Welcome to Northeast Delta Dental Stadium! The New Hampshire Fisher Cats seem to have penchant for awful names as the stadium was called "Merchantsauto.com Stadium" during my visit

As I have maintained The List for the last 15 years or so, there are tendencies I have picked up with stadium names. My favorites tend to be the simple two worded ones like Tiger Stadium or Haas Pavilion. Naming a facility after a person can be a good thing (especially when just the last name is used), but when facilities use the middle initial, the name gets a little excessive (Joseph P. Riley, Jr Park is a bit much). I also appreciate when the sponsor has a name that doesn’t sound too corporate, like Philips Arena. Then there are some corporate-sponsered stadium names that are just so downright atrocious, its laughable. And here are some of the worst:

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• KFC Yum! Center – Louisville, KY – Louisville Cardinals
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• Whataburger Field – Corpus Christi, TX – Corpus Christi Hooks
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• Big Sandy Superstore Arena – Huntington, WV – Huntington Hammers
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• University of Phoenix Stadium – Glendale, AZ – Arizona Cardinals
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• Cooley Law School Stadium – Lansing, MI – Lansing Lugnuts
  (Just like the University of Phoenix, a school that doesn’t even play in the stadium…but at least it has a real physical campus)
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• Time Warner Cable Arena – Charlotte, NC – Charlotte Bobcats
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• Northeast Delta Dental Stadium – Manchester, NH – New Hampshire Fisher Cats
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• O.co Coliseum – Oakland, CA – Oakland Raiders
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• Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre – Victoria, BC – Victoria Royals

Army's Michie Stadium before the rains came during a football game in 2008

After attending a new stadium or arena, there are a few out there that just resonate and stick with me. It’s not easy getting back to see it again since I’d like to continue the journeys and visit the next new place, but a couple are worthy of going out of the way to come back and visit. Here are some that I want to make a return to (I didn’t count those that I have seen in the last year):

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Tullio Arena – Erie, PA – Erie Otters
This was one of the first trips that I made almost ten years ago and the atmosphere in this old building was awesome. The arena itself was drab, but the place was rocking and is known as one of the most intimidating buildings in the OHL. Can’t believe this is my only OHL game, I need to make a road trip in Ontario to check out this league, but its a little more difficult living in New Jersey, as opposed to being in Rochester. Regardless, I still want to get back to Tullio.

Bell Centre - Montreal, QU – Montreal Canadiens
Montreal is an amazing city and it would be cool to check out again. We were there during an awful sleet/snow storm in April 2003, so having better weather and checking out the view from Mt. Royal would be great. As would getting back to the Bell Centre for a Canadiens game.

Dunn Field – Elmira, NY – Elmira Pioneers
Ahhh, baseball and serenity. Normally, what puts a stadium visit over the top for me is the atmosphere and fan passion. You won’t see that at Dunn Field, but I remember having such a nice, relaxed afternoon here. Sitting in the 1930s grandstand at this neighboorhood ballpark offering a view of the rolling Southern Tier hills was very enjoyable and peaceful. I’m afraid this place is going to become outdated for baseball and won’t be around much longer as the professional game has past it by, luckily the NYCBL has been here for the last few years and summer baseball has been played.

Fenway Park – Boston, MA – Boston Red Sox
I probably don’t have to get into much reasoning why I would love to get back, just a few weeks ago I compared Wrigley and Fenway, with Fenway getting the slight edge in my eyes.

Michie Stadium – West Point, NY – Army Black Knights
The game I attended here was both good and bad. The good was that the driving, steady rain held off until a few minutes into the start of the game, thus allowing me to take pictures both inside and out, along with getting a quick walking tour of the stadium. The bad was the driving, steady rain that fell for the rest of the game. Along with the amount of history in this football stadium, it also has one of the best settings in college football. A pleasant, October afternoon would be excellent here. There are also some unique traditions that would be great to see, as I never got the chance to witness the parachute team develivering the game-day football.

Does this look like 1,438 people?

Each stadium visit, I always look forward to the “Official Attendance” announced by the PA or me looking it up in the box score when I got home. I’ve always known that this “official” number was not representative of the people in the seats. Through the years, I’ve learned that this magic number is the amount of tickets sold (or given away) as opposed to a turnstile count. I accepted that and took it for what is worth and knew that it was all just about money and marketing. However, over the past few months, I’ve become more and more frustrated by this increasingly farce number. Each stadium I’ve visited, the announced attendance was more and more ridiculous.

I did some research trying to find ANYONE who gave an accurate depiction of butts in the seats. However, nowhere is turnstile attendance available unless I contact local governments for the numbers. More and more reading, led to show me just how absurd this attendance number has become. According to Travelerocity,  a blog for the Texas League’s (AA baseball), Arkansas Travelers, the average announced attendance in 2010 for Travelers games at Dickey-Stephens Park was 4,940. The actual (turnstile) attendance? 2,662. That’s not to single out Arkansas as that’s the story all across baseball (minor and major), hockey and collegiate athletics. A much more informative and wonderfully written piece on the issue can be found at the San Diego Union-Tribune and I highly, highly recommend giving it a read.

So, where does that leave me? I’m now done writing the “Attendance” in the top part of each stadium review. The number is such a lie, that there is no sense in painting a picture that a place was “sold out”, when in reality it wasn’t even close. Unfortunately, that makes judging fan support a lot more difficult, because a lot of it is based on multi-year attendance rankings. I’ll still look at that, since “everybody does it”, but there will be part of me that will question it and think, “did this team just fudge the numbers more?”. So, I’ll rely on the very tiny sample size of the crowd at the one game I attend and I’ll rely heavily on team and league experts and bloggers who know plenty about their local sports landscape.

I understand why the inflated numbers occur, but doesn’t it just seem so wrong to incorrectly portray how many fans are watching your product. It certainly won’t be the fans that change this, the only hope is that the advertisers and sponsors who are being duped, start demanding the real, actual attendance.

A regular-season AHL hockey game in Hamilton, ON

When attending a sporting event, most times you’ll notice that the announced attendance is inflated and higher than the actual fans attending. This is because teams announce “paid” attendance, in other words, tickets that were sold (or given away) to the event. The attendance figure represents every season-ticket holder, even if they don’t show up. It also includes “giveaways” and sometimes the franchise may have a lot of these so their numbers look better for advertisers. A number much more representative of the actual attendance is the turnstile count (number of fans actually passing through the gates), however, this is never given and despite all of my searches, I can’t find these numbers anywhere. I always like to get a gauge of a city’s passion and support towards a sports team and unfortunately, the attendance figure is the main way to do this, despite the usually skewed figure. However, in recent years, I have found a method that is a slight improvement to getting a better idea on support.

Using Playoff attendance is much more representative. The reasoning is that giveaways are much lower and I believe (please, correct me if I’m wrong on this one) season-ticket holders aren’t included in that final figure unless they actually get a ticket for the game. The Minor Leagues are different from the Pros in that playoff attendance is typically lower than regular season attendance. Its disappointing, but unfortunately there are many more people coming to the minor league game for entertainment, as opposed to having a true following of that team.

So, the playoffs give you a better sense of the fan support a city has for their team…besides, if you’re a fan, shouldn’t these be the games that you would most want to be attending! Luckily, there are some franchises that do have the support of their city. With the hockey playoffs going on, take a look at the teams that have bucked the attendance trend this season:
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Lake Erie (AHL)……8,069 (playoffs)…….6,568 (regular season)
Fort Wayne (CHL)…7,600 (playoffs)……7,460 (regular season)
Texas (AHL)………..5,590 (playoffs)…….5,340 (regular season)
Colorado (CHL)……5,289 (playoffs)…….5,289 (regular season)….sellouts
Alaska (ECHL)……..5,077 (playoffs)…….4,351 (regular season)
Victoria (ECHL)……3,690 (playoffs)…….3,717 (regular season)
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That is the type of support you want to see! The rare instance when a minor league team’s playoff attendance is higher than regular season attendance, is a sign of good fan support. Hockey is more successful than baseball in this situation, because baseball is much more leisurely and branded as entertainment, given the amount of kitchy promotions and between-inning games. A classic example of this comes from the 2009 Eastern League (AA). The Akron Aeros finished with an average regular-season attendance of 4,659 (6th), however on the Saturday Night that they won the Eastern League Championship, only 3,275 came out to the 9,097-seat Canal Park to see it.