NCAA To Look Into Why Frozen Four Attendance Was So Low

The NCAA plans to look into why attendance at the Frozen Four this weekend in Buffalo was "so much lower ... than it has been in recent years," according to Paula Weston of USCHO.com. There were only 13,624 fans at the 19,070-seat KeyBank Center on Saturday to see Minnesota-Duluth beat UMass 3-0 to win its second straight men's hockey title. Buffalo "looks like a place where people would come out for an event like the Frozen Four," but this marks the lowest title game attendance since '01, when 13,252 fans were at a sold-out Pepsi Center in Albany. NCAA Associate Dir of Championships Kristin Fasbender said, "We don't really know why our numbers are not where everybody thought they were going to be, but I think it's just a matter of taking the time afterwards to take a look at it across the board. Was it marketing? Everybody did their best with all sorts of ideas and things to try to work in the market and see what it is. It's just one of the things we'll take a look at." West noted Buffalo "may have been a tough market in which to sell this event." Tickets were separated into four tiers "based on demand," with single-game tickets as high as $190 and as low as $30 (USCHO.com, 4/13).

WHAT'S THE ISSUE? In Buffalo, Dale Mussen wrote, "To say attendance at this year's Frozen Four Men's Ice Hockey Championships was disappointing would be putting it mildly." The "outrageous ticket prices may have something to do with it." There were 4,000 tickets this weekend "that went unsold" after Buffalo "sold out a year in advance" when it last hosted the event in '03 (WYRK.com, 4/14). In Buffalo, Rachel Lenzi notes when the city hosted in '03, KeyBank Center was named HSBC Arena and 18,659 people attended the championship game. That Frozen Four "might have benefited from having Cornell, which is less than a three-hour drive from Buffalo." Empty seats at the Frozen Four "isn't a problem isolated to Buffalo." The lack of attendance this year "may have been because of the cost, and the fact that the NCAA sold tickets as packages for all three games until recent weeks, when single-session tickets could be purchased." On Friday, NCAA.com "listed tickets for the national championship game that ranged from $120 to $240" (BUFFALO NEWS, 4/15).

DESTINATION UNKNOWN: In North Dakota, Brad Schlossman noted the low attendance in Buffalo "may force the NCAA to give more consideration to destination cities like Tampa than traditional hockey markets." Frozen Four attendees are "generally college hockey fans from across the country," and the event has "never counted on local hockey fans." While a destination site "appears to be what the fans want," the next two Frozen Fours are "already set in Detroit and Pittsburgh" (GRAND FORKS HERALD, 4/13). 

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