Panthers fail in quest for higher home attendance against Sabres

We were promised better attendance for the Florida Panthers for Saturday’s game against the Buffalo Sabres.

It was told to us in writing by the Miami Herald – which intimated that the Panthers upcoming string of games would boost numbers upwards. 

Said the Herald in a blog that was written the day before the game:

"The Panthers, who have cut out basically all free and discounted tickets, play host to the Sabres on Saturday which could bring the largest crowd of the season. Florida's biggest crowd so far was 11,419 for the home opener against New Jersey.

A four-game homestand which starts against Pittsburgh on Dec. 22 and includes Toronto, Montreal and the New York Rangers should change things. All four games are expected to be Florida's biggest crowds of the season."

Well, the Panthers failed in their quest to have the year’s largest crowd. The game drew an announced 8,597 at the BB&T Center.

Even though Buffalo is mediocre, Sabres fans draw decently on television and are known to travel well. Florida’s average attendance is listed at 8,849, per ESPN.com, just 51.9 percent building capacity.

Remember when the Panthers drew 7,311 fans earlier in the season against Ottawa? Yeah that wasn't a very pretty scene and some media pounced on it. Since then there was a hope that the numbers would go up, in spite of the Panthers’ cutting out freebies.

And since the Panthers have done OK and are just two points out of a playoff spot and the numbers are still meh, it sets off some alarm bells. But is it cause to panic?

We asked Vanderbilt University economics professor John Vrooman who didn’t think so at all.

“This recent attendance collapse in South Florida is not necessarily another harbinger of the complete demise of the Sunbelt strategy. Attendance in non-traditional markets is very sensitive to the quality of the team on the ice and the Panthers are no exception,” Vrooman said via email. "It is clear that attendance is correlated with the club performance of the previous season. It is also apparent that the fans failed to return after the most recent lockout in 2012-13. So the current attendance collapse in BB&T Center in Sunrise is probably a combined result of the 2012-13 lockout and the discouraging face-plant reversal of the Panthers on the ice in 2012-13 and last season 2013-14.”

Plus hockey in non-traditional markets – like South Florida – can be really finicky. There are all sorts of outdoor activities and the weather tends to be decent (for example the evening low was 62 degrees in Sunrise on Saturday per weather.com).

Also, the BB&T Center is just in a bad location. If you’ve ever been, there’s not a lot around the building from an activity standpoint. It’s also about 20 miles from downtown Fort Lauderdale and 36 miles from Miami – major population centers where fans could reside.

Lastly, attendance seems to go up in non-traditional spots when football season is over. Florida State just so happened to play in the ACC championship on Saturday night.

Ultimately winning rules all, and the last year the Panthers made the playoffs, 2011-12, they averaged 16,628, almost double their average this year, granted a year that included the free and discounted tickets, an important element of attendance in non-traditional spots.

Added Vrooman, “The encouraging aspect is that the solution to the attendance problems is South Florida quality are under the control of the club itself which has very recently turned things around…

“In volatile non-traditional markets the economic solution to bottom line is usually to simply improve the quality of the product on the ice and Sunbelt fans will respond.”

So if the Panthers continue to win, as they did against the Sabres on Saturday, then attendance may rise. It’s just the way of the world in Florida. Nothing to worry about. Move along here…

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