Playing it by the numbers

It’s all about the numbers.
So the story was inevitable.
Fans of former franchises of the American Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League in Newmarket might have rolled their eyes this week when a Toronto Star article revealed attendance figures for the Toronto Marlies were not up to the expectations of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
The former St. John’s Maple Leafs-Newmarket Saints-St. Catharines Saints reported an average attendance of 4,467, a figure neither of the former high-profile hockey teams that called Newmarket home would surely have been proud to claim.
The real downside, one suspects, is that those numbers rank the Marlies 18th among 27 AHL teams.
MLSE expectations for average crowds of 6,000 per night seemed ambitious in a one-horse hockey town. Maple Leafs fans are so narrowly focused on their heroes, you know the club’s roster could be filled with a bunch of the most miserable, law-breaking individuals guilty of the most heinous of crimes, but easily to be forgiven on game night.
As we know from experience with the Saints and the Royals in Newmarket, papering the house, or fudging the numbers, is standard practice and designed to fit the current marketing needs.
The Marlies owners — Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment — may only be sniffling now because those numbers actually have been stretched for the sake of appearances.
We suspect this because when the Saints and Royals were both fresh on the local scene and eager to attract a fan base, attendance numbers were inflated to provide a feeling that the rink was the place to be on game nights.
Even from the beginning in the case of the Royals, the OHL claimed it could or would not publish attendance results of individual teams.
That’s a lesson from the Marketing 101 textbook.
In the Marlies' case, it’s reasonable to guess that figure of 4,465 includes plenty of freebies, discounts and no-shows.
When the Maple Leafs started to eye St. John’s as a prospective home, and later the Ciccarelli brothers bought the Royals with the sole intention to move the franchise to Sarnia, the numbers were either presented as brutally accurate — some would argue even deflated — in order to arm ownership with an argument of non-support for the local citizenry.
That’s from the pages of Marketing 102.
Given its track record so far, it is fair to wonder what angle MLSE might be playing. Would it really be a surprise to discover they are setting someone up for a handout?
At any rate, when it comes to attendance figures, it’s always best to be wary — numbers don’t always tell the entire story.