Playoff Attendance - No sellouts

malor · 10-31-2016, 06:51 PM

Please investigate an issue with Playoff games not selling out.
It does not seem correct that playoff games do not sell out. I can't recall a real game that did not although there probably were the odd one of two around. Usually the real stadiums are selling standing room only seats to make a buck. In my league, games have 1000 less fans attending than the regular season games did.
I have also checked other teams and the issue appears to be universal.
Thanks.

Matt Arnold · 11-01-2016, 10:47 AM

Games should essentially sell out. Did you massively jack up ticket prices for the playoffs?

Internally, we effectively double ticket prices and gate share with the visiting team. We definitely baseline the attendance higher than the regular season so you should be more likely to sell out, but we can't just let you set your ticket prices to anything and have you expect to sell out.

malor · 11-01-2016, 12:20 PM

Ticket prices remained the same all year long, $31.00. I think I had $33.00 for pre-season after coming off a World Series win with high fan rating to make a few more dollars up front in case my team had a bad season, but reduced to $31.00 day one of the season to put more people in the seats. Total attendance for the season was 3.2+ million, averaging ~1500 below capacity.

It is also not just human related because every road game I checked for my playoff games had the same issues for the "other" stadium. Even games my team were not involved in for the playoffs had the issue. It seems like the max attendance is affected by the the fan factors and day of the week and automatically reduce the attendance figure down, even for playoff games.

A recent game 2 of the World Series for my team at home (simmed last night), the attendance was ~500 (from memory, may be a little different) below max-capacity. As shown in the screen shot above for a previous-round playoff game, everything pointed to very captivated fans so I was surprised to see the lack of sellouts. I would expect attendance to be 100% for playoffs plus another additional percentage for standing room only based on fan factors, ticket cost, fan fatigue (we won for the 5th year - so what) etc.

With my team finishing the season with 112 wins and dominated the entire year and with also being defending WS Champions, a sellout should have been a given for every playoff game based on the stats in my market. Especially when the stadium only seats 44118.

I'm at work now, If you want, I can send a zip file of the league tonight. I'm at the end of the World Series (my team lost 4 games to 1) and in a perfect position to send files before moving forward with simming in a few real days after I review my organization and determine the moves I need to try and make in the off-season.

Matt Arnold · 11-01-2016, 02:07 PM

We don't have a notion of "standing room only" tickets, so we don't over-fill stadiums.

Otherwise, there's always the flaw that we can't simply say, "playoff=100%", because then it would be too easy to "cheat" on ticket prices, or you might have some teams that should only draw 15-20k a game but play in a cavernous 60k seat stadium.

You're still at 97.5% capacity there. I can look at tweaking it to push it a little more, but I can definitely tell you we don't run through the same checks as the regular season.

malor · 11-01-2016, 03:46 PM

Thanks Matt.
It just looks strange to not see a sellout. With real life demand split between season ticket holders, the home team, the visiting team, MLB and everyone else that sticks their hand out, I would always expect a sellout everytime for every playoff game everywhere. Heck, the home team would do everything they could to put people in the seats to avoid having any empty and look bad on TV. In my lifetime, I can't recall a World Series game that was not a sellout. Maybe early round playoff games for small market teams would have that issue, but any large market team with good fan base never would. (The actual numbers probably exist someone but I'm not researching to find the truth.)

As far as abusing ticket prices, I don't do that and feel the ticket price average should be set at the beginning of the season and not be able to be changed. Others feel differently so I know it won't change. I'd love to see a more detailed ticket price vs seating capacity vs percentage of seats assigned to price range before season starts model in the future. This would take away the "gaming" of prices but it would probably be a pain to code.

10-31-2016, 06:51 PM	#1
malor Major Leagues Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 303	Playoff Attendance - No sellouts Please investigate an issue with Playoff games not selling out. It does not seem correct that playoff games do not sell out. I can't recall a real game that did not although there probably were the odd one of two around. Usually the real stadiums are selling standing room only seats to make a buck. In my league, games have 1000 less fans attending than the regular season games did. I have also checked other teams and the issue appears to be universal. Thanks. Attached Images Last edited by malor; 10-31-2016 at 07:15 PM. Reason: Add image and last line.

11-01-2016, 12:20 PM	#3
malor Major Leagues Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 303	Ticket prices remained the same all year long, $31.00. I think I had $33.00 for pre-season after coming off a World Series win with high fan rating to make a few more dollars up front in case my team had a bad season, but reduced to $31.00 day one of the season to put more people in the seats. Total attendance for the season was 3.2+ million, averaging ~1500 below capacity. It is also not just human related because every road game I checked for my playoff games had the same issues for the "other" stadium. Even games my team were not involved in for the playoffs had the issue. It seems like the max attendance is affected by the the fan factors and day of the week and automatically reduce the attendance figure down, even for playoff games. A recent game 2 of the World Series for my team at home (simmed last night), the attendance was ~500 (from memory, may be a little different) below max-capacity. As shown in the screen shot above for a previous-round playoff game, everything pointed to very captivated fans so I was surprised to see the lack of sellouts. I would expect attendance to be 100% for playoffs plus another additional percentage for standing room only based on fan factors, ticket cost, fan fatigue (we won for the 5th year - so what) etc. With my team finishing the season with 112 wins and dominated the entire year and with also being defending WS Champions, a sellout should have been a given for every playoff game based on the stats in my market. Especially when the stadium only seats 44118. I'm at work now, If you want, I can send a zip file of the league tonight. I'm at the end of the World Series (my team lost 4 games to 1) and in a perfect position to send files before moving forward with simming in a few real days after I review my organization and determine the moves I need to try and make in the off-season. Last edited by malor; 11-01-2016 at 12:38 PM. Reason: add additional info

11-01-2016, 10:47 AM	#2
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 15,741	Games should essentially sell out. Did you massively jack up ticket prices for the playoffs? Internally, we effectively double ticket prices and gate share with the visiting team. We definitely baseline the attendance higher than the regular season so you should be more likely to sell out, but we can't just let you set your ticket prices to anything and have you expect to sell out.

11-01-2016, 02:07 PM	#4
Matt Arnold OOTP Developer Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Here and there Posts: 15,741	We don't have a notion of "standing room only" tickets, so we don't over-fill stadiums. Otherwise, there's always the flaw that we can't simply say, "playoff=100%", because then it would be too easy to "cheat" on ticket prices, or you might have some teams that should only draw 15-20k a game but play in a cavernous 60k seat stadium. You're still at 97.5% capacity there. I can look at tweaking it to push it a little more, but I can definitely tell you we don't run through the same checks as the regular season.

11-01-2016, 03:46 PM	#5
malor Major Leagues Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 303	Thanks Matt. It just looks strange to not see a sellout. With real life demand split between season ticket holders, the home team, the visiting team, MLB and everyone else that sticks their hand out, I would always expect a sellout everytime for every playoff game everywhere. Heck, the home team would do everything they could to put people in the seats to avoid having any empty and look bad on TV. In my lifetime, I can't recall a World Series game that was not a sellout. Maybe early round playoff games for small market teams would have that issue, but any large market team with good fan base never would. (The actual numbers probably exist someone but I'm not researching to find the truth.) As far as abusing ticket prices, I don't do that and feel the ticket price average should be set at the beginning of the season and not be able to be changed. Others feel differently so I know it won't change. I'd love to see a more detailed ticket price vs seating capacity vs percentage of seats assigned to price range before season starts model in the future. This would take away the "gaming" of prices but it would probably be a pain to code.