The Denver Broncos are selling fewer premium seats, the Colorado Rockies are more reliant on same-day sales and the Colorado Avalanche are no longer “the team” in the National Hockey League, spokesmen for the franchises said Thursday at a sports business forum.
They all acknowledged that the recession is putting a dent on revenue, although not all is doom and gloom.
For the Broncos, sales of corporate suites have “seen a slight decline,” said vice president of marketing Greg Carney, one of the panelists at the event, hosted by the Downtown Denver Partnership.
Broncos season-ticket holders hail from all 50 states, but “roughly 95 percent of our fan base will never see our product live,” Carney said.
As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, the Broncos plan to launch an online-marketing campaign in a month that will ask fans to select the franchise’s “all-time team.”
Season-ticket sales are down for the Rockies, but the team has seen some sunny days already this year.
The ballclub had its best spring training in terms of ticket sales since 2000. And its home opener was the “largest ticketed and revenue event in the history of our franchise,” said Greg Feasel, senior vice president of business operations.
The team is averaging 4,000 same-day ticket sales per game, twice the number in 2000. Feasel says that figure leads baseball.
He compared baseball to skiing: “They’re snow farmers. We’re sun farmers. It’s amazing how many people will decide to go to a game just because the weather is nice.”
On the ice, the Avalanche has taken some big hits. When the team sold out every game from November 1995 to October 2006, it was the envy of other NHL franchises, said Kurt Schwartzkopf, chief marketing officer for Avs owner Kroenke Sports Enterprises.
Schwartzkopf worked for the Los Angeles Kings during that run and said the team “looked at the Avalanche in awe.”
“The Avalanche were always that team that everybody kind of strived to be,” he said. “We want to get back to that level.”
This past season, the Avs suffered their biggest attendance decline since the team arrived in Denver in 1995.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
