Celtics find themselves on bottom of standings, middle in attendance

By Zachary Baru

As the Celtics' tough season continues on the court, off the court things aren't so bad.  Not yet at least.

Fortunately for the Celtics' front office, the franchise finds themselves 14th out 30 teams in attendance, averaging 17,934 fans per home game at TD Garden.  With a 20-39 record, it is another reminder of how truly great of a market Boston is for sports.

The Celtics find themselves well behind the attendance-leading Chicago Bulls, who are averaging a remarkable 21,636 fans per game at the United Center.  It should be noted that Chicago - the nation's third largest media market - is also second in National Hockey League attendance, as the Blackhawks are averaging 21,571 fans per game.

Ready for some more numbers?  Even better than the Celtics' attendance average is their capacity.  The Celtics are at 96.3 percent capacity this season, which is good for 11th in the league.  Seven teams, including the New York Knicks, have capacities at or above 100 percent.  The Dallas Mavericks find themselves on top in this category, with an impressive 103.5 percent capacity.

Is the Celtics success just a carry-over effect from the Big Three era?  Most likely, but this market has one thing that will always be true - passion.  Even during the Celtics miserable 2006-07 season, Boston still averaged 16,843 fans per game.

However this difficult season will end for the Celtics, it is great to see the Celtics doing so well at the gate. While Boston enjoyed a 100 percent capacity season last year, it is no surprise that attendance has taken a hit during this transition year for the franchise.  With 12 home games remaining, the Celtics hope to continue keeping TD Garden as close to capacity as possible.

Source: ESPN, NBA, NHL

Zach Baru can be followed @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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Patriots overnight ratings well below top weekend rated Broncos-Chargers

By Zachary Baru

Sunday's AFC Championship game between New England and Denver looks to be a massive ratings success, just month's after the two teams produced the league's highest November prime-time ratings in 17 years.

The Patriots' overnight rating last Sunday of 19.1 was far short of the top weekend-rated Broncos-Chargers game, which earned a 25.7 rating.  When the Patriots faced the Broncos earlier this season on November 24 for NBC's "Sunday Night Football, the game earned a 17.0 overnight rating, and a 28 share.  The strong rating marked the highest November ratings for a prime-time game in 17 years. 

Ratings are the percentage of television homes in the U.S. tuned into television, and a share is the percentage of televisons in use that are tuned to a specific program. 

How do the two markets rank?  The Boston and Denver media markets rank seventh and seventeenth in the U.S. respectively.  The Boston market has 2,433,040 TV homes, while Denver has 1,574,610 according to Nielson.

Sunday's 3 p.m. game at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver should put up great numbers, as Tom Brady will be facing Peyton Manning for the 15th time.  Ratings this year for the AFC title game could top last year's 47.7 rating for the game between New England and Baltimore on January 20, 2013. 

With two of the most noticeable personalities in sports facing off, Sunday's game has great potential for an enormous ratings success.

Zach Baru can be followed on Twitter @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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Variable pricing to benefit both the Red Sox and fans

By Zachary Baru

In an industry that has seen many changes in recent years when it comes to ticket sales, the need to fill the ballpark to capacity and the growing competition from the secondary market has forced the Boston Red Sox to introduce a popular trend in ticket sales, variable pricing.

Variable pricing is more than raising prices for the dates with the highest demand, it also includes lowering prices for the dates with the lowest demand, giving fans the opportunity to purchase tickets in 2014 from the box office for as low as $10.  This will give the Red Sox a better chance to sell out certain dates that statistically do not sell well.  And yes, the statistics are about the dates, not the opponents. 

The Red Sox conducted an internal study, ranking the 81 home dates from most to least desirable for fans to purchase.  This resulted in a schedule with five tiers of pricing, starting with Tier 1 being the highest, and decreasing to Tier 5, comprising of the 16 least desirable dates.

According to the team's study, some of the most popular dates statistically are after the All-Star game in July.  Make no mistake, the variable pricing structure is very much a statistical approach, and one that will allow the team to maximize prices to reflect the market value.

Without the ability to increase or decrease prices based on demand, the Red Sox are at a disadvantage against the secondary market, which allows market value to determine prices.  By the Red Sox introducing variable pricing, the team is moving closer to competing with websites like StubHub, where fans can sell tickets to other fans, and sometimes at prices below face value.  This is something that occurred all too often during 2012.

Now that that the Red Sox have captured another World Series title, and have won back fans, the team will attempt to stay in front of the competition, and curb as many secondary market sales as possible.  The opportunity for fans to purchase tickets at a lower price for games with a lower demand is not only fair, it is essential to selling out games, and more closely resembles supply and demand.  All Major League Baseball teams now have some form of variable pricing, and the Red Sox should not be any different.  Finding ways to increase ticket sales while still offering lower priced tickets presents an opportunity to meet the needs of both the team and the fans, and illustrates why variable pricing is such an effective pricing strategy.

Zach Baru can be followed @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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Thursday's Bruins game shows why ties belong in the NHL

By Zachary Baru

If you watched Thursday night's Boston Bruins game against the St. Louis Blues, you saw three great periods of hockey, followed by an exciting overtime, and a shootout that illustrates why regular season ties are meant to be just that, ties.

To many hockey fans, a game does not necessarily need to be decided as a win or a loss, and a tie can reward both teams with a hard-fought game, and leave fans feeling entertained for two and a half hours.  Regardless of the fact that postseason overtimes in hockey can be some of the most exciting moments to watch in all of sports, during the regular season it is not necessary to end a game with a gimmick or skill such as a shootout.

After watching an entire game, it is more rewarding to see a team win on a hockey play, rather than on a part of the sport that resembles the skills competition of an all-star game more than anything else.  Thursday night's game was a perfect example.  With the Bruins and Blues tied 2-2 in overtime and 15 seconds remaining, the Bruins' Carl Soderberg had a breakaway opportunity to end the game, but the puck went into the pads of Jaroslav Halak.  Having the game end on a hockey play like that would certainly have been entertaining, but staging a penalty shot in a shootout just does not have the same effect.

Shootouts were introduced to the National Hockey League after the lockout and cancellation of the 2004-05 season.  The league, looking for ways to improve the game from an entertainment standpoint, introduced several rule changes, one of which being the shootout.

While shootouts may excite newer fans, and understanding that this is an audience that the NHL is focused on, traditional fans do not need shootouts to stay interested in hockey.  Rule changes after the lockout such as removing two-line passes and reducing goaltender equipment by eleven percent made the game faster and higher scoring, and to the league's delight, appealing to newer fans.  With the game unquestionably much faster and higher scoring than before the 2004-05 season, is the shootout really necessary?  Aside from disappointing traditional fans, it also changes broadcast schedules, as the shootout lengthens the typical two and a half hour television time slot by about fifteen minutes.

Returning the game to the way it was always played, before the shootout, would satisfy longtime hockey fans who remember when great evenly matched games would end in a tie, rewarding both teams, and leaving all fans feeling entertained.  No gimmicks, no skill competitions, just 1 point for rewarding a team for what happened on the ice, not what happened in a shootout after the game.

Zach Baru can be followed on Twitter @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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Revolution attract largest stand-alone MLS crowd since 2009

By Zachary Baru

Don't tell the Revolution they can't compete with baseball, as Saturday night proved to be a night where soccer fans showed their support on the Revs' home finale, and in impressive numbers.  Just as the Red Sox were looking to reach the World Series at Fenway Park, down I-495 in Foxborough the Revolution came one step closer to reaching the playoffs with a 3-2 win over the Columbus Crew before a season-high crowd of 26,458.

This was also the largest stand-alone Major League Soccer crowd for the Revolution since August 8, 2009, in a game against the Los Angeles Galaxy.  Since many MLS franchises schedule doubleheaders with international clubs playing friendlies, MLS attendance records are often recorded separately for stand-alone games.

For the Revolution front office, the season finale could not have been any better.  Edging Columbus in a close, exciting game in front of a season-high crowd and giving the Revs an opportunity to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2009 - depending on the results when the season ends this Sunday in Columbus - made for the perfect script to end the home schedule of an entertaining season.

Saturday's game was a reminder of just how supportive Revolution fans can be.  With better on-field performance this season and the emerging young talent from players like Diego Fagundez and Kelyn Rowe, it is easy to understand why fans have returned the favor and come out to show their support.

Zach Baru can be followed on Twitter @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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Bruins' popularity creates new task for franchise

By Zachary Baru

Could it be that times are too good for the Boston Bruins?  You could say that is the case for the Bruins, who are enjoying strong revenue from multiple streams.  But with a surge in popularity beginning in the 2008-09 season and highlighted by the championship season of 2011, the Bruins are close to maxing out some revenue streams including season tickets and sponsorship sales.

Season tickets are once again sold out this season, and have a long waiting list.  With revenue streams maxing out, the Bruins will need to seek new ways to generate revenue.  

It's the problem every sports franchise wants to have, as the Bruins' popularity shows no signs of slowing down.  It's little examples like Comcast SportsNet airing a special thirty-minute Bruins post-game show immediately following Thursday night's opening night game on NESN.  Five years ago, no such thing would ever occur.  

As for attendance, the Bruins have reached 100 percent capacity since the start of the 2010-11 season.  The Bruins were just short of that mark in 2008-09 and 2009-10, reaching 97 percent and 99 percent capacity respectively.

While the Bruins are hot at the gate, the television numbers are just as good.  Bruins television ratings were up 41 percent last season from 2011-12, good for the third-highest television rating in the National Hockey League during 2012-13.

As the Bruins come close to maxing out important revenue streams, it appears that times are in fact too good for the franchise.  That's one problem the Bruins won't mind facing.

Source: ESPN, SportsBusiness Journal

Zach Baru can be followed on Twitter @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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Revolution draws season-high crowd Saturday

By Zachary Baru

The result may not have been what the New England Revolution were looking for, but fans flocked to Foxborough Saturday night as the Revs tied the Houston Dynamo 1-1 before a season-high crowd of 21,297.

Large crowds are not uncommon for Revs late in the season, as many of their promotions and ticket plans fill seats in these final home games.  This on top of the Revolution's push for the last playoff berth helped bring a large crowd and a playoff-like atmosphere to Gillette Stadium.

As the top rows of the lower bowl are typically tarped off for Revolution home games, on Saturday much of the lower bowl was sold.  It was an opportunity for the Revs to have an "official" sellout, but it is hard to be disappointed with a crowd of 20,000-plus, especially with many Major League Soccer stadiums only holding 18,000-20,000 fans.

The Revs finished the 2012 season with an average of 14,001 fans per home game, which was up 5.9 percent from 2011.

The Revolution have one more home game remaining, October 19 against Columbus.  A decent amount of tickets have been sold, in what should be another large crowd for the Revolution.

Source: Sports Business Journal

Zach Baru can be followed on Twitter @zbaru and reached at zachbaru@gmail.com.

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