NFL Predicts Less Than 10% Fall in Ticket Sales 02/09/2009 |
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The National Football League is forecasting a less-than-10-percent decline in ticket sales during the 2009 regular season after reaching record highs in recent years.
The worst recession since the Great Depression will probably slow ticket sales a few percentage points, said Brian McCarthy, a league spokesman. The NFL sold about 17.9 million tickets total in the 2008 regular and postseasons, third-best all-time, and down 1.3 percent from a record of about 18.1 million in 2007.
It would be the first time since the league added the Houston Texans in 2002 that the total number of tickets sold declined two years in a row. Two teams -- the Jacksonville Jaguars and San Diego Chargers -- have already said they anticipate television blackouts. NFL rules require local television to black out games that aren’t sold out within 72 hours of kickoff.
“The policy is important in supporting the ability of the clubs to sell tickets and keeping our games attractive as television programming with large crowds,” McCarthy said in an e-mail.
About 96 percent of games sold out last season in time to avoid a television blackout, down from a record 97 percent in 2006. At the end of the recession of 2001, the NFL sold out 84 percent of its games.
There were nine blackouts last season, out of 256 regular- season games, McCarthy said. The most blackouts ever was in 1975 when 59 percent of games didn’t air on television.
Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver told the Florida Times-Union newspaper last month that the team had about 14,000 or 15,000 non-premium tickets unsold and was facing blackouts at all eight home games. Jim Steeg, the Chargers’ chief operating officer, said last month the team had thousands of tickets remaining to every game, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Unemployment exceeded 10 percent in both cities as of July, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. About 19.9 percent of offices in metropolitan Jacksonville were vacant in the second quarter of 2009, and 20.9 percent of those in San Diego, according to CB Richard Ellis Office Vacancy Index.
“We are sensitive to what our fans and business partners are enduring in these tough economic times,” McCarthy said. “Three quarters of the clubs froze ticket prices this season and have created more flexibility and options for fans to help them afford tickets.”
(Source: Bloomberg)
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