Avs Attendance Woes

First I need to rant a bit, namely at you Mr. Adrian Dater. STOP saying “I know the economy is bad, but…”
THERE IS NO “BUT”
The economy is bad, period.
Dater, you sound like the Kroenke Donkey, carryin’ water for “the man” with your non-stop, carnival hawking of tickets.
Let me tell you about MY economy. I work for a company that laid off about 30% of our employees last April and there were more cuts just last month. For months we have been out of basic business supplies like paper and the company cell phones are shut off periodically because we can’t pay the bill. I work in an industry that is on its way out of Colorado with hundreds of jobs in my field moving out of state or simply disappearing. You know, like how the Rocky Mtn. News just disappeared one day?

The other half of this household isn’t much better off. She’s an independent contractor in a very competitive market. This has allowed the companies she works for to leverage their fees lower and lower over the past couple years. We’re talking 10-20%. You got that? I don’t know too many people that have 10-20% pay cuts and keep buying ticket packages like nothing has happened.
Ok, before this turns into a pity-party, let me just say that we both still have jobs and we aren’t up to our eyeballs in debt. No one is foreclosing on our modest little condo.
But I might be out of a job tomorrow; I know the economy is bad. You don’t need to tell ME!

GET.   OFF.   MY.   ASS.   ABOUT.   ATTENDING.   GAMES.

What happened to the Dater that used to write about how the music was too loud and other improvements for the fan experience? You know the one that posted the season ticket questionnaire on his blog? I was a 14 game ticket holder at the time and I did not get polled. I could argue that it was a bad mistake by the Avs but they didn’t seem to heed the results anyway.

Now that I’ve taken up all this room with my rant, here are some other reasons I don’t go to as many games as I use to.


I don’t buy ticket packages to the Avs anymore because I don’t have to. It used to be tough to get a ticket to an Avs game, not so much anymore. On the other hand I’m a Broncos season ticket holder and I DO have to buy those tickets every year. If I want to keep them, I have to buy them. News flash Avs, you have competition.

Also, Colorado Avalanche ticket prices are too high. I find it insulting that the Avs have slashed player salaries (and jobs have been cut too) and there is a salary cap, yet ticket prices stay the same?

Last season I didn’t go to a lot of games because the Avs sucked. There, I said it. You want to start with the bandwagon smack-talk?
You want to fight? Well, do ya?
I don’t spend my money on poor products. The Colorado Avalanche is a product.

I don’t blame people who don’t go see a bad product, not that THIS season is bad, but what the Avs lack is the big name draw. As we all know, Patty, Super Joe and Foppa are all gone. And names matter.

Customer service: Even though the Broncos have a waiting list a mile long they treat me like gold. They kiss my butt! The Avs people can barely bother to return my call, be civil to me or give a shit in general.

Example: After a couple seasons of buying the 14 game package we were told by a rep at a game that the Avs would help us find Avs fans that would split a season. We were looking to move into the lower balcony seats that were not available in the 14 game package. I called my rep and she was not too thrilled with this idea. Ultimately she didn’t get it done. Not only did we want to move up a tier in the price structure, but we were going to buy 50% more tickets. She actually told me it wasn’t in their best interest to arrange this for us. Huh??

We bought a nice big HD-TV in 2008 and pay extra for HD programming and that was more than what a 14 game package would have cost us. So we decided to buy less tickets while we were paying off the TV. Putting all the games in HD probably isn’t helping attendance much. But that is a double edged sword. If people can’t follow regularly on TV they will just go away.

Then there is this: NHL attendance. Hey look! Winning teams are at the top and loser teams are at the bottom! Or in the case of the Avs this year, a team that the media (that’s you Dater) said WOULD suck. And suck so bad that they would be lucky to get 35-40 points. I know you wrote it dude, I just can’t find a link to it, so feel free to deny it!