BuzzerBeater Forums

It is interesting that you cite our move to D3. Our arena was built mainly during the course of our last season in DIV and our 10-12 season in D3. Actually, it was overbuilt, with plenty of empty seats resulting. Since that is the case, I would think my arena and its empty seats would be the last thing someone would cite as a good reason to overbuild your arena.

We didn't have the horses to compete in D3, though. We believed the standard line that there are many ways to win, including judicious use of the Transfer List, but it the BB's are busily trashing the TL by rampant inflation, just so that training can get ever larger $ rewards. Since we aren't fans of the illogical training system in place but it is still better than trying to use the TL in its current state, we chose to stay in DIV where we could win while maybe training up some youngsters.

Jason, we have followed the "conventional wisdom" about building your arena as early and as fast and as far as you can, and we have seen what all those empty seats are good for. We hope newbies look with a jaundiced eye at that particular "conventional wisdom."

You don't need to invent arguments that I did not say. I am saying that the conventional advice given to newbies, that they should build their arena as soon and as fast and as far as they can, ignores the opportunity cost of that (bad) advice. It is as simple as that. If they have better things to do with their money they should put it to work buying trainers and buying/training players. Empty seats not only do not yield any revenue, they represent money that could have been spent on something a whole lot better than empty seats. The opportunity cost of empty seats can be enormous.

Newbies, throw money into empty seats ONLY when you don't have something better to spend it on. Make your money work for you. Don't let it sit idle. (Even if your competition likes to see you throw it into empty seats).

BTW

I don't know where your empty seats theory cones from.

It isn't rocket surgery. Revenue from empty seats anywhere in the arena = zero.

Last edited by Mike Franks at 8/22/2015 2:28:11 PM

Steve, I give that a +1. Thank you.

I know that. If you're selling twelve seats at $10 dollars or sell six seats at $20, which way are you making more money? Answer: neither, it nets you not a penny more and you're still suffering the effects of overbuilding your stadium, either by having empty seats or low ticket prices to try to fill the overbuilt stadium.

That makes sense if that were the case, but all other things being equal, seat pricing has an elasticity lower than -1, so when you lower ticket prices, by a certain percentage, the volume of tickets sold increases by a higher percentage.
Of course, once you hit rock bottom on ticket price, and have strong fan survey results, and STILL have empty seats, it is at that point that you are really only building seats for a future promotion (or playoffs, as they draw larger crowds than regular season).

To add on to what you are saying....On average it takes about 18 home games to make back what you spent building the seats....once you sell those seats 18ish times, it's pure profit every time they sell after that, and an empty seat is not costing you any money either.

... all other things being equal, seat pricing has an elasticity lower than -1, so when you lower ticket prices, by a certain percentage, the volume of tickets sold increases by a higher percentage.
Of course, once you hit rock bottom on ticket price, and have strong fan survey results, and STILL have empty seats, it is at that point that you are really only building seats for a future promotion (or playoffs, as they draw larger crowds than regular season).

There, that's the type of constructive response I hoped to see. Too bad others can't follow your example, instead of just attack (even moderators, whom you would think would be more responsible than that).

Yes, I agree with your point. I think if you are experiencing empty seats you can mitigate the loss by lowering your ticket prices, thereby recouping part of the money you spent on those seats. Since you still have some empty seats (although fewer) and since you have lowered your prices, the recovery is only partial, but your situation isn't as bad.

No one has yet said that empty seats producing no revenue is a good idea. The first person who does will give us all a good laugh and lighten the tone of this thread.