Blackhawks’ sellout streak and ticket demand prevail in post-Cup era

Chris Werner feels a twinge of anxiety when he thinks about the future.

The Blackhawks’ vice president of ticketing knows he’s not Stan Bowman, or Jeremy Colliton, or Patrick Kane. He has no influence on the team’s success, and the Hawks’ quest to prevent their two-year playoff drought from becoming a long-term trend is out of his hands. Yet he must keep fans engaged and buying tickets regardless.

“That’s the question that runs in my mind and the sales staff’s mind all the time,” Werner said. “We have no control over what’s happening on the ice, but we have to create a strategy that is going to keep fans in a place where they want to continue to purchase those tickets.”

For now, the United Center remains one of the NHL’s top draws, even going on four years post-Stanley Cup dynasty.

The Hawks sold out their 504th consecutive home game Thursday, so far surviving an October that has already killed comparable sellout streaks in Minnesota and Winnipeg. And their average attendance of 21,000-plus stands on track to lead the league for the 12th consecutive season.

This robust fanbase seems a galaxy away from what it was in the mid-2000s, when the United Center was cavernously empty most nights and the Hawks ranked second-to-last in average attendance in back-to-back seasons (2005-06 and 2006-07). But considering how exponentially attendance and ticket demand increased from 2007 to 2011, who’s to say it won’t exponentially decrease in the next four years?

Akshay Khanna, StubHub’s general manager of NHL sales, will. He’s confident the Hawks are nowhere near attendance doomsday.

“I don’t see that being an immediate issue for the Blackhawks just because of the special circumstances,” Khanna said. “Ultimately, the fact that there is such a big, rabid fanbase that has now experienced success hopefully translates into a few years where fans are willing to look past a season or two where the team doesn’t make the playoffs.”

The prices of Hawks tickets on the secondary market have nonetheless declined in recent seasons.

The average resale value stands at $140 for 2019-20, per TicketIQ, a sharp contrast to the four straight years from 2013 to 2017 when that average never dropped below $280. That’s a drop of more than 50 percent in three years, though only six percent lower than last year’s average ($149).

Still, the Hawks remain one of the pricier draws in the league — that $140 average is ninth-highest in the NHL on TicketIQ, and StubHub ranks them the NHL’s fourth-most in-demand team, factoring in ticket sales as well as other metrics. For example, Blackhawks merchandise is more popular on eBay than every other NHL team.

“They are doing a hell of a job with the team’s branding, marketing, ticket sales piece of this, but ultimately, demand generation is such an important [thing], and that’s hard,” Khanna added. “Demand capture is easy — demand generation is a lot harder. It’s a combination of just organic excitement around the team, plus total credit to the team’s organization for capitalizing on it as they do.”

That sales piece, Werner says, revolves around making season tickets feel more like a membership than a package of just 41 tickets.

Season-ticket holders are provided exclusive off-ice events, develop personal relationships with sales representatives and asked to give input to improve the arena experience — leading to changes such as broader concession food options, different in-game music and the much-discussed new scoreboard.

“Another part of that was the sound system was also upgraded, and we took a lot of feedback from fans,” Werner said. “Based on where they were sitting, people would say either it’s too loud or it’s not loud enough. And we were able to take that feedback from the specific seat locations, and go to the people that were developing that sound system, and say, ‘If we’re going to do this right, let’s make sure we get these issues addressed.’”

Werner said he pays little attention to the decline in secondary market prices, but appreciates that the Hawks’ new affordability on those platforms has made games more accessible to more people. Increased availability of partial-season packages and cheap events (like the $5 Training Camp Festival scrimmage) designed to introduce Hawks hockey to fresh eyes have also played roles in that phenomenon.

As a result, crowds during this seven-game homestand were just as, if not more, boisterous and engaged than in more successful years, and the portion of people in attendance wearing jerseys rather than suits or street clothes seemed significantly higher to the naked eye.

That’s largely because young people and families have begun to infiltrate what was once a uniform mass of 21,000 upper-class businessmen.

“The excitement in the arena, to me, has continued to be there,” Werner said. “Some of that is attributable to new season-ticket holders, or fans who are finding attractive prices in the secondary market that provide them the opportunity to come to a game.”

“There’s a little bit of a learning curve to [Blackhawks fandom], and as we get new fans and younger fans, we find they’re really taking to that very well and join into that excitement.”

On StubHub, standing room tickets are available for Sunday’s game against the Kings for $14, and the worst upper-bowl seat can be had for $28. Tickets at those prices would’ve been gobbled up in milliseconds during the Cup years, and the fact they’ve fallen so precipitously since is both good and bad for the franchise.

But they’re still being purchased, which is more than many teams can claim — and more than the Hawks could say in 2006. And season-ticket packages remain sought-after commodities, despite Chicago’s many sports and entertainment options, and the United Center continues to be stuffed wall-to-wall every night by the time Jim Cornelison’s belting begins.

Considering how disappointing the results have been on the rink lately, the Hawks find themselves in a relatively strong spot, attendance-wise, at the moment.

“As we look at how we keep fans engaged, it’s continuing to provide value to what they’re purchasing,” Werner said. “We want them to find that when they’re making the investment — both financially and time-wise — that they’re feeling good about it.”