way to expose potential fans to the entertainment product. Those usually also count as part of an announced attendance number regardless of whether they actually wind up being used or not because tickets distributed is usually what the announced number corresponds to rather than the number of tickets scanned upon entry.

It is not safe to assume that announced attendance figures give you a clear picture of revenues because there is no guarantee that all the distributed tickets have been paid for. They also don't necessarily provide a clear picture of how many fans actually wound up in the stadium driving game day concessions related type revenue streams. What makes what happened with this Forge home opener more than a little bizarre is that it's not at all clear how they could have distributed 7000+ tickets without opening up extra sections to accomodate all the extra fans that could potentially have shown up.

Edited April 16 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Watchmen]

6 hours ago, RJB said:

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

Oh, watching i had the opposite thought. That it was a (slightly) inflated number, though still a good crowd for them.

[Mihairokov]

1 hour ago, Kingston said:

I imagine most teams know both - the number of tickets sold (or distributed) and the actual turnstile count on game day.

For purposes of this thread, I'm fine with tickets sold.  I'm interested in attendance mainly because it speaks to revenue and thus to the financial viability of the teams.  If a ticket is sold but not used, it's still revenue.  Obviously I' prefer the atmosphere of a full stadium because it makes things fun which increases future attendance, but once the ticket is sold, the team gets the revenue.  It's not like the team can sell it again if someone stays home.

These sorts of things will always be murky and we'll never get a straight answer. Teams have access to all numbers of course, both tickets "distributed" and tickets scanned but they're under no onus to make that number publicly available.

All that matters is that people are going to matches and having a good time. We can push numbers around on here on the outside until our faces turn blue but as far as I can tell crowds are growing and becoming more involved.

[Aird25]

The folks in the 6 seats next to us on Saturday didn't show up until 40 minutes into the match. The friends/season ticket holders in front of us I usually see at games had a birthday to attend. How are situations like this throughout the stadium accounted for in a model that assumes attendance equals people in the stadium minus freebies (that haven't really been common since year 1 afaik)? 

Edited April 16 by Aird25

[BurndenAce]

6 hours ago, Cicero said:

If there were actually 7200 people paying for seats on Saturday, then that's great. There's just no way there were 7200 people in the stands. Ozzie is right on this one, it's simply not possible. There are a total of about 5900 seats made available for sale and only two extra rows in the centre section were opened, so 50 extra seats. I don't know what the logic of this is, but it's been pretty consistent over the team's existence.

Is that counting the seats that were occupied on the other side of the stadium?

[CDNFootballer]

There's 30 suites in THS that can hold a total of 480 fans.

Club level holds 1154 max.

If these are used for Forge games then thats another 1500 plus capacity that's possible.

 

Edited April 16 by CDNFootballer

[Aird25]

Do people do this for other teams, delve into attendance and question the legitimacy of a club each and every week?

[narduch]

6 minutes ago, Aird25 said:

Do people do this for other teams, delve into attendance and question the legitimacy of a club each and every week?

I do follow this Twitter account.

https://twitter.com/EmptySeatsPics?t=QeMI-faRF7W7uAGGVIdFvQ&s=09

One of my issues with Ozzie's obsession with CPL attendance is that you never see him comment on some of the MLS' bogus numbers. MLS has a bunch of teams that like to stretch reality.

Edited April 17 by narduch

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^in reality I have posted reasonably often when the issue has been raised that certain MLS clubs like RBNY, Chicago, Houston and Miami (pre-Messi) have significant attendance issues and that their announced numbers are clearly inflated. The question is more why people who can discern the blindingly obvious in that context suddenly have an issue with dealing with reality in this thread. Another point worth pondering is why would we discuss that regularly on here when it primarily involves clubs in the United States rather than Canada?

Beyond that, I also find it odd that the way I have frequently posted with what should be obvious delight about how good actual as well as announced attendance has been for CanPL in Halifax is conveniently ignored by certain posters on here who build this whole phoney narrative that I hate the league, want it to fail etc. Thinking the league has some major issues to confront and needs to change direction to be sustainable long term is not the same as hating it.

Back on topic, I actually agree that the club deck could theoretically be used to routinely add 1500 (or whatever the relevant number actually is that seems a bit on the high side) to announced attendance numbers especially if Forge games are being ransom packed with Ticats ones by the Hamilton Sports Group in that context. Something similar in a Winnipeg context with the Blue Bombers would also help explain why Valour attendance usually looks significantly sparser than what gets announced. Is that something the CFL side of the operations are likely to be comfortable with though?

Edited April 17 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[longlugan]

15 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^in reality I have posted reasonably often when the issue has been raised that certain MLS clubs like RBNY, Chicago, Houston and Miami (pre-Messi) have significant attendance issues and that their announced numbers are clearly inflated. The question is more why people who can discern the blindingly obvious in that context suddenly have an issue with dealing with reality in this thread. Another point worth pondering is why would we discuss that regularly on here when it primarily involves clubs in the United States rather than Canada?

Beyond that, I also find it odd that the way I have frequently posted with what should be obvious delight about how good actual as well as announced attendance has been for CanPL in Halifax is conveniently ignored by certain posters on here who build this whole phoney narrative that I hate the league, want it to fail etc. Thinking the league has some major issues to confront and needs to change direction to be sustainable long term is not the same as hating it.

Back on topic, I actually agree that the club deck could theoretically be used to routinely add 1500 (or whatever the relevant number actually is that seems a bit on the high side) to announced attendance numbers if Forge games are being ransom packed with Ticats ones by the Hamilton Sports Group in that context. Something similar in a Winnipeg context with the Blue Bombers would also help explain why Valour attendance usually looks significantly sparser than what gets announced. Is that something the CFL side of the operations are likely to be comfortable with though?

Actually numbnuts...the Club Suite level that you are referring to is packed every home game. People aren't always in their seats because of the amenities in behind the glass. I know since I've always had season tickets up there. And they are not Ticat fans enjoying freebie tickets since almost all of them have Forge swag of some sort and that stuff is not handed out for free.

Why not try to be honest for once and tell everyone what turns you on so much about possible attendance discrepancies. Why does it bother you so much that you can't match blue dots with bums in seats? You make this a personal crusade and shit on anyone that disagrees with you and then are shocked with the vitriol directed at you. You won't go to a game(ever) but you signed up for OneSoccer. Why? I think we all know the answer. You're a  sad little man that thinks  he has all the answers to solve the country's soccer issues but you're just another keyboard troll. It's all good though...keep spewing your bullshit because the more you do the more you turn even the most impartial forum participants against you.

Have a great day...asswipe.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

15 hours ago, CDNFootballer said:

There's 30 suites in THS that can hold a total of 480 fans.

Club level holds 1154 max.

If these are used for Forge games then thats another 1500 plus capacity that's possible.

 

May have misinterpreted this. The 1154 was probably already accounted for in the original post on this topic:

On 4/14/2024 at 8:20 PM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

...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....

I had what I referred to as the mezzanine tier on the camera side as being good for up to 1150 (so only out by 4 if 1154 is the official number) with around 1000 definitely in use in terms of the what's usually available for ticketing on Ticketmaster, so that's already part of the 5000-5200 I mentioned. It's only the 30 suites and 480 associated seats that I was referring to with this bit:

On 4/14/2024 at 8:20 PM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

...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. 

If that's 480 capacity (seems a lot more reasonable than 1500 did) that brings things up to 5500-5700 as the actively used capacity from what I can tell. I'm skeptical that they would be selling all 30 of those luxury sponsors suites for Forge games only without some ransom packaging with Ticats games but would be happy to be wrong about that.

To make it clearer what is being referred to:

The club deck (the mezzanine tier in my initial terminology) is comprised of 1154 seats immediately above the main concourse for the lower bowl, while the 30 luxury sponsor suites are immediately above that and apparently provides scope for an extra 480. Neither the lower bowl nor the upper tier are in use for regular season Forge games on the side with the cameras during Onesoccer webstreams.

Edited April 17 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[narduch]

2 hours ago, longlugan said:

Actually numbnuts...the Club Suite level that you are referring to is packed every home game. People aren't always in their seats because of the amenities in behind the glass. I know since I've always had season tickets up there. And they are not Ticat fans enjoying freebie tickets since almost all of them have Forge swag of some sort and that stuff is not handed out for free.

Why not try to be honest for once and tell everyone what turns you on so much about possible attendance discrepancies. Why does it bother you so much that you can't match blue dots with bums in seats? You make this a personal crusade and shit on anyone that disagrees with you and then are shocked with the vitriol directed at you. You won't go to a game(ever) but you signed up for OneSoccer. Why? I think we all know the answer. You're a  sad little man that thinks  he has all the answers to solve the country's soccer issues but you're just another keyboard troll. It's all good though...keep spewing your bullshit because the more you do the more you turn even the most impartial forum participants against you.

Have a great day...asswipe.

We all know he is only obsessed about CPL attendance numbers as part of his 'CPL will fail' narrative. 

[Aird25]

6 hours ago, narduch said:

We all know he is only obsessed about CPL attendance numbers as part of his 'CPL will fail' narrative. 

Our top national division should have been a southern Ontario bus league

Edited April 17 by Aird25

[Kingston]

I have created a new thread for questioning the validity of the CPL's attendance numbers.

On this thread, let's get back to taking the numbers as given (even as we acknowledge that there are uncertainties) and discussing the attendance and its trends.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

A moderator merged the thread I started with this one after narduch complained about it. I am going to respect the decision that was made on that and I suggest you do the same. 

[Ansem]

There comes a point as a fan when you actually start wondering why you should care when the people who claim/should like Canadian soccer the most are those who like to tear it apart the most.

Tiring, keep at it with counting seats and debating pointless shit.

We deserve our current position as a soccer nation which is between laughable and a joke.

[CDNFootballer]

In the end, and as a last comment on this, the official attendance was 7395. This is the tickets distributed number which is what pro league's use by and large, not turnstile. How the team has configured the seating/standing/boxes/suites and how they use the stadium is known by them. To suggest that they have 5700 or 5900 tickets that were available and they've fudged the numbers to come up with 7395 is silly, and would be fraudulent. Any number come about by someone counting seats on ticketmaster, etc, is not valid, reliable, or credible enough to take seriously.

The team/league numbers are the most credible period.

Edited April 17 by CDNFootballer

[SthMelbRed]

6 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

A moderator merged the thread I started with this one after narduch complained about it. I am going to respect the decision that was made on that and I suggest you do the same. 

Dude, you really need to go out and try to find some friends. Maybe even see if you can get laid. Something.