Saskatchewan Roughriders look to reverse season ticket decline

Article content

After three straight years of declining season ticket sales, the Saskatchewan Roughriders are hoping to change that trend in 2025.

Article content

Article content

When the Canadian Football League franchise first moved into new 33,000-seat Mosaic Stadium in 2017, it had a season ticket base of nearly 20,000.

However in 2024, the number of season tickets fell to 15,500, which marked the third consecutive season of a decrease in season ticket sales year-over-year, according to Roughriders president-CEO Craig Reynolds.

Article content

“It’s been three consecutive years of drops since the pandemic,” Reynolds told the Leader-Post in a sit-down interview this week. “Reversing the trend we’ve seen from a season ticket perspective is our biggest challenge and quite frankly is our biggest focus right now.

“We’ve got some work to do rebuilding our season ticket base.”

While team performance plays a role, Reynolds said affordability and personal financial situations were the biggest reasons for the decreases.

“Those that have left us, we ask them what the factors are,” said Reynolds. “And the major factors are economic.

“A lot of them sort of indicate, ‘My fandom hasn’t waned (but) I can’t commit to season tickets right now.’ ”

After previously lowering ticket prices on 9,000 seats in specific areas of the stadium, Reynolds said prices on another 3,000 seats have been lowered this year as the team tries to navigate the affordability issue.

“We’ve tried to be very strategic,” said Reynolds. “We’ve looked at areas of the stadium where we have assessed, based on demand and looking at it, where we just feel like that price point is not the right level of value.”

Article content

Article content

While inflation has affected the team when it comes to travel costs, game day production and food, Reynolds said the team has invested more money and resources into ticketing this year to try to rebuild that base.

“That personal touch in those relationships is so important,” said Reynolds. “We just want to make sure we’re having the right number and amount of touch points with our season ticket holders.

“Having conversations with our existing season ticket members around renewals and making sure that we’re having those conversations and then doing everything we possibly can to expand our base and sell new season tickets.”

While season ticket sales were down last year, attendance in 2024 remained similar to what the team saw in 2023. Last year, the Roughriders averaged 27,685 fans per home game which was a 0.1 per cent increase from the season prior.

“Despite the decline in the season ticket base last year, we were actually able to keep attendance largely flat,” said Reynolds. “It’s not where we want it to be, but we are selling.

“Last year we sold the most single game tickets we ever have.”

Article content

Reynolds said a reason for that has been the focus on family and youth.

While the club has seen a positive increase in sales with the introduction of family packs and various flex packs, the team also brought back 50 per-cent-off-youth-pricing after seeing a decline in youth season tickets in recent years.

Season tickets for adults start at $343 plus taxes while youth tickets can be found for $191, which includes one pre-season game, nine regular season games and one potential playoff game. The team also has family-of-four packs (two adults, two kids) for $981.

“We’re doing what we can,” said Reynolds. “There are some realities with the stadium, too.

“We have a $12 facility fee (per ticket), so when we look at that family pack, the price for the youth ticket within the family pack is $13.

“Well, $12 of that actually goes to the facility fee, so that’s a dollar that’s coming to us.

“That just speaks to affordability and to get younger fans in who hopefully grow up with an affinity for the brand and love of the team and love of the players, and eventually become a season ticket holder.

Article content

“I really believe that strategy is going to pay off in the long term, but it might take some time.”

Overall, nearly 40 per cent of the revenue for the community-owned franchise comes from ticket sales, which is why reversing that trend is so important.

And after a positive season on the field last year, which included the team hosting a playoff game for the first time since 2021, Reynolds said the outlook for 2025 is promising.

“Obviously you’re disappointed because the goal is to play in that Grey Cup and to win, but when you reflect back and you look at where you were a year ago and then where we are this year … you have to really think there was a lot of positive growth this year,” said Reynolds.

“We’re way ahead from a renewal perspective this year than we were last year. We’ve sold twice as many new season tickets this year than we did last year.

“We’ve been able to have some success with getting younger crowds, getting more families involved and single game tickets and group tickets. So, if we can rebuild our season ticket base, I think moving forward we’ll be in really, really good shape.”

Article content

tshire@postmedia.com

The Regina Leader-Post has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.

With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark leaderpost.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.

Article content