18 games?

[HbgPARavenfan]

Stop making preseason games mandatory to buy for Tix holders.

Move preseason games to smaller venues.

In fact transition to smaller stadiums in general. Make me want to come to a game, instead of it becomit a chore.

Leave the rest alone

[Mista T]

I'm not sure how curbing the exhibition game scam (as you so correctly and eloquently put it) equates to more butts in the seats for regular season games unless you're talking about gross attendance figures for the season. 10,000 empty seats per game are probably going to be there at regular season prices whether there are 8 home games or 9 homes games, and 10,000 empty seats are probably going to still be there if the fan thinks certain stars are going to not dress out for a game to which that once-a-year fan might buy a seat.

And I'm not buying the 10,000-20,000 empty seats at M&T Bank as a revenue issue, either. There may be that many empty seats, but they are still paid for. M&T Bank has a capacity of slightly over 71,000. The stadium sells over 99% of the tickets, and the average paid attendance has been over 70,000 for the last ten seasons.

This is why I believe that curtailing the exhibition games (with or without adding the 17th or 18th regular season game), can impact those 10,000 to 20,000 empty seats:

No-shows do affect the NFL teams' bottom line, albeit not drastically. If all those empty seats continue or grow, the NFL misses millions from the no-showers who otherwise would be are not buying parking and concessions. Concessions alone garner up to $1/2 million per game, at a 90% profit margin, reduced by the no-shows.

But more important to the NFL is the health of it season ticket base. The no-show problem is becoming the no-fan problem. Irritants to the season ticket owner have always included parking hassles, traffic jams, night games (esp late season), drunks/fights in the stands, and mandatory exhibition games. More recently: ticket prices far outpacing inflation, HDTV competition, and the Anthem turn-off issues are contributing to fans' frustration, and driving many past the tipping point. Ravens PSL values are in the shitter despite annual playoff contention. About half the season ticket holders surrounding us have quit in the past few years.

While losing a few millions in parking and concessions may be de minimis to NFL owners, losing large chunks of season ticket sales would be a cause for greater concern. It happened to the Baltimore Colts in the mid '70s, after the Irsay regime disemboweled the Super Bowl team's roster and added mandatory exhibition game tickets to the season tickets, resulting in many thousands of season ticket holders quitting, with Colt average attendance sliding from 60,000+ to 40,000+.

History often finds a way to repeat itself. While mitigating the exhibition scam won't cure all of today's fan support ills per se, it could get some of the wavering PSL owners off the ledge.