What's the best arena? To answer that question I have looked at some top tier teams in Div 1 (as my team is also in Div 1). Here are some things I have observed/hypothesized based on my observations:
1. There is a cap on attendance, not arena size. You can build your arena as big as you like, and then decrease ticket prices, but once you reach the cap the total attendance just won't response to it anymore.
2. Everyone's cap is different, but in the teams I have looked at it is in the range of about 19.5k - 20.5k, depending on your success. What I mean is those top top teams in top countries, dominating their 1st div for many years, and participating in BB best nearly every year, can get 20.5k, or slightly more. 19.5k is for those recently climbing up to 1st or 2nd in their league.
3. How to see your cap? Don't worry, there is a way. Your arena must be big enough, ~20000 for most d1 teams, ~21000 for very very top d1 teams. D2 or lower, I don't know. And the ticket prices must be low enough so that the crowd is big enough to hit the cap. This is very typical in PO games or cup games against very strong teams.
4. Bleachers vs lower tiers. This is very much debated and I am also very interested in exploring it. I was in favour of the lower tiers but in those teams I have looked at, it seems more lower tiers and less bleachers doesn't boost income when the team is winning, and the arena is already bigger than the cap. It's like a balloon, when you build more lower tiers and lower its price, you squeeze your income distribution towards lower tier, at the expense of bleachers. I will elaborate more on this. But lower tiers does help when your team is losing because it is less responsive to results. But lower tiers is more expensive to build, so it's a trade-off here.
5. Going back to my question again, what is the best arena? There is a rule about arena that bigger crowd/lower prices means higher income. This applies as long as it doesn't hit your cap, regardless of your bleacher/lower tiers distribution. Ideally you would want your arena to be slightly bigger than your cap, and tuning your attendance to be close to your cap, but doesn't reach it yet. There is another rule stated in the manual that the spectators would prefer buying the most expensive seat type they can afford. So adjusting the price of bleachers becomes the key to control the total attendance. I have seen teams hurting their incomes by over or under charging the bleachers, so that the total attendance gets way lower than their cap or hits the cap too closely. Arena with more lower tiers offers an advantage here: It gives you more control over the total attendance. Theoretically arena with very few lower tiers but enough bleachers would also work. But the total attendance is simply impossible to be precisely controlled when the team wins and loses, and also for other factors that are involved. Therefore the question of bleachers/lower tiers distribution boils down to the consistency of your team results and other attendance related factors. There is no perfect model for everyone.
Last edited by 7ton at 11/14/2010 9:02:59 AM