For more than 17 months, Tucson Roadrunners president Bob Hoffman and his staff have done just about everything they could stay keep their operation relevant in Southern Arizona.
Thanks to those efforts, the Roadrunners are in better shape in than a number of their American Hockey League peers as the 2021-22 season progresses.
Consider:
Disregarding opening night (when many teams set high-water marks for attendance), the Roadrunners are the only team in the AHL’s Pacific Division to see attendance grow every home game. Tucson saw its ticket sales jump from 2,080 the night after opening night to 2,397 and 2,919 the next weekend; sales then grew to 3,187 and then 5,339 — the latter coming the night after the Roadrunners erupted for eight goals to hand the Ontario Reign their first regulation loss of the season.
The Roadrunners are averaging 3,503 fans per game this season — 13% less than they averaged in 2019-20 season, before the AHL season shut down due to the pandemic. That’s far better than the league-wide dip of 26%.
Tucson is doing especially well among its Pacific Division peers. Not including new teams in Henderson or Abbotsford, the league’s westernmost teams are facing close to a 34% drop in attendance this season compared to 2019-season.
Tucson ranked 23rd out of 31 AHL teams in per-game attendance in 2019-20. The Roadrunners have since moved up to 18th.
Of course, attendance figures aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons. It depends, Hoffman said, on a number of factors — namely the size of each team’s market and arena.
Take the San Diego Gulls, for example: Though they’re one of Tucson’s hockey rivals, San Diego is one of the 10 largest cities in the country. The Gulls play in a 12,000-plus-seat building, while Tucson Arena tops out at roughly 6,400.
The Gulls sold out opening night this season and lead the AHL in attendance at more than 9,700 per game.
Austin (Texas Stars) and Des Moines (Iowa Wild) are closer to Tucson’s size and scope on the national level, while Fort Collins, Colorado — the Colorado Eagles play in nearby in Loveland — and Central California’s Stockton and Bakersfield are comparable among Pacific Division cities.
Colorado is averaging a near sellout every night this season, but Stockton, Bakersfield and even Ontario, California, are another story altogether.
It's a team effort between Tucson's AHL club, its sponsors and fans, who received autograph pucks for helping the cause.
After averaging roughly 2,800 fans in 2019-20, ticket sales for the Stockton Heat have hovered at about 1,100 early this season. That’s a decrease of more than 60%. The Bakersfield Condors and Ontario Reign have experienced average attendance dips of greater than 50%. The Reign finished 2019-20 ranked third in the AHL in average attendance, but are 17th so far this season. San Diego, Ontario and Stockton did not play last season in their home markets. The Gulls and Reign played at practice facilities closer in proximity to their NHL affiliates, while the Heat played the entire 2021 season in Alberta, Canada, near the home of their affiliate, the NHL’s Calgary Flames.
Hoffman said the decline in attendance can be blamed on a number of issues — one of them the decline in group sales, “which is usually the bread and butter of a minor-league sports team.”
“You sell the experience, not necessarily the wins and losses,” Hoffman added. “And on a Saturday night or a Friday night, all the businesses around Tucson — or church groups, or school groups — they want to get together and bring them out in larger numbers at a discounted ticket price. And that typically makes up anywhere from a third to a fourth of our crowd.”
But venturing back out into a changed world amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been a tough sell. Schools have been an especially tough market this season, Hoffman noted, adding that virtually every AHL team is facing that same prospect head on. “Schools are probably 20% to 25% of our total group base. Whether performance groups, clubs, sports teams, schools are not doing groups, period,” Hoffman said. “They’re just not into that at this moment – promoting everyone getting together with the climate the way it is.”
Hoffman said the Roadrunners aren’t giving up on those groups, but will continue to work on alternatives in the meantime.
“To think that this is just now the new normal of where sports are, where our team is going to be and what our meaning of community is going to be,” Hoffman said. “I don’t see it that way.
“The pandemic obviously is something we’re going to have to navigate and have to deal with,” he added. “But that doesn’t discourage me at all.”
