There is no attendance problem

One of our most faithful readers, ICEVET, made a comment to my "View from the Press box" post from yesterday. I made the point that the Aeros need to play better at home in order to be one of the elite teams in the Western Conference and the AHL.

Here is what ICEVET said:

"The average attendance run rate during the 2011-12 regular season was nearly 7300, buoyed by the agressive management of David Burke.

Through 5 games, average attendance run rate (5700+) is down 20%....and this includes 8,132
on opening night.

Hopefully, attendance levels will rise to support this very talented team."

ICEVET is right, the attendance, when compared to last season's average is down. And when you compare the first five games this season to those from a year ago, the average gate is down to 5,743 from 6,554. When compared to the rest of the AHL, the Aeros currently sit 13th in the 30-league team. 

Both of those stats immediately struck me as disappointing because of the progress the team has made at the game during the Tom Garrity, Jamie Spencer and David Burke Aeros President eras. But I did a quick five-year comparison, and the results show that the Aeros do not have an attendance problem this season. 

Typically, because of High School football and many other factors, the Aeros attendance does not pick up until late December or so. The Aeros also play many more Sunday games, and have fewer Saturday nights at their disposal because they share the Toyota Center with the Rockets, concerts and other events. 

Their attendance through the first five games last year was more than 6,500 and that was their best rate in the last five years - by a lot. And what happened the year before? The Aeros made an incredible run at the Calder Cup buoyed by one of the best group of players in franchise history. 

In other words, there was a high coming off the previous year, and even during the typical "low season" the Aeros had great numbers at the rink. 

Here is a look at the Aeros first five game attendance average over the last five years. 

2012 - 5,734

2011 - 6,554

2010 - 5,185

2009 - 5,662

2008 - 4,562

Five-year average - 5,539

So what does this mean? It means that the first five games of this season has been spot on with their average over the last five seasons. 

And this does not even get into when these first five games were played. How many of these games were played on weeknights? How many of these games were Fridays and Saturdays? How many of these games came in a four or five night span (when the home team plays three or four games in a week, attendance suffers.)

The bottom line is last year was the anomaly, not this season. David Burke did an amazing job, overall, during his run at team president. He followed a general ticket-selling formula (kids, families, kids, families, groups, kids, families) that has been employed since Tom Garrity took over, and he raised the bar with fan interaction, social media and little things like instant replays and goal horns. 

The Aeros are not out of the woods yet. There is no lease in place for next season and beyond, so it will be interesting to see how that affects attendance when we get into early December and preparations will have to be made for the following season. Let's just say that front-office morale will be affected either way. 

Also, from March 14 to April 13, they are going to have to play 12 games in less than a month, and that, too will certainly affect how many fans will buy tickets. 

All that aside, the Aeros are doing just fine so far both on and off ice the ice. 

Goalie of the Week

As you know, Darcy Kuemper was named the AHL Goalie of the Week for last week, after going 2-0-0-2. So here he is tonight, with Aeros president David Burke, being presented with his award. Congrats, Darcy.

Aeros Round-Up

It's kind of unusual for August to have much news, but there's been a trickle of things coming down the wire in the last few days that, if you don't have Twitter, you might have missed.

John already covered the dates and David Burke's hiring as the Aeros new President. A little more on Burke (who I desperately want to call Burkie, a la Brian Burke) is that he's on Twitter! Which I think is pretty cool.

You can follow him at @DBurkeAeros if you so choose.

Between his and Kassian's twitter feed, which is really funny stuff, consider making the leap to the dark side. I put together a quick and dirty Aeros-centric list of follows that shouldn't overwhelm anybody to keep up with, if you just want to dip a toe in: http://twitter.com/#!/list/3rdIntermission/aeros-essentials

You do have to create an account to view it, it looks like, but I promise, it won't turn you into a hipster doofus.

Anyway, on to other news:

It looks like the Aeros will be announcing the assistant coaches pretty soon. On the defensive end, they're hiring recently-retired defenseman Mike Van Ryn, who played for Torchetti in Florida. Knee injuries pretty much spelled the end of his career a bit early, but he should still have plenty of fire in the belly to bestow upon the Aeros' youngsters.

Also, Sebastien LaPlante is the other assistant coach that is reportedly coming into the fold. He played on Torchetti's team in San Antonio and has most recently been assistant coaching the team at Northeastern University, where he played his college career.

So, lots of new blood in the mix this season and I'm excited to get things going... in September. Still not quite recovered from playoffs.