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Laces Out Loud is an NWSL and women’s soccer podcast about the game on the field and the forces shaping it off the field. The show blends match analysis, supporter passion, and bigger-picture conversations about player welfare, league growth, media coverage, business, technology, and soccer culture. We are here for the goals, the tactics, and the chaos - but also for the questions that determine whether the women’s game can grow with the ambition, care, and investment it deserves.
Yeah. I can't be mad at collecting data. I I cannot. I cannot be angry at that.
Gurushabd:And then just cheap is in the background.
Alli:I love it.
Pamitha:Welcome back, listeners, to another episode of Laces Out Loud. I am Pammatha, and as always, I am joined by Gudershaben. What's up, everyone? Her four legged family in the background, and Ally. Hello.
Pamitha:How are you guys doing? How are how are Chief and Riley?
Gurushabd:Chief and Riley are doing great. Chief's walking around, so if you hear little clicky clackies, that's Chief.
Pamitha:Yeah, and we have, Sokka who is climbing on our podcast table as he's continuing to explore his new home. So if we suddenly go off and retransition into the next segment, you'll know what happened.
Alli:Because he has knocked over our drinks.
Pamitha:Yes. You know what else got you know what else got knocked over this weekend? The spirit's chances of winning the shield.
Alli:Why are we starting I
Pamitha:know. You know, it's always... I always say I've been excited by the matches, and it's been a great NWSL weekend. This weekend stunk. This was not fun for so many different reasons for fans of the Washington spirit.
Pamitha:For fans of other teams, it was great. For the... For just one moment, I'm gonna be very disappointed, and then we can move forward. Okay, we can move forward. So it was a great weekend and the end of
Alli:this No, I'm just... I'm not ready to move forward because I'm worried about Hal,
Pamitha:we but can avoid...
Alli:I mean, I don't need to dwell on my disappointment
Pamitha:Yeah, that's true.
Gurushabd:What happened?
Alli:Unclear. She got injured, and it looked like it was a step, like a non contact thing, which is always scary.
Pamitha:Non contact landed on her right leg, and then wasn't really putting weight on it and limped off.
Alli:Not great. Did walk off under her own power, sort of, with a trainer helping her.
Pamitha:Yeah. So... Fingers crossed.
Gurushabd:Yeah. Fingers crossed.
Pamitha:At the time of our recording, we do not have an additional information. At the time of our recording, there are seven teams in the NWSL that have punched their tickets.
Alli:Yeah. The four teams that qualified on Friday night have had a had a better weekend than the Spirit did.
Pamitha:Yeah. I will say, watching those matches, we were thinking the NWSL was really poised for a decision day next week, where everything was up in the air. And now, there's a lot of things that are established, I think there's still some seeding questions, and there's there's still a battle for one, which is exciting, and a battle for eight. And so let's start with battle for eight because it involves Gurus Chabad Dior, Seattle rain, you got North Carolina and Denver barking at your heels. How you feeling right now in the eighth spot?
Gurushabd:I was driving home, like, I need to do some projecting, some positive projecting. But, yeah, Seattle controls their playoff destiny, so it's in our hands. It doesn't... If we win, it doesn't matter what Denver and the Courage do over at their game. And then that is also exciting because Denver plays North Carolina Courage, and they're the two teams at our heels.
Gurushabd:So they're gonna be fighting for each other just in case Seattle loses to take that top spot. Yeah. But I think Seattle can take it. We beat Orlando. That was back in March, so lots happened, but we did beat them the first time.
Alli:Yeah. I feel like I'm in a hard place because I am cheering for Seattle for you. I am cheering for North Carolina for Ashley Sanchez, and I'm cheering for Denver since they're my my second team. I'm gonna be both happy Yes. And Yes.
Alli:Of course for Sarah. Yes. I'm going to be happy and sad no matter what happens.
Gurushabd:Yeah. And then we're on Sanchez goal watch. Just needs one more goal. Think we changed She's playing at home.
Pamitha:We may have been the culprit for her drive
Gurushabd:thru, Think because so?
Pamitha:Well, when we started the Ashley Sanchez goal watch, she was scoring all the goals, and then we decided to formalize things, and it's been a little bit of a dry spell. Well, one called back on offsides, right?
Alli:She's had... Since she's been at 20, I think she's had at least two that have been offside.
Pamitha:I hope she gets
Alli:it. Didn't she score when when we were in North Carolina? This was before got to the record setting.
Evan:She did.
Alli:Yeah. And it was on a free kick, and the ref called it back on a really weird call of one of the players being too close to the wall.
Pamitha:Yes. It was some weird thing. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I'm with you.
Pamitha:I think I think Seattle has an easier path with Orlando, no offense to Orlando
Gurushabd:Mhmm.
Pamitha:Because North Carolina and Denver are going to be duking it out. At least you guys are at home, right? I think that's exciting.
Gurushabd:We are at home, and I'm going, so I won't get to watch the other games as closely.
Pamitha:Oh my gosh, that's so exciting. Cannot
Alli:wait to see photos
Pamitha:and video, yes. That'd be amazing.
Gurushabd:First game of this season.
Pamitha:Oh gosh, are you are you gonna be scoreboard watching?
Gurushabd:Oh, yeah.
Pamitha:Okay. So you Oh, you will be watching the scoreboard, you don't wanna just like, okay, alright, I I I get it.
Gurushabd:Yes. I mean, maybe I'll be able to put one other game, you know, on my phone or switch between them. Right. But I was like, if I was at home, my four way split screen would be the Seattle game, Courage versus Denver, Angel City versus Boston, and Gotham versus Utah.
Pamitha:Yeah. Same.
Gurushabd:You guys should have it clinched. San Diego plays Bay. They should technically win that game. Yes. But, yeah, these other four should be competitive.
Pamitha:Yeah. I I actually... If there was a way to add a fifth screen, I would wanna be watching San Diego Bay, because I think that's going to be interesting just because it's San Diego Bay. Right? Like Yeah.
Pamitha:It's not like... Yeah. They're they're team... They're two teams that know each other well, and so it'll be really interesting to see if Bay wants to play spoiler. I, you know, I would love to see San Diego win the shield.
Pamitha:I'm sure that comes as a surprise to everybody. Where do you guys land, Ali? Do you also... If you have to pick between Gotham or San Diego, are you going San Diego?
Alli:Oh, of course.
Pamitha:Okay. Gooder shuffling suit?
Gurushabd:Yeah. I would love to see San Diego win the Shield. They've been playing beautiful soccer.
Pamitha:Yeah. Well, I'm gonna... And I will say one thing, Gotham has never won the Shield, which surprises me.
Alli:Boo hoo. I'm just saying.
Pamitha:I'm just saying, there's a good story if they do, despite everything, just, you know, through gritted teeth, hope they don't win an Audi, that'd be so heartbreaking. Anyway.
Alli:Yeah, no, I'm trying to hold on to my Gotham hatred, even with, what's her name, Gone, who was really the... Esther, really did forget her name for a moment, I wasn't being silly, given that she was the one that kind of started my anger towards them, just by how she reacted after playing really well against us.
Gurushabd:I'm I'm still a fan of Gotham, but it would be cool to see San Diego win this one.
Pamitha:Yeah. I'm I love Sam Kerr. So it's... I'm I'm already prepping myself for disappointment for Washington this season. Oh.
Pamitha:I know, I'm sorry, but I'm just trying to I'm just trying to... I'm trying to protect myself, protect myself. Yeah.
Alli:That's that's... Do you. Form
Gurushabd:that hard shell.
Pamitha:Yeah. That's what... Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Pamitha:You.
Alli:But but I
Pamitha:get it.
Alli:That's why I I also have less hatred for Gotham with Astaire gone. And so... But that's what I'm saying. I'm trying to hold on to that.
Pamitha:Yeah. Plus we're gearing up for the playoffs, and obviously, we've talked about this, the NWSL championship is gonna be hosted here in Washington DC at Audi Field. We're super excited, a lot of activities are going around and obviously, we're going to be going. Oh. Although, our ticket purchasing experience was kind of interesting, we thought we would be able to sit in our season ticket seats, that is not the case.
Pamitha:We were able to purchase seats just like members of the general public. But it brought up other questions about ticketing policies for, I guess, sports teams in general, not just the NWSL, but something really interesting happened over the weekend in Kansas City that Ally saw.
Alli:Yes. I had seen as they were advertising the Kansas City Respirit match, they were saying, let's set the record, you know, 18,000 sell out. And then I thought, that's weird. How can they do that? Because it is, you know, had been...
Alli:Has been widely reported how their stadium only seats 11,500, and now they're looking to expand it. So what they did was they sold $10 tickets for people to watch the game on a screen outside the stadium, and so it was sold out with 11,500, and then everybody else are people who bought the $10 tickets and watched the game outside the stadium. So I think that's kind of a cheap way to say you had 18,000 in attendance when more than 6,000 of them were outside the stadium. I mean, I applaud cheap. Yeah.
Alli:I applaud bringing people to the game and giving them a cool experience. It sounds like they had other stuff going on, you know, outside the stadium other than just watching, you know, just showing up. But I think that let's not count that as being in attendance when it... No. No.
Pamitha:Just no.
Gurushabd:I'm gonna count everyone watching at home.
Alli:Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that that counts. That's like when teams in the playoffs, like you'll see in hockey, where they will show the away game in the playoffs in the stadium or in the arena, like, they don't count that as attendance. I don't think.
Alli:I hope not.
Gurushabd:No. I mean, it's still a fun environment. You know, they did that for the World Cup throughout this whole summer.
Alli:Yeah.
Gurushabd:And I went down to Seattle.
Alli:Yeah. Yeah.
Gurushabd:As the game was there, and it was fun watching with everyone, but I wouldn't count myself in attendance.
Alli:Yeah. No.
Gurushabd:Yeah. It's weird how they track that and what they wanna consider.
Alli:Yeah. Well, it made me keep thinking about that then because there have been a couple of times this season where we have been at spirit matches, and when they've announced the attendance, it's either been sold out when it doesn't look sold out, or the number seems a lot higher than what it should. And so we've had some discussions around the announced number being tickets that are sold and distributed, and I think that and distributed is key versus who's actually in attendance. And this, you know, the the teams do the former. So yeah, maybe an extra, you know, 5,000 people didn't show up because it's bad weather or something, and that seems broadly consistent with major US sports leagues, but I I don't like it.
Alli:I think that's kind of problematic.
Pamitha:Fortunately for all of you listening, and for us, we have a friend who works in the field, who has a direct experience in ticketing, and you may have heard him on our podcast before. We're pleased to bring Evan back into the fold.
Alli:Woo hoo. Woo hoo. Yay, Evan. Previously of... Wait.
Alli:What? Fame.
Pamitha:Alright. And now we are joined by Evan. Evan, welcome.
Evan:Hey, what's up guys?
Alli:Woo hoo. Hi Evan. Hey Evan.
Pamitha:So thrilled to have you, thank you for joining us on this impromptu episode of Wait What? With Evan. So, Ali Ali, you had, you know, found out this interesting information about ticketing, and we thought, well, let's get someone in here. Evan, so from your perspective, what do... How do teams approach calculating their attendance numbers?
Pamitha:Like, what what what matters to them in terms of butts in seats, tickets sold, what do they report? Are there standards? Do they do things differently by team and by sport? Is it all just made up? Like, what what what actually goes on there?
Pamitha:Because I think...
Alli:Because I count by twos. Yeah.
Pamitha:Because I think we looked at Kansas City, and we think, I mean, come on, really guys? Like, you're selling these tickets and your stadium only seats 11,000 people, and you're gonna tell us that 18,000 people attended this match.
Alli:Like, it seems... Fire marshal will not be happy.
Pamitha:Right. It seems dubious. That elevator capacity sticker is wrong. So curious about your thoughts.
Evan:So here... Here's... So here's my initial thought. Right? The the way in which you have to think about tickets, this is gonna be based on what's sold, and I know Ali had brought this up before with comps.
Evan:Right? So that's gonna represent your total distribution. Alright? The thing that a lot of people get confused when they start looking at ticket to show rate... And what I wanna do is wanna relate this to something that's very common.
Evan:Right? How many times have you potentially gotten on a flight and they've told you this is a sold out flight and there's no seats available, you know, check luggage, everything like that. And then you sit down and then you see there's two seats open because, unfortunately, somebody missed their flight. It doesn't make the flight any less sold out. Right?
Evan:So that's the reason why you don't typically wanna go based on show rate because, yeah, those tickets were sold, but there's not... There's anything that could have come up. You know, there could have been a wreck on the highway, somebody could have got sick. Those tickets are still sold, and those tickets cannot be resold. So in that regard, that's the reason why Teams cannot go by show rates.
Evan:Or what happens if there's a problem with the scanner, something went offline, they... As a customer service, they were like, hey. Just head on in, and they were just gonna fix it on the back end. Again, that's the reason why you wanna make sure you're going based on distribution, not necessarily based on show rate.
Pamitha:That's fascinating.
Evan:Just wanna make sure we're we're we're working on the same on the same thing here.
Pamitha:Right? That's fascinating....
Evan:Can't
Pamitha:Well, like, I I never thought about it from those... I never thought I've heard that perspective. I definitely never thought about it from the the standpoint of something went wrong at the turnstile, so it wasn't accurately recounted. That's that's really... Thanks for bringing that up and putting that into perspective.
Pamitha:Do teams track show rates? Is that something that they they care about, or is it because it's so variable or volatile that it doesn't really help them?
Evan:You track it, but not for the reasons you think. So for example, like, since they track show rates to put against concession stand sales and track what the per caps are. Per caps are just measuring how much the average person is spending while they're attending this event. Right? So maybe as Kansas City, you're looking at it and saying, like, hey.
Evan:Our per caps, whenever we're playing d... Not DC. Chicago. Let's say, again, just trying to think of, like, who's in the Midwest. Right?
Evan:Chicago, they come in. Our per caps are much higher because you know what? They're used to being in a bigger market. Beer sales are up. Jersey sales are down.
Evan:And then teams can actually start to operate accordingly. And it's because of the data dump that we start to get that you start to look at, okay. Great. You know what? We can anticipate year over year what's happening at turnstiles, what's going on with this.
Evan:These games typically have a higher show rate. What's our normal show rate on comps if we need to? So you do track it for a number of different things. You slice and dice that information a couple different ways for doing things smartly. But, again, it's not like there's one rule that every team has to abide by just because, again, every team needs to do different things at different times.
Alli:Yeah. Interesting. So I would have assumed that teams were looking at who who actually shows up to games as a measure of how engaged their audience is. Yeah. But it's really more...
Alli:They're looking at the sell rate for that and looking at, you know, how many people are buying things and your per cap stuff, like, more for in house logistics than overall, okay, our marketing strategy is working.
Evan:Correct. Because especially as you have the rise of, like, corporate tickets. Right? Think about it like this. Like, hey.
Evan:I'm a business. I buy tickets for closing measures, but maybe I've given my employees a day off and nobody's claimed the tickets. You know, that that doesn't... That shouldn't be counted against what the... What's actually happening out there.
Alli:Wait. Can you expand on that, Evan? Is that, like, sponsors getting tickets and then not using them? I don't actually know what you mean by corporate Uh-huh. Tickets.
Evan:I mean I mean, sponsorship tickets can be a part of it. When I say corporate tickets, I mean, like, the people who are buying premium or, like, hey. I am x y z company. I'm gonna buy tickets to... I know you guys speak spirit fans.
Evan:I'm gonna buy tickets to Audi fuel for the Washington spirit, you know, so this way when my employees are doing something well, maybe they have a high close rate, whatever it is, I'm rewarding them or, hey, this gives them dedicated time with their families. And because I've been working them so hard, I'm gonna give them tickets to go to games. This way, they have dedicated time with their families. Whatever the med... Whatever whatever the reason is, you have companies that do buy tickets.
Evan:And if you don't have anybody who take those tickets on occasion, maybe it's bad... Maybe it's a bad time. Right? Maybe it's over the July 4 and the company is shut down on the first and said, everybody, get out of here. If you want tickets for, you know, Saturday's games, you can come get them.
Evan:Everything's like, I'm out of town. Right? Doesn't change the fact those tickets still represent a seat that somebody could potentially take.
Alli:Yeah. Well, then Yeah.
Gurushabd:This is interesting thinking about all the different people that buy tickets and for what reason and for who.
Evan:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Now as far as now as far as the Kansas City thing goes, I think there's something that's very unique with that. Because what you're doing is you're counting the entire game as ticketed events as opposed to just counting the stadium, which is traditionally what everybody does.
Evan:So in order to do that, all they have to is fill out a whole bunch of GA stuff and everything like that on the back end. Really boring things that nobody really cares about. Right? But at that point, what you're doing is you're you're you're technically changing your capacity for the events, not necessarily for the game, if that makes sense. So now what you've done is just expanded the you just expanded the title of it, and that's just how you're gonna do your reporting.
Evan:I mean, in that regard, hey. Look. Depending on what the revenue split is with the leak, everybody's happy about this. Right? And they're not letting capacity get in their way.
Evan:So it's kinda nice in that regard.
Pamitha:Why... Well, why wouldn't more teams then do that?
Evan:Because you have to make sure... Well, I mean, there's a couple reasons. One, it's a juice worth worth a squeeze on that. Right? So, again, I'm assuming they just threw everything online and that all goes back to the marketing department's budget, yada yada yada.
Evan:Right? But let's say you don't have the permits to do something like that. Right? New York City experienced that with the Knicks where they were trying to run their watch parties outside of the garden. And then because for...
Evan:I think it was, like, game, like, two or three of the finals, the proper permits were not obtained for the size of the crowd that they were expecting. Great. Well, then you can't do that there. Right? It could be something where you would have to shut down a major roadway.
Evan:You could have... You... Similar to, like, hey, if you're renting your city, which I know in this situation, the current aren't, maybe the people who you're renting from would rather not have that happen. Right? So there's a number of different reasons as to why you wouldn't do it.
Evan:It's just a matter of, like, what's going on with the team specifically.
Gurushabd:I mean, they did this because they are gonna increase their capacity to 18,000.
Evan:Yeah. And that's great. Right? And and again, as as you're doing that, it does give you a ton more names from a marketing standpoint that you can reach out to to see if somebody's looking to make additional purchases, if you're doing things right. I was actually consulting with that on on someone else who's looking to do something similar for games.
Evan:Not in the NWSL or someplace else, and it's, like, mounting some ideas. But again, like, all of that together, like, there's a number of reasons why teams may want to do that, but there's also a ton of reasons why they can't do that.
Alli:So in this case, they might also then be able to say, we've already had 18,000 people show up for a game, even though more than 6,000 of them weren't in the stadium. So maybe it helps them Perfect. To Grujshabad's point in their... You know, as they're expanding it to say, we know we can get these numbers.
Evan:Correct. Or... And again, this is a beautiful experiment that I love with thinking outside the box. Maybe through doing everything, they expand it and they realize they only get 3,000. And they do it a couple times throughout the year and realize, you know what?
Evan:For those big expansion plans we have, we should definitely build the city in such a way that we can further expand it and we already have the infrastructure in place. But maybe we don't need to pay for the extra seats at this point. We can turn those into hospitality areas for now. Right? It's just all data collection.
Evan:Okay. Again, I'm not saying they're doing that, but I'm saying they could if they wanted to.
Pamitha:Yeah. Well, they are... I love that you brought up data collection, like that is such an invaluable resource for teams, and something I don't think fans often think
Alli:about I for a little can't be mad at collecting data. I cannot. I cannot be angry at that. This is, okay, this is so helpful, because I really did see that, and I was like, oh, that's so stupid. And so now I feel very differently about that.
Alli:So thank you for that. I do have one question about the general practice of sold or distributed tickets. Mhmm. I think, what kind of gets me is that distributed piece, because obviously I do like teams giving away tickets to, you know, to people to be able to come. But, you know, can that mean that they say, okay, let's give away 10,000 tickets because then we can say we have a sellout even if only 200 of those people show up?
Alli:Or is there a reason that they're not doing that and they're actually more strategic or thoughtful in what those distribution numbers are.
Evan:You typically don't wanna do this. And there's a there's a bunch of schools of thought on this. So, like, I'm just gonna give you the one that I was taught, which I think makes the most logical sense. Is that fair? So, again, this is not the be all end all.
Evan:This is not what I'm saying is, like, hey, take this for fact, and this is the only way it can be, but I've also had conversations similar to this. So what that is called is a practice called papering your seats. Meaning, all your seats are just basically slips of paper. You don't really know what's gonna come with that. You're just hoping for the best because you're like, oh, well, if I give out all these free tickets, people are gonna spend money on concessions.
Evan:You have no way of knowing that. Mhmm. Oh, people are gonna buy jerseys. You have no way of knowing that. So, again, like, pay for your seats essentially devalues your product because then it deters you from wanting to purchase tickets.
Evan:Think about yourselves. Right? If you guys were told, like, hey. The spirit keep giving away free tickets. Are you actually gonna go out and buy tickets?
Evan:Probably not if you're your average consumer. You're just gonna say, great. I'll just wait till I give out more tickets. Right? So what you'll look for, like, events like this where you're like, great.
Evan:I haven't gone to a game. I'll just wait for that. Right? So that's the reason why you typically don't want to do that. Now what teams will do is they'll actually work through their community relations department.
Evan:And what the community relations department is usually... It's exactly what it sounds like, where these are people who specialize in, like, foundation work. So, like, if you ever hear, like, about, like, a baseball team going out and refurbishing a little league field, where you hear about, like, oh, yeah. You know, these players showed up to run a free soccer clinic or whatever else it is. Right?
Evan:That's typically the department that will handle that. Now what they'll do is they'll have list of people who they have as community partners that they know for a fact will not only take the tickets, but also use those for their intended usage. So one of the things that I have had in the past was working with those people because there were donate... A lot of donated tickets. And it was like, okay.
Evan:Great. Who can we call up? So we worked with family shelters, especially for victims of domestic abuse because it was, like, a great way to come out. And we actually already had noted on those sections that, hey. There can't be a camera here because, you know, life and everything else.
Evan:And again, you you already know this information's coming in. Right? Or if, you know, like, hey. You know what? We're working with you hockey programs.
Evan:Like, these are ones that we already sponsor. So we wanna make sure we're taking it, call it, 40 tickets and giving them to them in their section. So, again, it could be any number of ways in which you wanna do that. But you do work strategically with people to make sure that you're not just giving them out to the general public, but you're actually furthering the team's missions in terms of making sure that they're becoming a better part of their community. So it's it's it's a little bit more noble than people will give a credit for.
Evan:But, of course, on the surface, it's like, oh, these guys got free tickets. They don't really understand why.
Alli:Gotcha. Okay. That's... I think I was probably a little pessimistic in in feeling like maybe this was just padding numbers. And so this has been great.
Alli:I will say my last question for you, as a casual fan who likes numbers and spreadsheets, you know, looking at the numbers that are reported, it made me, as I was looking into some of this, think, well, are the numbers that they're reporting accurate enough to be able to see trends and say, yes, you know, attendance at games is increasing, or does that throw everything off? So I guess, is that still... Can I still look at numbers and say, overall, I'm seeing a pattern here?
Evan:So what I would look at... Or or it's gonna be a couple things. One, and this is a stat that I that I could test, but it is useful if you're trying to see something in a certain way. You can always look at ATP, which stands for average ticket price. So this way, you can start to see, like, hey.
Evan:Are people willing to spend more over time to come watch the same product? Or if you're comparing game to game, like, hey. How much are people willing to spend to actually watch certain these things? Right? So that's gonna be step one.
Evan:Step two, will look at... I don't know how common it is for you to find. Okay. That's gonna be something that's in a lot of the league reporting.
Alli:Gotcha.
Evan:But I'm just letting you know, like, if you if you happen to have come across any of these stats, these are what you should look at.
Alli:Gotcha.
Gurushabd:You can email each team and ask for their numbers.
Evan:Yeah. I I don't know how well that's gonna work for you, but, hey, good luck with that. It's for our
Alli:fun told us.
Evan:Just kidding. Yeah. I would not... Please, please don't do that.
Alli:Too late. No. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Evan:So that's one. Right? So if you also happen to come across average paid attendance, that's gonna be something that they have to go against when you start to look at everything at the end of the day. Right? Mhmm.
Evan:Because then you're gonna start to see, like, okay. Cool. What is... What are these attendance numbers actually looking at for the people who actually paid for tickets? Because then that'll remove all your comps and...
Evan:Or as you like to call it, distro. So this way, you can see, like, okay. Cool. Like, what's actually here? I'd also look at the revenue.
Evan:Because honestly, like, as much as, you know, the number of bucks and fees matters, what matters even more is gonna be your revenue. Because that's gonna be what pays for everything. So, like, I could sell I could sell out a game on $1 tickets. That's not keeping the lights on.
Alli:Right.
Evan:But if people but if people are, again, going back to airplane, most premium tickets you have, like your suites and your club seats and that type of stuff, like, that's what's paying your bills. So as long as you're selling all that stuff out and you're looking at that and that's what's in your reporting, you're doing pretty okay where everything else just ends up being gravy. Okay. Again, like, these are the things that I would start to look at in terms of the things that you have available to you. It's starting to see great.
Evan:What's your average paid attendance? What's your average what's your average ticket price? Then I'd also start to take a look to see, like, what the revenue trends are. Because, again, that's gonna be the thing that's tied you the most. The number of people in the stadium arena, great.
Evan:You know, if that goes up, that goes up. It shows that there's more interest. But, again, for some things that are super popular, you may not see that because it's really hard to get a hold of.
Alli:Right.
Evan:And I'll give you a great example of this is look at the WWE. When you start looking at their tickets and they got heavily criticized for what SummerSlam was this year because they were like, there are huge swaths of, you know, people who aren't in the who aren't in the arena. Great. Well, there's a ton of reasons why that might be the case. But in this regard, like, if you look at what people are willing to do, people who are looking to go out there, the average of their events, they're not they're not flaking at all of that.
Evan:They're still super popular. Interesting.
Alli:Yeah. Okay.
Evan:Yeah. So don't let Well So so the last thing I'll say is don't let blips on the radar, you know, show you anything because there could be a number of different reasons. Like, for example, the Kansas City could be experiencing a huge economic boom for a bunch of reasons, and that's the reason why the current are seeing a whole bunch of interest and why they feel like they can expand. The same way where, you know, a team could see a sharp downturn in attendance, not because the team did anything wrong, not because the pricing is wrong, but maybe a major factory in their town closed. And now people are without work, and then that that optional expense looms a lot bigger.
Pamitha:Yeah. We started this journey to become more educated fans, and we lacked a lot of primary sources, and so we thought, let's just try to be our own, and as a result, we've done research. This is a great example of why more fans ought to take some time and just learn about the industry, instead of just the hot take in the moment. Yeah. It was super, super helpful.
Evan:Yeah.
Pamitha:Thank you. Thanks for spending time. I know you're running off the Monday Night Raw, like...
Alli:Yeah. Yeah. No. Thank you for this. I'm happy to say that my hot take was wrong, and so, yeah.
Alli:Thanks for...
Pamitha:Wait a second, I don't understand. So you had a hypothesis, you gathered data, you tested the hypothesis, well, had a conversation about the hypothesis. And now you're revising your hypothesis. What a concept.
Alli:What can I say, I'm awesome?
Pamitha:Yeah, I mean, you came up with this method all on your own?
Alli:Yeah, yeah, no, it's nothing anybody has ever heard of before.
Pamitha:Amazing. Learning
Gurushabd:with Laces Out Loud.
Alli:Yeah. Next, I'm gonna put it on a trifold poster board and present it at a science fair somewhere. Exactly.
Evan:Oh, boy.
Pamitha:Evan Evan, you will be exhibit A, B and C in that science fair. This has been Wait What? With Evan.
Evan:What? Yeah. And just and just remember, right, I am just one person who has learned a lot. That's not to say that there aren't other people who approach this differently or have different theories on it. Right?
Evan:Yeah. Because depending on the market, you're going to have to make adjustments. Depending on how people were raised in in the industry, they're gonna feel very differently. So, again, please take my my perspective as just that it's it's just a perspective that I have. That's not to say, like, hey.
Evan:Like, you know, if you happen to bump into the leadership from any team in this country that they're gonna tell you, well, Evan's completely wrong on that, and here's the reason why.
Pamitha:Well, a great a great man a great man in our childhood once said, you don't have to take my word for it.
Evan:Aw.
Pamitha:Alright, thanks brother, thanks
Gurushabd:so Thank much for
Alli:you, Evan.
Gurushabd:Thank you, Evan.
Pamitha:That was...
Alli:Wait, what?
Pamitha:With Evan. Awesome. Well, I hope everyone else found that just as informative as we did, Allie. This clearly has changed your mind, or It has. She way you think about this?
Alli:I mean, it has. I still think that in the Kansas City situation, the wording could be better, but if, you know, I appreciated hearing a different perspective on why they could have done things that way and how it could help them in planning for the future, and I like all of that, so...
Pamitha:Yeah, I... My takeaway is I want to see the sport grow. Yeah. And, you know, we joke, not, you know, we joke slash not joke about like, we we love the Washington spirit, and we give other teams a hard time. At the end of the day, I...
Pamitha:We want the NWSL to be good. Yep. Right? And so, that was really interesting
Evan:Yeah.
Pamitha:Just to to understand that that isn't a way in which teams can sort of secure and promote their their future growth, which is kinda cool. Good or shall I have any takeaways for you?
Gurushabd:Yeah. One big pep rally. Yeah. It was really good to hear just all the variables that go into ticketing, counting tickets, and what teams actually think matters versus what fans think matters, for their own team growth. I definitely learned a few things.
Alli:I think I have learned that it's possible, hear me out, that the fans don't know everything. What? Wait, what? My
Gurushabd:opinion isn't straight fact?
Alli:Yeah, I mean, we should just consider this, let's sleep on it, we'll come back and circle
Pamitha:circle That's back not what Reddit says. Anyway, well...
Gurushabd:Dude, spoiler alert.
Pamitha:Sorry?
Gurushabd:Well, not spoil alert. But the Valkyries just beat the dream game five. Oh, They're ahead three to two in the series. Game six is on Thursday, game seven, if it happens, is on Saturday, Halloween.
Pamitha:That's exciting. Are you tracking what's happening with the game six situation in Atlanta?
Gurushabd:Oh, With I'm the State Farm Arena?
Pamitha:Yeah. But do you know Mhmm. Yeah. So for those of you listening who do not know, the WNBA ran into a scheduling conflict with an NBA game, which is men's women's basketball. And so game six of the WNBA finals will be played at 12:30 in the afternoon on Thursday.
Pamitha:I'd... Like, the short answer is it sounded like there was a lot of intense negotiations, and there was no great solution. It was either playing in State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which I don't know what the total number of seats are, but it exceeds... The Dream Home Stadium only seats 3,500 people. State Farm Arena definitely holds more than 3,500 people, and so the Yeah.
Pamitha:Absolutely. I think the choice was we wanna have a larger venue as opposed to a larger TV audience. So for the... From the Valkyrie's perspective, because I think the Valkyrie's also... This is their first finals appearance, I think.
Pamitha:This would be... Sorry, we're pivot. We are a ice cream podcast, an NWSL podcast, and now WNBA podcast. They, it's... That stinks for the Valkyries that they might win an...
Pamitha:A WNBA championship on the road in this type of conditions. However, I hope Atlanta is able to win at home and push a game seven, take it back out to the Bay Area. So, anyway.
Gurushabd:I always love a game seven.
Pamitha:Same. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Alright.
Pamitha:Well, good for them. Alright. Cool.
Gurushabd:Well, as we just learned from Evan, there's a lot of variables we always don't know about that goes into picking stadiums and times, and you gotta work with what you have.
Pamitha:True. Try to make the best out of a bad situation, and hopefully people learn from this, and this type of conflict can be avoided. Well, all we know is November 21, two teams will enter rowdy outy, one team will be crowned, and they will sell champion.
Alli:Oh. Anyway,
Pamitha:thanks guys. This has been a fun fun chat. Yes.
Alli:Yes, it has.
Pamitha:Gurus Chabad, where can folks find us on socials?
Gurushabd:You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, and blue sky at Laces Out Loud.
Pamitha:And you can always reach the show at LacesOutLoudpod@Gmail.com. That is LacesOutLoudpod@Gmail.com. Alright. Go to Charlotte. Take us out.
Gurushabd:Everyone be good. Be kind to each other. Go vote. And we'll see you next time on Laces Out Loud.