Bruins-Canadiens at Gillette in 2015? It just might happen

By Zachary Baru

When hockey fans found out last year about about the league's inaugural Coors Light NHL Stadium Series, there was a lot of skepticism about the success of four additional outdoor games.  Would it saturate the market, and would they even be able to sell out four stadium-sized games?  National Hockey League fans quickly found out the strong demand for outdoor hockey, as the four games between the three cities of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles all sold out.  The 220,000 tickets for the games meant more than $40 million in revenue according to SportsBusiness Journal/SportsBusiness Daily, leading the league to look for continued success in 2015.

This is where Boston comes into the picture.  According to the same report by SportsBusiness Journal/SportsBusiness Daily, a game at Gillette Stadium between the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens has been discussed.  Fortunately for Boston, the franchise has a lot of reasons to persuade the league to include them in next year's Stadium Series.

First comes the demand.  The Bruins currently have overwhelming demand, and a game such as Boston-Montreal would easily sell out 68,756-seat Gillette Stadium.  As for the venue, it is perfectly suitable for hosting such an event, as the increased amount of media members could be accommodated well both at the stadium and at the hotel on the property.   Renaissance Boston Patriot Place Hotel & Spa is conveniently located within walking distance from the stadium, which is not only ideal for the media, but also for fans traveling in who want to make a weekend-trip out of visiting Patriot Place.  The lifestyle and entertainment center includes dinning, shopping, concerts and a movie theater, making it an ideal site for an event such as the Stadium Series.

In addition to hospitality and entertainment options, Gillette Stadium can also be accessed by public transportation via MBTA Commuter Rail.  The MBTA has run special trains for years to the Foxboro Station during Patriots games.  While the rail line is not part of any MBTA revenue service lines, the CSX-owned tracks can connect to MBTA's Franklin line to serve Boston's South Station, and also to MBTA's Providence/Stoughton line south to Providence.  The MBTA has already announced continued service for the "Football Train" to Gillette Stadium for all Patriots home games in the fall of 2014.

So could it really happen?  All signs point to outdoor hockey finally coming to Foxborough.  The site has the demand, the venue, and the accessibility of public transportation.  Cross your fingers hockey fans, a Bruins-Canadiens game with 68,000 of your closest friends just might become a reality.

Source: SportsBusiness Journal/SportsBusiness Daily

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

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Red Sox look for another ratings increase in 2014

By Zachary Baru

As the Boston Red Sox come off their eighth World Series title in 2013, the team looks for another ratings increase on the New England Sports Network.

In 2013, NESN ratings rose 14 percent from 2012.  This was good for a 7.3 local rating in the nation's seventh largest media market.  Fenway Sports Group, the owner of the Boston Red Sox, is a majority owner of NESN, owning 80 percent of the regional sports network.

The ratings increase comes during a season that saw the Red Sox capture their third World Series title since 2004, and generated big ratings during the postseason.  The 2013 World Series on Fox averaged an 8.9 national rating and 14.9 million viewers, up 17 percent from 2012.

So much for all the "will fans come back?" we heard after the collapse of 2011.  Never doubt Red Sox fans, and more importantly, never doubt Boston sports fans in general.

One challenge the Red Sox will face in ratings will be from another team in town, the Bruins, who own 20 percent of NESN.  With much of the spotlight of Boston sports fans being consumed by the Bruins as they enter the postseason, ratings may take a while to get up to potential.  But as the 2014 season gets underway with a strong and fan-appealing lineup, the Red Sox look to continue their ratings success for another season of high local numbers.

Source: Forbes, Nielson Media Research

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

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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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