Visiting Teams having Lots of Fans in the Stands

[strive_for_five_guy]

2 hours ago, mannc said:

This is even more true late in the season…glad Bills are in Miami in December. It will be a 50/50 situation.

I just bought my tix to the Miami game in January, and they were still very reasonably priced versus what I expected.  Week 18, that game could have huge playoff implications.  You’re joining me, right @HOUSE?

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

12 minutes ago, djp14150 said:

 

that area is heavy college football with Florida state in Tallahassee , Florida in Gainesville, and Georgia north.  Florida-Georgia is played there annually similar to Dallas hosting texas-Oklahoma game annually.

 

the area military pres ense also brings people from elsewhere and the retiremrnt area brings people from elsewhere.

 

Makes sense, i don't know my florida geography very well truthfully - i drove through jacksonville once omw to miami so... i figured atlantic coast? i just dont know of any schools there.  The military factor definitely plays into it. 

[Jauronimo]

13 hours ago, Einstein said:

This is a photo I took of the Jags game yesterday. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Towards the end of 2nd quarter, if I recall correctly.

 

 

 

 

Those are just empty seats.  I was expecting to see entire sections tarped over with a Texans logo for this stadium takeover.

[Utah John]

Regarding playing 1 pm games in Florida cities, particularly Miami, in September:  I think there's a case to be made to OSHA that those games should not be allowed.  Seriously, putting the visiting team in the direct sun while the home team is in shade, is going to get a player killed eventually.  It's one thing to have a home team enjoying a better locker room, but the field conditions should affect both teams equally.  A cold day, a wind day, or a snowy day (or all three) in Buffalo affect both teams equally.

 

To the point of this thread, it's great that Bills fans travel well, but the travel would make even more sense when it turns cold in Buffalo (November) while the rest of the country is still warmer. 

[MikePJ76]

14 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

Reading some of the posts in here about yesterdays Bills game, where the Bills fans were about 50% of the crowd (just guessing by what folks who were there said) got me wondering WTF is going on with all these NFL home teams not being able to fill their stadiums with their hometown fans? Saw it yesterday in Jacksonville (Chiefs fans), and Las Vegas (Steelers fans), and sort of sounds like there are a lot of Philly fans in Tampa. Are NFL tickets nowadays just like an investment, where the original purchaser knows they’ll be able to make buku $$$ by selling it to a visiting fan? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.

Yes.

 

All the new stadiums have PSL's.  In order to pay these fees and for their tickets most ticket holders sell the popular games at a huge profit.  

 

also, in a number of cases a majority of seats are owned by scalpers who are only in it to sell the tickets for profit.  In Dallas its something like 30% or more who the psl's are from out of state.  

 

The owners knew exactly what they were doing when PSL's were inserted in between fans and the team.  They know they have the safety of always having sell outs and they also knew a ton of people would own these just to make money.  They dont care, they also did extensive studies on the secondary markets and that is a big reason for the huge price increases...they wanted a part of that and they got it.

[SoCal Deek]

I’m always amazed when I travel on the weekend during football season. When/if you do you’ll see hundreds of people in airports all over the country wearing NFL gear. They’re all traveling to a road game somewhere. It’s really pretty cool! 

[zow2]

I went to the Vikings game last year in Orchard Park.  It certainly wasn't like Washington on Sunday with 50% Bills fans.  But i was fairly surprised how many Minnesota fans were there.  Most of my section was rooting for the Vikes.  I spoke to several, alot came down from Canada.  In the Brady era I recall going to games with thousands of Pats fans invading, and Steelers fans over the years.

[jwhit34]

The secondary market had gone insane. I could easily get $500/ticket for my seats for the Miami game (and could have for LV too). Going with my family, friends and Bills fans is priceless though

[MPL]

Would be willing to bet that there's a decent-sized percentage of Las Vegas residents that don't even know they have a football team now.

[Fleezoid]

Aside from Vegas, which one poster correctly pointed out is a destination place for vacations, the other locations have traditionally had visiting team fans. Particularly Florida teams. And while a lot of fans travel for the warmer weather during fall and winter, there are a lot of displaced fans living there. 

[Florida Bills Fanatic]

I've been to several games in Jacksonville and there are usually many empty seats.  About a third of the people that are there are not Jacksonville fans regardless of who they are playing.  Bills, Chiefs, Steelers, Cheatriots, and Packers fans travel in large numbers.  Miami also gets large numbers of visiting team fans.

[KCNC]

Very common here in the south. Carolina and Atlanta for sure.  Wine and cheese crowd.

[JESSEFEFFER]

This is the natural result of the home blackout rule being lifted in 2015.  Less demand for tickets in the local market makes for more availability on the resale markets.  My daughter's travel softball team scheduled Sunday games in PA that match the first 3 Bills home games, uhg!   I am glad there is a venue and demand to resell my extra pair of seats and make back almost half of what I paid for the entire season.  For that playoff game vs. NE in 0 degree weather I sold them at a loss.

 

If you are traveling to a game, the cost of the ticket is likely a small portion of the total cost to see the game live.  The airlines and hotels know what's up.

[Big Turk]

Luckily the Dolphins don't have lots of fans I guess.

[mannc]

49 minutes ago, Fleezoid said:

Aside from Vegas, which one poster correctly pointed out is a destination place for vacations, the other locations have traditionally had visiting team fans. Particularly Florida teams. And while a lot of fans travel for the warmer weather during fall and winter, there are a lot of displaced fans living there. 

Yep, places like Buffalo, Green Bay and Pittsburgh have huge diasporas in warm weather NFL cities and they show up for the games... 

[SirAndrew]

It’s not just teams that travel well. It’s also the fact that tons of people from the rust belt and northeast live down south and out west. Take Philly at Tampa for example,  you could easily fill that stadium with people from the Philly area who live in Tampa. Not many people in cities like Vegas or Tampa are actually from those places, and even fewer people whose parents/grandparents are. 

[C.Biscuit97]

Bills fans travel well and teams playing somewhere get fans an excuse for a road trip. 
 

weirdly, I think Buffalo is becoming popular because the city/ team have a positive rep lately and the tickets are so cheap compared to everyone else. 

[Logic]

16 hours ago, TheyCallMeAndy said:

The next endeavor for the mafia is to start taking over stadiums where the Bills aren’t even playing.

 

Then stadiums where it’s not even football.

 

Then events that aren’t even sports. 
 

Can we please hijack Wrestlemania? 

Why stop at large scale spectacle events?

Why not roll up 10,000 strong to a local wedding, singing the shout song, dousing the bridesmaids in ketchup and mustard, and throwing the groomsmen through tables?

THAT should be the pinnacle aspiration of #BillsMafia, if you ask me.
 

[TheFunPolice]

everyone loves Josh Allen, Buffalo and WNY

 

 

 

 

[buffaloboyinATL]

17 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

Reading some of the posts in here about yesterdays Bills game, where the Bills fans were about 50% of the crowd (just guessing by what folks who were there said) got me wondering WTF is going on with all these NFL home teams not being able to fill their stadiums with their hometown fans? Saw it yesterday in Jacksonville (Chiefs fans), and Las Vegas (Steelers fans), and sort of sounds like there are a lot of Philly fans in Tampa. Are NFL tickets nowadays just like an investment, where the original purchaser knows they’ll be able to make buku $$$ by selling it to a visiting fan? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.

I don't think people, for the most part, are buying tix as an investment. I just think that the stadiums with fair weather fans, especially the ones with teams under-performing, tend to be that way.  Teams like the Bills, Steelers, Packers, Jets, Eagles, Browns etc, with die-hard fan bases, rarely get taken over at home.

 

The casual fans of teams like the Panthers, Vegas Raiders, LA Rams, Tampa, Atlanta, Jacksonville etc, start to rationalize that they can make a little money, and save the money they would spend at the stadium, and watch the lose from the comfort of their own homes. They get to charge a bit more when the die-hard fan bases come to town, which makes it more tempting for them. Hence the big crowds for the away teams. 

[LewPort71]

Watch any game from SoFi stadium, shared home of  the Rams and Chargers. It always seems the visitors out numbers

and out cheers the 'hometown' fans.  My friend was at the Wash..Bills contest and he was amazed at the size and the loudness

of the Bill's fans.  

[SoCal Deek]

Long before the Raiders moved to Vegas I had hoped the NFL would’ve had every team play a game there once a year. The entire thing would be one big party and an annual must-attend road trip for fans. The Super Bowl could’ve been played there every four or five years as well since it’d be a truly neutral site for everyone. Now with a seventeen game schedule it would’ve been even more ideal. Nobody would lose a home game. Unfortunately they went the route of having a team of their own. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by SoCal Deek

[zow2]

Bills fans were waving goodbye to Washington fans late in the 4th as they were heading for the exits.  It was pretty lighthearted, not even any swearing or anything.  One older meathead Commanders fan was drunk and came back to challenge the Bills fans in front of me.  Said something about disrespecting them in their house and you need to back your words.  I was so glad the Bills fan (who was younger, maybe 30, and about 6'4" 240-250) said "I'm not getting arrested over this".  He could've easily pounded the drunk guy, who was screaming his head off-  into next week.  Finally the drunk guys friend pulled him away along with a security dude who showed up.

[Matt_In_NH]

22 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Long before the Raiders moved to Vegas I had hoped the NFL would’ve had every team play a game there once a year. The entire thing would be one big party and an annual must-attend road trip for fans. The Super Bowl could’ve been played there every four or five years as well since it’d be a truly neutral site for everyone. Now with a seventeen game schedule it would’ve been even more ideal. Nobody would lose a home game. Unfortunately they went the route of having a team of their own. 

With the 17th game, everyone gets a neutral site game in Vegas.....I say they could still do it.   Take Metlife, they flipped that in 24 hours from Sunday night to Monday night.

[eee1776]

19 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

Don’t the Bills try to curb this problem by NOT selling to buyers who have a zip code outside of WNY?

A lot of folks thst have zip codes way out of the Blo area got grandfathered in. I live in Charlotte and I know of fans that still have season tickets that make a good amount of money doing just that.

[JohnNord]

20 hours ago, Bob Jones said:

Reading some of the posts in here about yesterdays Bills game, where the Bills fans were about 50% of the crowd (just guessing by what folks who were there said) got me wondering WTF is going on with all these NFL home teams not being able to fill their stadiums with their hometown fans? Saw it yesterday in Jacksonville (Chiefs fans), and Las Vegas (Steelers fans), and sort of sounds like there are a lot of Philly fans in Tampa. Are NFL tickets nowadays just like an investment, where the original purchaser knows they’ll be able to make buku $$$ by selling it to a visiting fan? I don’t like it, I don’t like it one bit.

There are much better ways to invest your money than trying to flip season tickets. 
 

Depending on the game/season you might be able to make a few hundred dollars but you also might lose money too.   Things change fast in sports.  
 

I had a friend who owned Sabres season tickets and relocated to the West Coast.  He kept his seasons, thinking he could sell the important games on Craig’s list and then to family and friends for at cost or somewhere close.   He did fairly decent at first, largely from the inflated prices of games against Canadian teams or top teams like Boston at the time.  But then the Sabres drought in.  He started off almost breaking even, which he was ok with.  Then the team started to suck and tickets were in less demand.  He took a bath for the next three season, before just giving up.   He held out hope that the team could get better - but when he literally couldn’t even give away free tickets, he knew it was over.
 

The NFL is a bit of different situation.  There are less games and ticket prices are much more in general.  But to maximize your investment there has to be demand for the tickets, which usually means - the team has to be a contender every year 

Edited September 26, 2023 by JohnNord

[Breakout Squad]

20 hours ago, Einstein said:

This is a photo I took of the Jags game yesterday. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Towards the end of 2nd quarter, if I recall correctly.

 

 

 

 

That’s real bad 

[BillsPride12]

I think sports fans going on road trips to watch their teams in other cities/stadiums has really evolved into a big thing over the years.  You see a lot of visiting fans in every NFL stadium nowadays and yes that's including ours.  I love going to Bills games in Orchard Park but after going to so many of them over the years the excitement wears off a little bit but it's always fun and exciting getting to go see the Bills play on the road and take over another city and stadium.  

[WhoTom]

2 hours ago, Matt_In_NH said:

With the 17th game, everyone gets a neutral site game in Vegas

 

Everyone except the Raiders.

 

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, WhoTom said:

 

Everyone except the Raiders.

 

They’d be forced to sit on the side without slot machines. 

[djp14150]

14 hours ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

Makes sense, i don't know my florida geography very well truthfully - i drove through jacksonville once omw to miami so... i figured atlantic coast? i just dont know of any schools there.  The military factor definitely plays into it. 

There is a state school north Florida ( heard of south Florida, annd central Florida in football??) and some other small schools.  Their is no big schools.  Gainesville isn’t that far from jacksonville. In Georgia…tech is in atlanta and Athens is where Univ of Georgia is which is SE of Atlanta.

 

having a large military and retiree residence also has loyalties tied to other teams rather than the home team.  You also have 5+ month Canadian residents in the area

[Kirby Jackson]

22 hours ago, Billsatlastin2018 said:

Well, are Buffalonians going to be paying $4-500 a pop when that new Stadium is built?

They are doing it now on a smaller scale (and it won’t be $400-$500 for the most part it’ll be closer to $200-$300). It’s a tired narrative that Bills fans can’t afford tickets. Watch next week in London how many Bills fans made the trip. The entire trip is no less than $2k per person and there will be THOUSANDS. 

[Chicken Boo]

I'm in the DC metropolitan area.  I was weighing whether or not to go to the game this past Sunday.  

 

2 tickets in a reasonable seating area (I'm anti-nose bleed section) were $500 before any applicable fees and didn't include parking.

 

No thanks.  I can comfortably watch from home.

[SirAndrew]

On 9/26/2023 at 4:30 PM, JohnNord said:

There are much better ways to invest your money than trying to flip season tickets. 
 

Depending on the game/season you might be able to make a few hundred dollars but you also might lose money too.   Things change fast in sports.  
 

I had a friend who owned Sabres season tickets and relocated to the West Coast.  He kept his seasons, thinking he could sell the important games on Craig’s list and then to family and friends for at cost or somewhere close.   He did fairly decent at first, largely from the inflated prices of games against Canadian teams or top teams like Boston at the time.  But then the Sabres drought in.  He started off almost breaking even, which he was ok with.  Then the team started to suck and tickets were in less demand.  He took a bath for the next three season, before just giving up.   He held out hope that the team could get better - but when he literally couldn’t even give away free tickets, he knew it was over.
 

The NFL is a bit of different situation.  There are less games and ticket prices are much more in general.  But to maximize your investment there has to be demand for the tickets, which usually means - the team has to be a contender every year 

Good point, there are definitely better ways to invest that money. Imagine being a Jets fan trying to flip seasons after the Rodgers injury. Football tickets in particular are always one injury away from being worthless.