The Penguins lost money this year, and they expect to lose money again next year, too.
What they're now desperately trying to avoid losing is more season ticket holders.
And after a second straight losing campaign with no playoffs, Mario Lemieux and the rest of the top brass decided that keeping fans coming to the games was going to require a markdown.
On Tuesday, when the renewal forms and invoices went out in the mail, the Penguins also announced a full-scale cut in season ticket prices for the 2003-04 season, ranging from $1 in the E balcony at Mellon Arena to $8 in the F balcony. Forty percent of the arena is now priced at $30 or less for season ticket holders.
Partial season ticket packages and individual game prices will also be lowered, but the team won't announce by how much individual and Flex-10 prices will decrease until the NHL schedule is released some time in July.
"We were down 1,600 (season ticket holders) from the year before, so we wanted to build that back up," spokesman Tom McMillan said. "That's the backbone -- our season ticket base. We just want to start building that back up the best we can."
The Penguins also announced a revamped amenities package -- including perks that offer greater access and exclusivity -- for season ticket holders and a special meeting at the arena on May 29 with Lemieux, team president Ken Sawyer and general manager Craig Patrick.
The greatest decrease in season ticket prices came in the D level (2,399 seats), where prices fell from $39 to $30. Prices in the F level balcony (1,112 seats) fell from $28 to $20, the greatest percentage reduction of all seating areas at 28.6 percent.
"Season ticket numbers in those areas were relatively low," McMillan said. "Prices in those areas in particular were too high. That's why those areas were selected. Looking at the numbers, it was pretty obvious."
Prices in the A/B level, where 26 percent of the Penguins' season ticket holders sit, dropped by $2.50 from $68 to $65.50.
McMillan said that they haven't set a specific target for number of season ticket holders next season, but ideally, they'd like to get back up to the 9,600 they had in 2001-02. They had 8,000 last year.
Without the pricing determined for individual tickets, it's too soon to tell how the drop in season ticket prices will affect the Penguins' average ticket price, which according to Team Marketing Report was ninth-highest in the league last year at $47.18. According to the survey, the average price of an NHL ticket this past season was $41.56. The Edmonton Oilers had the lowest average price at $29.36.
Overall attendance at Penguins games dipped this season, too, from an average of 15,649 (92.3 percent of capacity) in 2001-02 to 14,755 (87 percent capacity) this year, the sixth-lowest in the league. In 2000-01, the Penguins averaged 16,336 per game.
The decision to lower prices was already made by the time the Penguins started getting back the season ticket holder surveys that were mailed out two weeks ago. But when the subject of money kept coming up in the 1,000 responses they've gotten so far, McMillan said they knew they were at least heading in the right direction.
"We were going there anyway, we just hadn't made the final pricing decisions," McMillan said. "If there was ever a need for confirmation, though, it was overwhelming."
The season ticket holder meeting with Lemieux, Sawyer and Patrick later this month is the next step in gaining fan feedback. McMillan said all three men will speak at the gathering, but that the format for the rest of the night hasn't been decided yet. Invitations will go out within a week.
