Visiting Teams having Lots of Fans in the Stands

[BuffaloBillyG]

49 minutes ago, Bob Jones said:

Reading some of the posts in here about yesterdays Bills game, where the Bills fans were about 50% of the crowd (just guessing by what folks who were there said) got me wondering WTF is going on with all these NFL home teams not being able to fill their stadiums with their hometown fans? Saw it yesterday in Jacksonville (Chiefs fans), and Las Vegas (Steelers fans), and sort of sounds like there are a lot of Philly fans in Tampa. Are NFL tickets nowadays just like an investment, where the original purchaser knows they’ll be able to make buku $$$ by selling it to a visiting fan? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.

Lots of reasons come into play.

 

In LA, people just don't care about the NFL. Same in Jacksonville. 

 

Vegas is a "destination location" for opposing fans. As soon as schedule comes out that's one people will flock to because of the extra fun that can be had. Plus the Raiders just moved there and there really isn't a deep seeded love for them in the area.

 

Washington hadn't been sold yet when tickets went on sale and people just were no longer into handing Dan Snyder money.waant until a bunch of Bills fans bought tickets that the sale was announced. 

[RiotAct]

33 minutes ago, Just Jack said:

They mentioned it at one point during the broadcast last night, Las Vegas is a destination game.  Visiting fans will make it a vacation, and spend several days there, not just go to the game and leave.  

 

The in-flight magazine on Allegiant planes has a three-page article in the September issue advertising travel packages to Vegas (Allegiant Stadium) to watch the games and it’s written with a heavy “visiting team” slant as you might imagine.  Lots of teams with fanbases that travel well are playing @LV this season.

[Bob Jones]

1 minute ago, RiotAct said:

 

The in-flight magazine on Allegiant planes has a three-page article in the September issue advertising travel packages to Vegas (Allegiant Stadium) to watch the games and it’s written with a heavy “visiting team” slant as you might imagine.  Lots of teams with fanbases that travel well are playing @LV this season.

Well, I suppose everybody also wants to see the new Sphere in person! 😉

[DrPJax]

2 hours ago, Livinginthepast said:

I noticed this as well. Pretty sad for a supposedly good team at home in nice weather.

Was a season ticket holder for ten years , starting 2 years before the team played as you had to make that commitment to even get  tickets. I had 2 club seats , 8 rows behind the visitors bench on the 32 yard line.  I eventually quit buying because i had always been a BILLS fan and they rarely came to Jax early on.  i just preferred watching them live versus tape delays after going to jags games. 

 

       One of the other main reasons i gave the tix up was the “nice” weather.  Those games are predominantly at 1pm. Only half the stadium gets shade later in the afternoon. It was actually miserable sitting and baking in that sun , where temps radiating off the field often got into the high 90’s/ low 100’s.  Many times i had to go sit in the Ac cooled clubs to escape sun burns and heat exhaustion symptoms.  But I didn’t want to pay huge bucks to drive downtown and watch the games on tv in the clubs; just seemed ridiculous after awhile. 

 

     Just this week public health officials and several docs made statements to the NFL to advise moving the games to 4 pm starts to avoid the heat illness situation, which if you watched the MIAMI game last year , is an example of playing games in FLORIDA at this late summer time. I believe many fans stay out of the seats as they stay inside the club, multiple bar areas, the pool in the stadium etc.  it is just not a regularly enjoyable situation, especially with the extreme raise in ticket prices over the years. I know for 2 club seats in the 90’s i was paying 8k$ just for the tics , not including parking , food, etc or so a year and prices have gone way up since then.

  Most of JAX is blue collar oriented , with the beaches areas of PONTE VEDRA, Jax beach, Neptune beach, Atlantic beach being more affluent ( esp ponte vedra where the pga /sawgrass and the WTA have their world headquarters.  If you drive along the beach in ponte vedra , knowing the area well as i have lived in the town since 1985 after finishing my residency in TOLEDO Ohio , and live about a mile from the beach) , it is literally filled with huge mansions that make you wonder how anyone accrues that kind of wealth!  But the majority of Jax and surrounding communities  are small areas of Jax/ northern fl , and most are like good ol boy southern redneck type areas.   Great people , family oriented, but not a great area of wealth).  

 

 

     So officials are becoming aware something has  to change or those seats will periodically look like that pic as people cant sit and bake for 3-4 hours while many are consuming alcohol etc.   This is a real thing!   I don’t care how good the team is ( and arguably under this owner the product has been terrible on the field.,, hey just 2 years ago he brought in URBAN from Ohio state fame , with no nfl experience and we all saw that debacle. This owner is more interested in London, and his global presence than Jax. This is a toy , means to an end for him than any main interest in a NFL product, as i think he is more concerned with  soccer. WAYNE weaver was a much better owner for this community imo). No one, not even the NFL, had the foresight to understand the impact of the sun pounding on people for a full NFL game. Seems crazy, but it’s honestly a real compounding issue with the games. 

 

     I am just trying to paint a real picture , having lived the season ticket holder life, lived in fl after being raised in Ohio , the NICE weather gets old and miserable very quickly if you sit in a stadium during 4 hours of the most intense heat of the day , while paying thousands of $ to watch a product  from an owner who has historically fielded an inferior product ( plus people here grew up as gator / bulldog fans who fill that stadium for that annual cocktail party , so people were accustomed  to quality, winning college football here long before the NFL arrived ).  The NFL values him tho for his international ties; see the JAGS in LONDON the next 2 weeks. 

     The NFL  presence has been good for Jax business; its had a Super Bowl which brought great parties /‘entertainment to the area and there are better hospitals now like MAYO, MD ANDERSON, etc that prob wouldn’t have come to Jax had the NFL not been here.  I will say SUNDAY / MONDAY night football jags games are amazing as the stadium is filled and electric, and it’s such a different experience without the oppressive heat.  One of my happiest memories was being able to take my father, before he passed away with non Hodgkins lymphoma,  ( he grew up poor yet became an engineer for a coal company after having started working at the company store!) to a MNF game against the STEELERS (our home in Ohio was 30 min from Pittsburgh), and there were several chicks in bikini’s sitting around us after having been partying all day to be game ready! Great night, one of the best NFL games i have attended.   If more games were night games, this stadium would be filled. 

     The night time games are really fun, but even with an improving team , if they don’t change starting times, those stands will intermittently be empty. It’s great for a single game/ vacation etc, but living in this  sun / weather all the time drives you to eventually avoid it / take it for granted etc. Plus, when its still hot like this , the area is filled with water activities , boating , the beaches etc so football games will always be just one more thing, just like VEGAS games will have lots of out of town people as its just one more form of entertainment

    So it’s not “sad”, its just football is not the only driving thing in this community. It just is what it is, and the NFL is partly responsible demanding 1pm starts, and with the crazy prices it is becoming more of a luxury to attend and at that price point, there is a lot of competition in Florida communities. I have lived in the snow and cold and you can mitigate the cold.  You can only “un-layer” so much given the heat and even then , spf creams wear off with sweating !  Wouldn’t surprise me to someday see a season ticket holder sue the NFL for melanoma after their only intense sun exposure was years of being a season ticket holder!  You know it’s coming!  

 

[Mark Vader]

6 hours ago, Just Jack said:

They mentioned it at one point during the broadcast last night, Las Vegas is a destination game.  Visiting fans will make it a vacation, and spend several days there, not just go to the game and leave.  

That and Steelers fans are everywhere, and they travel well too.

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

10 hours ago, TheyCallMeAndy said:

Can we please hijack Wrestlemania? 

 

 

[mannc]

10 hours ago, streetkings01 said:

Only colleges in Florida have a home field advantage…….NFL stadiums in Florida are always 35% or more opposing teams fans.

This is even more true late in the season…glad Bills are in Miami in December. It will be a 50/50 situation.

[cle23]

Opposing fans travel so well, the Cleveland/Tennessee game had a row of strictly Buffalo/Miami fans in our section.  

[Kirby Jackson]

It’s not complicated. “Back in the day” there was no not an easy way to get tickets to road games. There was not an easy way to organize groups either. The internet is your answer. You can have whatever tickets you want if you’re willing to pay the cost. Parties, tailgates, trips, etc… are all over these cities if you just follow on the internet. I go to a few road games every year and it’s always packed with Bills fans. We are THE most organized fan base and obviously willing to pay an Inflated price to see our beloved Bills.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Kirby Jackson

[Billsatlastin2018]

Well, are Buffalonians going to be paying $4-500 a pop when that new Stadium is built?

[wjag]

11 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

Reading some of the posts in here about yesterdays Bills game, where the Bills fans were about 50% of the crowd (just guessing by what folks who were there said) got me wondering WTF is going on with all these NFL home teams not being able to fill their stadiums with their hometown fans? Saw it yesterday in Jacksonville (Chiefs fans), and Las Vegas (Steelers fans), and sort of sounds like there are a lot of Philly fans in Tampa. Are NFL tickets nowadays just like an investment, where the original purchaser knows they’ll be able to make buku $$$ by selling it to a visiting fan? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.

 

It's pretty simple to understand.  Tickets are easily available on the resale market.  Season ticket holders can sell a game or three and make their seasons ticket price back.  Stadium drinking is down so in stadium atmosphere is much improved for visiting fans.  Back in the day, you had to get tickets direct from the Team, making it a challenge for out of town fans.  Now with the internet, easy-peasy if you are willing to pay the going rates on the resale market.  My buddy just told me he sold his Miami tickets for 500 each.  Nice seats, 20 rows up from field at 50 yard line behind Bills bench.  But 500 each, yikes!!

[mannc]

5 hours ago, DrPJax said:

Was a season ticket holder for ten years , starting 2 years before the team played as you had to make that commitment to even get  tickets. I had 2 club seats , 8 rows behind the visitors bench on the 32 yard line.  I eventually quit buying because i had always been a BILLS fan and they rarely came to Jax early on.  i just preferred watching them live versus tape delays after going to jags games. 

 

       One of the other main reasons i gave the tix up was the “nice” weather.  Those games are predominantly at 1pm. Only half the stadium gets shade later in the afternoon. It was actually miserable sitting and baking in that sun , where temps radiating off the field often got into the high 90’s/ low 100’s.  Many times i had to go sit in the Ac cooled clubs to escape sun burns and heat exhaustion symptoms.  But I didn’t want to pay huge bucks to drive downtown and watch the games on tv in the clubs; just seemed ridiculous after awhile. 

 

     Just this week public health officials and several docs made statements to the NFL to advise moving the games to 4 pm starts to avoid the heat illness situation, which if you watched the MIAMI game last year , is an example of playing games in FLORIDA at this late summer time. I believe many fans stay out of the seats as they stay inside the club, multiple bar areas, the pool in the stadium etc.  it is just not a regularly enjoyable situation, especially with the extreme raise in ticket prices over the years. I know for 2 club seats in the 90’s i was paying 8k$ just for the tics , not including parking , food, etc or so a year and prices have gone way up since then.

  Most of JAX is blue collar oriented , with the beaches areas of PONTE VEDRA, Jax beach, Neptune beach, Atlantic beach being more affluent ( esp ponte vedra where the pga /sawgrass and the WTA have their world headquarters.  If you drive along the beach in ponte vedra , knowing the area well as i have lived in the town since 1985 after finishing my residency in TOLEDO Ohio , and live about a mile from the beach) , it is literally filled with huge mansions that make you wonder how anyone accrues that kind of wealth!  But the majority of Jax and surrounding communities  are small areas of Jax/ northern fl , and most are like good ol boy southern redneck type areas.   Great people , family oriented, but not a great area of wealth).  

 

 

     So officials are becoming aware something has  to change or those seats will periodically look like that pic as people cant sit and bake for 3-4 hours while many are consuming alcohol etc.   This is a real thing!   I don’t care how good the team is ( and arguably under this owner the product has been terrible on the field.,, hey just 2 years ago he brought in URBAN from Ohio state fame , with no nfl experience and we all saw that debacle. This owner is more interested in London, and his global presence than Jax. This is a toy , means to an end for him than any main interest in a NFL product, as i think he is more concerned with  soccer. WAYNE weaver was a much better owner for this community imo). No one, not even the NFL, had the foresight to understand the impact of the sun pounding on people for a full NFL game. Seems crazy, but it’s honestly a real compounding issue with the games. 

 

     I am just trying to paint a real picture , having lived the season ticket holder life, lived in fl after being raised in Ohio , the NICE weather gets old and miserable very quickly if you sit in a stadium during 4 hours of the most intense heat of the day , while paying thousands of $ to watch a product  from an owner who has historically fielded an inferior product ( plus people here grew up as gator / bulldog fans who fill that stadium for that annual cocktail party , so people were accustomed  to quality, winning college football here long before the NFL arrived ).  The NFL values him tho for his international ties; see the JAGS in LONDON the next 2 weeks. 

     The NFL  presence has been good for Jax business; its had a Super Bowl which brought great parties /‘entertainment to the area and there are better hospitals now like MAYO, MD ANDERSON, etc that prob wouldn’t have come to Jax had the NFL not been here.  I will say SUNDAY / MONDAY night football jags games are amazing as the stadium is filled and electric, and it’s such a different experience without the oppressive heat.  One of my happiest memories was being able to take my father, before he passed away with non Hodgkins lymphoma,  ( he grew up poor yet became an engineer for a coal company after having started working at the company store!) to a MNF game against the STEELERS (our home in Ohio was 30 min from Pittsburgh), and there were several chicks in bikini’s sitting around us after having been partying all day to be game ready! Great night, one of the best NFL games i have attended.   If more games were night games, this stadium would be filled. 

     The night time games are really fun, but even with an improving team , if they don’t change starting times, those stands will intermittently be empty. It’s great for a single game/ vacation etc, but living in this  sun / weather all the time drives you to eventually avoid it / take it for granted etc. Plus, when its still hot like this , the area is filled with water activities , boating , the beaches etc so football games will always be just one more thing, just like VEGAS games will have lots of out of town people as its just one more form of entertainment

    So it’s not “sad”, its just football is not the only driving thing in this community. It just is what it is, and the NFL is partly responsible demanding 1pm starts, and with the crazy prices it is becoming more of a luxury to attend and at that price point, there is a lot of competition in Florida communities. I have lived in the snow and cold and you can mitigate the cold.  You can only “un-layer” so much given the heat and even then , spf creams wear off with sweating !  Wouldn’t surprise me to someday see a season ticket holder sue the NFL for melanoma after their only intense sun exposure was years of being a season ticket holder!  You know it’s coming!  

 

You are absolutely right about the 1:00 games in Florida early in the season.  Unfortunately, the NFL doesn’t give a f**k about the safety or comfort of fans (or players for that matter) as further evidenced by the fact that the league does nothing to minimize the number of outdoor night games in December in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, and continues to push the regular season deeper into January.

[eball]

6 hours ago, DrPJax said:

Was a season ticket holder for ten years <snip>

 

 

TLDR.  Can someone give me the Cliff Notes?

 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

17 minutes ago, eball said:

 

TLDR.  Can someone give me the Cliff Notes?

 

I can help. 

Jacksonville.

Sun.

Dangerous.

Hot af. 
Girls in bikinis. 
 

 

Then I got distracted.  

[The Frankish Reich]

A lot of it isn't teams "traveling well." It's the population shift. As places like Buffalo depopulated in the 1970s-1990s, the fan base moved to DC, Carolina, Florida, etc. Not a whole lot of Broncos-raised fans who've relocated to WNY. So that drives it more than anything else.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

13 hours ago, Einstein said:

This is a photo I took of the Jags game yesterday. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Towards the end of 2nd quarter, if I recall correctly.

 

 

 

 

 

I've always heard how big college football is in Florida - FSU in Tallahassee, Florida in Gainesville, UCF in Orlando, Miami in... Miami.  Etc. 

 

Jacksonville doesn't really have a college team within the city, just never seem to have a big following there for whatever reason.  Might not be a good sports town.  

[djp14150]

13 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

Reading some of the posts in here about yesterdays Bills game, where the Bills fans were about 50% of the crowd (just guessing by what folks who were there said) got me wondering WTF is going on with all these NFL home teams not being able to fill their stadiums with their hometown fans? Saw it yesterday in Jacksonville (Chiefs fans), and Las Vegas (Steelers fans), and sort of sounds like there are a lot of Philly fans in Tampa. Are NFL tickets nowadays just like an investment, where the original purchaser knows they’ll be able to make buku $$$ by selling it to a visiting fan? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.

 

I live in DC area.  There are many buffalo transplants in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, nyc, Raleigh, and elsewhere around the country.

 

most of those who went to DC were local. Fans herr refused to go to games because of the owner so you didn’t have the STH count of years passed.

 

Pittsburgh and raider fans go back to years ago. Cowboys has been around snd heavily marketed around the country

[djp14150]

25 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

I've always heard how big college football is in Florida - FSU in Tallahassee, Florida in Gainesville, UCF in Orlando, Miami in... Miami.  Etc. 

 

Jacksonville doesn't really have a college team within the city, just never seem to have a big following there for whatever reason.  Might not be a good sports town.  

 

that area is heavy college football with Florida state in Tallahassee , Florida in Gainesville, and Georgia north.  Florida-Georgia is played there annually similar to Dallas hosting texas-Oklahoma game annually.

 

the area military pres ense also brings people from elsewhere and the retiremrnt area brings people from elsewhere.

Edited September 26, 2023 by djp14150

[Low Positive]

20 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

I've always heard how big college football is in Florida - FSU in Tallahassee, Florida in Gainesville, UCF in Orlando, Miami in... Miami.  Etc. 

 

Jacksonville doesn't really have a college team within the city, just never seem to have a big following there for whatever reason.  Might not be a good sports town.  

College teams have support FAR outside of their home towns. Jacksonville is less that 1:30 from Gainesville. That stadium also hosts the annual Florida-Georgia game. Jacksonville is Gators country just like Cleveland is Buckeyes country,  Nashville supports Tennessee and most of Atlanta supports Georgia. I would bet good money that the Saturday UF games get better ratings than the Sunday Jags games in Jacksonville.

[Bobby Hooks]

13 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

I didn’t see the Bills game yesterday… but that Steelers game was amazing …judging by the crowd noise it sounded like a home game for them …

 

Bills fans travel well… I have been to several away games in the likes of Houston, Indy, and Nashville and been amazed at the amount of Bills fans travelling to watch those games .. 

I’ve had a strong disliking for the traveling Pittsburgh fans since the original winter classic. 
 

Just a bunch of grossy grossersons.