My family and I are heading to Buffalo in late November for the weekend so I thought we could check out a Sabres game. I saw that the Islanders were in town so figured it would be perfect because A) the Sabres have the second lowest average ticket price in the NHL (after St. Louis) and B) the Islanders suck so it won’t be a high profile game.  Well, I was wrong on both accounts.

Technically, the Sabres have the second lowest average ticket price in the league but the problem with that is the actual price range of the tickets.  The Sabres average ticket price is $36.43, well below the NHL average price of $49.66.  That sounded great on paper but when I looked into it, the absolute cheapest ticket for the Isles/Sabres game was listed a $47 but to make matters worse, there weren’t tickets available at that price which put me into a much higher price bracket. So, while the Sabres can advertise one of the lowest average prices, it leaves out a lot of information.

As I mentioned, the Sabres average price is $36.43 but they break their opponents down into five categories which affects the single ticket prices: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Value.  The price range for a Value game (which is usually weeknights against crappy teams) is $31-$99. The price range for a Platinum game (which includes Toronto and Montreal) is $78-$233.  That means that you are looking at an overall range of $31-$233 but you can only get the low end of the range on weeknight games! The Islander game was considered Silver for some reason so the tickets started at $47. This information bothered me so I decided to look into other teams and other leagues ticket prices.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have the highest average ticket price in the NHL at $76.15 but their lowest priced ticket is $25.78, over five dollars cheaper than the Sabres cheapest seat for a Value game! Toronto’s seat prices go up to $401.51 which brings up the average but I can see a game in Toronto for less than I can in Buffalo (although I would much rather watch an exciting Sabres team play). That made no sense to me so I moved on to other leagues to take a look.

The average ticket price in the NFL is $72.20, about $23 more than the NHL average but about the same ratio from the NHL to Toronto’s average.  The highest average ticket price in the league is the New England Patriots at $117.84. That’s $46 above the average! The difference is that the price range goes from $65-$169 which is a much tighter range and a much more accurate average price.  The lowest average ticket price in the NFL belongs to the Buffalo Bills (surprise) at $51.24 with a price range from $38-$77.  If an NFL team can survive on 8 home games charging between $38-$77 a ticket, how do the Sabres explain charging a minimum of $47 for a Saturday game against the Isles when they have 41 home games?

Next, I looked to the NBA since many teams play in the same arenas as the NHL teams.  I found a similar pattern in the NBA with massive price ranges and unbalanced averages.  The Los Angeles Lakers have the highest average ticket price with $89.24 with a league average of about $47.50.  The thing is that the cheapest ticket to a Lakers game is $10 and goes up to $315.  That is a hell of a lot cheaper than the Sabres $31 for a value game and the NBA plays a similar schedule and holds about the same amount as a hockey game (not to mention the Lakers have won a lot of championships).  More similarities to the NHL at the low end of the NBA price scale with the New Orleans Hornets average price at $24.58 but their cheapest ticket at $15 meaning I can go to a Lakers game for less than a Hornets game (again, I would much rather watch the Hornets exciting style than Phil Jackson’s so called “Triangle Offense”).

One last check was with Major League Baseball. I knew that baseball was the most affordable of the major team sports but the price difference is amazing.  The most expensive ticket in baseball belongs to the defending champion Boston Red Sox ranging from $24-$85, which is comparable to the NBA and NHL and is actually quite pricey for a baseball game.  It was the low end of the scale that was shocking. The Arizona Diamondbacks have tickets starting at $5 up to a maximum price of $50. That means that I can sit behind home plate at a D-backs game for the same price I would have paid to sit in the nosebleeds at the HSBC Arena watching the Sabres and Islanders play.  That is an incredible deal if you are a baseball fan (and I am).

The bottom line of this whole exercise is that NHL teams are charging too much for tickets and there are a lot of empty seats. The Florida Panthers or Nashville Predators both have attendance issues but didn’t show up at the bottom of the list.  The Chicago Blackhawks didn’t even have games on television for years but after one mediocre season they raised ticket prices a ridiculous 28%.  The NJ Devils did something odd and actually lowered prices by 15% this year but they are still averaging over $57.  If the NHL wants to see fans in every seat (besides Toronto and NY) the league will have to stop raising the salary cap and the owners will have to swallow their pride and lower seat prices so families can enjoy the experience of a live game more than once a year.

MLB has lowered prices since the lockout to win back fans, the NFL is a money machine so they can charge whatever they want and fill seats and the NBA counters empty seats with low end prices between $10-$15.  The NHL needs to make a change.

- Trigger

Mike Trigiani appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s