BuzzerBeater Forums

I don't think season ticket holders = fanbase at the start of the season.

I agree, but what is fanbase? I keep asking, because I do not see any official rules reference to this concept. Absent any official reference, I do not think it is wise to talk about fanbase when we don't know what it is, nor if it even exists.

Winning brings in more fans, losing cuts into that. How is that 'fanbase'?

Yes, fan base is not an official term. People use the term fan base in a general way to describe people who come to the games.

in my believe fanbase is a factor which is used in the calculation of the crowds entering your arena.

Then from my own experience:
Notice it is steadily growing when you perform well on average. You can see this by checking out your luxury boxes sales. At least in my case this is growing slow, but steady. (unless you highten your ticketprice ofcourse) because they are less depending on your wins or losses.
Except for the fanbase, which is the basic factor, there is also a factor of win/loss wich goes into the calculation, and has most effect on the lowest priced seats.

Do I dare write the next thing, ... hm, yes, let me go for it:
I'm taking another wild guess here, so don't ask me to show you where I got it, it comes out of my head:
basic crowd uses fanbasefactor, that is your crowd you will have for your next homegame in a certain percentage for every type of seat. Then , if you won your last game (or maybe it looks at last few games, effect get bigger if it was a TV game) you get extra crowds: a lot for lowest cost seats, many for second lowest cost sets, some or a few for the second highest cost seats, and none (or 1, or maybe a few??) for luxury boxes.

If you consistently get more wins than losses over a period of time, you fanbase will grow. If you perform badly and get more losses, your fanbase will probably shrink. I also think the division you play in, might have an influence on this growth, but I'm totally unsure of that.

It is just a theory, based on my experience so far. People who are interested could try to verify it, or might collect facts to break it down.

Yes, fan base is not an official term. People use the term fan base in a general way to describe people who come to the games.

I use the more accurate term 'attendance' because that is what appears on the Arena screen and is generally understood to mean 'the exact number of people who came to the game.' :)

Thanks for your thoughts. It is always good to read how others perceive what is going on in BB. Here's my take on the points you made:

My luxury box seats hit the ceiling at 3 (out of 5 available). I think this related to both price (I'm charging 1000) and being in DIV. I'm changing my price back down to 800 for Saturday night's game, at which point I will be on an 8 game win streak. If all five seats sell, I will have the position that DIV has a limit of 5 luxury box sales at 800. I have never seen anyone do better than that in DIV and I have been checking out the various DIVs for almost a full season now.

I am of the opinion that each league has limits and that is worth knowing through posting in this thread. No reason to build seats that you can never fill at DIV or DIII no matter what you charge.

I agree with your points about winning and losing, however, I still reject use of the term 'fanbase' because 'last game's attendance' works better in any equation I can think of. That is, your current games attendance is based on 1) your previous game's attendance; 2) whether you won or lost; 3) any ticket price change.

My model for attendance works like this (and I freely admit that this is merely my best guess as of today);

First game crowd is calculated by taking your season ticket holders and multiplying by some factor. This factor is larger for higher divisions. Next this base crowd size is slotted into seats and raised or lowered based on your relative prices. This first game crowd number then is used to calculate the second game attendance figures, after adjusting for whether or not you won or lost, and if your ticket prices changed.

My gut thinking is that the DIV factor for the start of the season lies in the 5 to 6 range. However that is based only on the beginning of this season, and is a function of my prices, too. So it will be hard to get more than a general idea of this number.

that is also a logic and possible way.

I didn't talk about price influence in my theory, but ofcourse I am aware it has a factor in the calculations as well...

In my perception of 'fanbase' you can't realy call it last game's attendance. I see fanbase as something that changes over the season, but rather slow and buffered. Meaning that if you lose 1 game, your fanbase will not imediatly go down, it might even still rise if, say, your last 5 games whjere 4 wins and your last game a loss. Last game's attendance on the other hand IS influenced by a win or loss of the game directly in front of it...
I can see it beautifully here, my arena almost sells out if I won the previous game, but if I lost, the bleachers are considerably less filled, next time, if I won again, the same amount as before returns to te bleachers. But over time that 'same amount' rises slow but steady. That rise is a result of what I would call your fanbase. And I am strongly in the belief that this is a calculation over more than just 1 or a few games. Maybe it is influenced by the winpercentage of all season's games, or the last 10 games, or maybe even based on the place you are in in the rankings.

Fact is, there are many many factors, your division, your prices, your PR manager, wheter you won or lost last game, your season ticket holders, your 'fanbase' , your oponent and maybe more that all influence your crowds, so it will be prety hard to get a decent look at the right theory.
Which ofcourse makes it all the more exiting.

Looking at your attendance, I can understand why you think as you do. Clearly your bleachers and lower tier fluctuate with game results. Your courtside and luxury box seats have grown steadily, despite the losses in the early season. The big jump occurred in the first game following your promotion, so I think that is the major influence on those two types of seats. We can't tell what would have happened if you hadn't been promoted and gotten a boost to your season ticket sales at the beginning of the season.

Perhaps more season ticket sales go to the high end, too.

It is quite possible your early losses masked what would have been an even bigger leap in high end sales, too.

I still think what you are seeing is more due to promotion to the highest level than any fanbase effect. As you said, it is hard to tell.

On that we should all agee.

correct.
however, if you look at last season the growth was steady as well. But then again one could tell that a newly accuired team grows steadily to it's base amount. Div II is't a low division either.

Maybe if we stabi;ize someday in one or another division we might get a better clue to where the fluctuations and steady rises (or drops) might come from.

I agree. That's what I'm hoping to do in DIV this season, so I'll be posting my results and hoping to get good feedback on my thoughts.

I'm right about the 5 luxury box at $800. My past two home games have sold all 5 at $800 after doing only 3 at $1000.

I sold out all of my added 500 bleachers at $11, so I'll have to do something about that after the ASB salary update.

Remained unbeaten, so the dreaded loss effect is not in there.

My lower tier dropped from 438 at 440 to 421 at $42 and moved up only 3 to 424 last night. I think this a reasonable indication I'm at a 'price point' for DIV lower tier. I'm brining in more revenue at $42, so this was a good move, overall.

Courtside is slightly different and more like Luxury box. Raised the price from $118 to $120 and sold the same number of seats last week. This week also saw 3 more seats sold at $120, to a total of 95 out of 100. Again, evidence of a DIV price point.