A recent UCLA football game announced an attendance of 27,143. The turnstile scan was 12,383.
That’s a huge gap.
Almost a thousand games.
The average no-show rate was 37 percent.
In my experience, that’s not out of line.
Too often, we hide reality behind an announced attendance that reflects tickets distributed.
That’s external.
Internally, our sell-through rate may make us feel like we are winning.
Both numbers can be misleading.
That’s where a number I’ve used for years comes into play: Real Attendance Score.
What is it?
Sell-through rate x turnstile scan rate.
Want to get fancy?
Subtract the comps.
Why does this number matter?
Because it reflects the reality of your fanbase’s loyalty.
A low number is the first sign that the relationship between your team and your fan base is breaking.
When everything feels like a commodity, the live experience still matters.
This makes caring count.
As soon as you stop caring, your fan’s loyalty starts to go away.
“Number Go Up” Logic
This situation starts with something we can all relate to: budgetary pressure.
Last season the numbers were great, but we have to grow this season.
In other words, the number must go up.
The numbers you are managing become demands instead of guides.
Fans become touchpoints to maximize.
Copycat moves and “best practices” become easier to embrace because: “If it works in Los Angeles, it must work here.”
There is a natural progression that this logic follows.
The first touchpoint is always tickets.
You open up your favorite secondary market platform and price shop.
“Our tickets are listed for this? They are stealing our money.”
Never mind if the tickets really sell.
The number is there.
The secondary market is an excuse.
Because the number must go up.
After that, you start looking at food and beverage, merch, and parking.
In isolation, a $21 Bud Light, a $225 jersey, or $100 parking all make sense.
In practice, fans stop being guests. They become transaction points.
What does this look like for ticket prices?
One example that stands out due to the news cycle: the Lakers.
NBA social media personality @WorldWideWob reported his tickets increased 14%.
Aggressive.
Some upper bowl ticket buyers saw their packages jump 45.9%.
Damn.
Can sports survive as only a luxury experience?
The shift in the experience starts quietly.
The away fans get louder. Their chants carry a little more weight. The building doesn’t drown them out like it used to.
Rows of premium seats sit empty.
They become less of an inconvenience and more of an eyesore…visible from the seats and on TV.
Tourists show up. But there is a difference. Instead of being welcomed and made to feel a part of the experience, your fans start calling them “plastic fans” or “tourists.”
They don’t know the rhythm of the stadium.
So the impression of something being lost reinforces itself.
The fan in the cheap seats sees all of this. Rolls their eyes. All those empty seats are spots that true fans used to occupy, game after game.
The team made a choice.
Premium seats now generate about 50% of ticket revenue from about 20% of inventory.
On paper…smart.
The danger comes when you let this thinking take over. If we can make this much money off of 20% of our inventory…let’s push it a little bit more.
One Coke is good and all.
You have a spreadsheet.
The fan doesn’t need one. They can feel it in the air. So they start staying home.
One fewer game here. A couple more there.
“Traffic is bad. I’ll watch on TV tonight.”
Quietly, the fan slips away.
This slide doesn’t begin in protest. It begins with an eye roll.
A Fork in the Road:
The fan can feel like an ATM.
They won’t say it to you, but you can see it on social media, in the comment sections.
“The team cares more about winning in the boardroom than they do about winning on the field.”
A popular idea is that “winning solves everything,” but we all know that isn’t entirely true.
Winning feels great. But it isn’t always the point.
The journey is the key…community, connection, rituals. Things that money can’t buy.
But once the fan feels like an ATM, it is hard to get them back onside. They feel a distance that can be hard to bridge.
What we must never forget is that sports is a mass phenomenon.
Not a luxury watch. A six-figure sports car.
Broadcast rights, sponsorships, valuations all depend on millions of people caring.
When a fan feels like an ATM, you lose the fan…maybe not all at once, but slowly they begin to care a little less.
When you lose the fan, you start losing the mass.
When you lose the mass, the atmosphere dies.
When the atmosphere dies, premium customers start leaving too.
They weren’t really paying for the seat. They were paying for the feeling of belonging…the magic of the experience.
As Richard Scudamore, former CEO of the Premier League, once said, “An empty stadium is a terrible soundstage for a TV production.”
The broadcast product depends on the atmosphere. You can’t just assume the love. You have to earn it.
Look at Ralph Lauren: they sell $12 socks and a $320,000 watch.
Why?
Because you need both: the premium and the upper deck.
One funds the experience. One creates it.
Real Attendance Tells You Something Important
The Real Attendance number is a mirror.
The score doesn’t lie. It shows you when the fan started feeling like an ATM and the emotional connection began to break.
This is the moment that fans stop coming back.
The team can keep chasing the number. Revenue goes up. You may make more money per fan than ever before.
Until you don’t.
Just look at Starbucks.
Six consecutive quarters of decline. Customers were spending more, but there were fewer of them.
Until the brand hit the point where potential customers said, “It just isn’t worth it.”
Starbucks forgot the mass. They started chasing high-value customers at the expense of the occasional customer.
And…lost.
You could fall into the same trap…easier than you think.
Sports still need the mass. The atmosphere is a product as much as the players on the field.
The choice isn’t between fans and money.
You can do right by your fans while still making lots of money.
The choice is between earning loyalty and assuming it.
My question to you: What does your Real Attendance Score say about you?
You’ve scored your business. Maybe you are in the danger zone.