Empty seats: an opportunity to sell the game

On the eve of the fall owners meetings that began Monday in Boston, the league got a piece of good news: Things are not as bad as expected. In a doomsday scenario, the NFL had forecast blackout rates as high as 20 percent. But so far this season, blackouts were running at only a 6-percent rate and there were no games blacked out in the now completed Week 5. If this rate holds, the league’s gate receipts should only be off by single digits, caused in part by 22 teams keeping ticket prices level with 2008.

APTarps cover empty seats at the Jaguars game against the Cardinals on Sept. 20 in Jacksonville.

But are empty seats a sign of a crisis, or do they represent an opportunity? Certainly, if you’re a team (Buffalo and Jacksonville come quickly to mind, and two others in jeopardy a few weeks ago, San Francisco and Minnesota, have benefited from quick starts) that is already struggling to sell ticket inventory, the prospect of dropping out of divisional races could have a cascading effect on a variety of revenue streams. Teams that are blacked out will discover that they’ll also have problems selling their future in-stadium sponsorships and advertising. If people aren’t in the stadium, advertisers aren’t getting the audience they’re paying for with their in-stadium ads. And if games aren’t on television locally, and in-stadium ads are being viewed by local eyes, these same sponsors aren’t getting the benefit of passive television views either. So the teams with problems filling seats will find revenue problems on a variety of levels, not just at the gate.

Another problem for teams with available weekly ticket inventory is that it causes their tiered pricing systems, which help extract big revenues by pricing tickets at a variety of different price levels, to come crashing down. For many fans, being in the stadium for an NFL game is enough so that premium pricing for premium locations is built on scarcity. It’s being sold out or almost sold out that forces people to pay up to maintain their season-ticket status and their seating priority in the stadium. But if tickets can be had freely and easily, the fan has control and can buy the cheapest seats available and maybe then only for the best games. So perhaps the greatest consequence of the re-adjustment of the corporate market and the bad economy is that ticket sales will no longer be insulated from success on the field and football will be like all the other sports, and teams will need to do well on the field to do well off it. The excitement that Vikings fans had beginning with the acquisition of Brett Favre hasn’t subsided with an undefeated start. It’s been a while since the NFL, as a whole, faced the reality that what happens on the field makes a different in the bottom line.

APIt's still a tough ticket to see Greg Jennings and the Packers in person.

But the availability of seats also presents an opportunity for the league to grow the game. For the last decade or so -- longer if you’re a Giants or Packers fan -- you may not have had a chance to experience an NFL game live and in person, and if you’re in your 20s or 30s, this might have limited your passion for the league. Maybe you like international soccer or extreme sports or have greater interest in college football, and while you watch the NFL, you aren’t as connected as your father or your uncles, who grew up going to games, not just watching them on TV. So if NFL teams have ticket inventory available, this presents an opportunity for a league that has gotten soft in its ticket-selling skills. This is a perfect time to keep prices low. Make sure some seats get marketed to new fans and that a new generation gets to enjoy professional football in person.

So while the owners meet in Boston and got some news that wasn’t as bad as expected about the bottom line, how to market unsold ticket inventory must be a subject of both concern and serious thought as the meetings and season go on.

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