The Best Seat in the House

Lia Kananipuamaeole Kamana

Journalism 400 - Online sports website, The Change Up, article.

Early 1900s America didn’t give many options to sports fans. If fans wanted to know how the game went, they either went to the game or they read about it in the newspaper.

The rise of radio in the 1920s made a way for sports to reach people in their homes, but the luxury of seeing what was happening was non-existent, making fans rely on radio announcers to paint a picture. The television, which became popular in the 1940s, was the first time sports fans could watch a sporting event from the comfort of their home.

During these years and the many to follow, attending sporting events in person was the popular thing to do. According to statistics on ESPN.com, ticket sales and attendance at major sporting events hit its peak in 2007. With rising ticket prices, increasing costs for amenities and the improvement of technology, sports fans are choosing to get their sports through other platforms.

ESPN’s data on ticket sales and game attendance show at least half the teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL losing numbers, with the NFL and NHL being hit the most. Some of these numbers can be attributed to teams having losing seasons, but the teams with the biggest decline in ticket sales are some of the top ranked. For example, the San Francisco Giants, the 2012 World Series Champions, had attendance go down by almost 51,000 between the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

Game day expenses

The amount of money that one spends or has the potential of spending at a sporting event is one reason why Shae Pritchard, a stay-at-home mom, chooses to watch her sports elsewhere.

“Being there is definitely top notch, but being on a budget, the bar is where it’s at,” said Pritchard, whose favorite bar is Bull Frogs in her hometown of Nacogdoches, Texas.

According to Team Marketing Report, fans spend close to $100 each time they attend a sports game. For an NFL game, the average fan spends $286 on a ticket, one beer, one soft drink, one hot dog, parking, a program and one piece of merchandise. Out of everything purchased by the “average fan,” the ticket is the most expensive item with an NFL average of $76.47.

Pritchard said she thinks if ticket and other game day amenity prices were lower, more fans would go to the stadium.

“You have to pay to park five miles away, then you have to stand in line for hours just to get in the stadium and then you are standing in line to buy a small drink for $5 and a hotdog for another $4, it’s just too much of a hassle,” Pritchard said. “Once in awhile it’s nice for the experience, but I would never buy season tickets.”

Technology

Meanwhile, technology to watch a game from afar is getting better and cheaper. According to iSuppli, a global leader in technology value chain research and advisory services, prices for TVs have gone down in recent years. The price drop is due to fact that they are no longer in high demand because almost everyone already has one.

“Everyone has a 50-inch TV at their house,” said Justin Hopper, a manager at Chammps Americana in East Lansing, Mich. “Technology is becoming cheaper and it drives people not only away from the sports venues, but also the bars and restaurants.”

The new technology also provides viewers at home with more than in-stadium viewers. Fans at the venue watch the game from one angle and stadium personnel decide what plays get replayed. At home, viewers get numerous camera angles and can watch a play over and over again thanks to digital video recorders also known as DVR.

“It’s better coverage at home,” said Jeremy Pritchard, Shae Pritchard’s husband and signal support systems specialist in the U.S. Army. “If you watch it in person you are going to miss half the stuff that happens. If you watch it at home you can see everything with all the different cameras and angles offered.”

Sports commissioners and venue owners recognize that they are losing in-stadium viewers and are using technology to lure them back in. In May 2012, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced an initiative to outfit all 32 NFL stadiums with Wi-Fi by 2015. Along with free Wi-Fi, the league has presented a variety of other technological improvements such as AT&T Stadium’s 2,100-inch video screen and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ fantasy football lounge that includes 20 TV screens and Xbox gaming consoles.

But these new amenities may not always work. When the Dallas Cowboys introduced new video screens attendance rose, but after that initial season, it dropped again according to statistics on ESPN.com. Shae Pritchard said people were so excited to see the screens that everyone rushed to buy tickets, but once they got over the allure of it, they didn’t find the need to have to go again. Jeremy Pritchard mentioned that the seats the average person can afford for a Cowboys game has them watching majority of the game on the screen. If that’s going to be the case, he said, why not watch it on the comfort of your couch?

Stephen Foster, a senior at Michigan State University, sees these stadium improvements as hurting venues more than they are helping.

“A lot of stadiums are going overboard with technology,” Foster said. “It’s disengaging the viewer from the actual sport. It’s letting you do things that you can do at home. I want to go watch the game, I don’t want all these stupid interruptions.”

The couch or the bar stool?

The places people are flocking to for their sports fix varies based on different wants and needs. Two popular alternatives to the stadium experience are watching the game from the home couch and cheering one’s team on from a stool in the bar.

“Going to a bar is fun because you are around other sports fans,” Jeremy Pritchard said, “but I would rather watch games at home because it’s more of a controlled environment.”

While Pritchard prefers to watch his games in the comfort of his home where he can relax, his wife likes the entertaining and social aspects of watching games at the bar.

“I hate watching sports at the house, it’s boring and I get distracted,” Shae Pritchard said.

Both the home and the bar or restaurant down the road provide social environments, but the two social environments provided differ. According to Foster, the at home atmosphere is quieter and more controlled.

“I prefer at home, I like having commentary. I like being able to talk to the people sitting next to me, I like to socialize,” Foster said.

Watching sports at the bar provides the fan with a game like environment without the hassles of attending a game. Alfredo Trillo, a fire support specialist in the U.S. Army prefers to watch all of his games at the bar. Trillo watches his favorite team, the Chicago bears, at sport bars such as Buffalo Wild Wings because the atmosphere and the camaraderie of people.

“I just like the bar environment,” Trillo said. “You get to interact with complete strangers who like the same team as you and ones who don’t like the same team.”

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