It didn’t take long for the Sixers to realize last year that their “Guys Night Out” promotion had developed some traction.

“It was crazy,” said Eric Blankenship, VP for marketing, earlier today. “I remember the first ‘Guys Night Out’ we had 50, maybe 75 people. Then we had 100, then 200, then 400, and by the end,t he last two or three, we were doing like 700 or 800. It was incredible. We do a lot of different ticket packages, but we’ve never seen grow exponentially grow like that. So obviously it made our decision easy on whether we wanted to do it again this year.”

They didn’t only duplicate the idea, they doubled many aspects of it, tapping into the interest to work on building an average attendance that has been sluggish to grow so far this season. Through 11 home dates, the Sixers are averaging 13,780, tied for 26^th in the 30-team NBA.

The package includes four seats, four hot dogs, four beers or sodeas, four $10 Dave and Buster Power Cards, access for four to the new Philadelphia Park Sports Bar, four Sixers Dancers swimsuit calendars, and a meet-and-greet with the dancers in one of the concourses at halftime.       

Blankenship said this year’s program more than doubles the available dates (7 to 15), doubles the package options (fans can now pick from seats in the upper or lower levels) and upgrades the dance team posters to the swimsuit calendars that were produced for the first time this year.

“That actually has been a nice little piece to this,” Blankenship said. “You know what? I’m biased, but in all honesty this one is pretty good considering it’s our first one. We put a lot of effort into it, and it has taken off. It has really been crazy.”

The lower-level seats cost $175 and are located behind the basket; the upper-level package costs $125 and put fans in one of the corners. “So we have two price points now,” Blankenship said.

This isn’t a promotion unique to the NBA, but Blankenship said they were one of the first teams to try it. Detroit, Houston and Indiana are among a couple of the other franchises that have added this promotion to their schedule. Last season the Sixers unveiled the promotion in February and ran it only on Wednesday night games through the remainder of the season. In order to incorporate more games this year they selected a few other nights besides Wednesdays; for instance, Blankenship said around 300 bought in for Saturday night’s game against the Nets.  

So now that this promotion is established, how long before the team decides to appeal to the other gender and begins a “Ladies Night Out.” Soon. Very soon, certainly by February 2009. “We’re working through the details,” Blankenship said, but a ‘Ladies Night Out’ is not far from happening.”

One number that caught my eye today was the number of tickets available for the Flyers game against the Islanders tomorrow night at the Wachovia Center.

Approximately 2,000 tickets remain for the 7 o'clock game, a number you would never have seen a few years ago and one that's ever higher than usual this season. Generally about a 1,000 or fewer tickets have still been available for purchase for many of the other team's dates this season.

According to ESPN, the Flyers rank fourth in attendance, averaging 19,324 through 13 home dates. That average stands only behind chicago (21,471), Montreal (21,273) and Detroit (19,704).

Evidence of these economic times? Probably, along with the fact it's a Tuesday game against an opponent that doesn't move the meter like others in the league.

Thursday's Dollar Dog Night promotion for the evening game against Carolina should help stir interest for another non-weekend date.

The Flyers finished fourth in attendance last season, averaging 19,556.

Gene Serba has been a Flyers season-ticketholder since 1978. “Remember the year that they were losing all those games?” he asked. Then he laughed. “Me and a guy in front of me, we were figuring out what we spent. Just doing an estimate. My first tickets were $6.50, and obviously now they’re $58. I think that tells something about our economy, I think, more than anything else.”

Make that kind of an investment and you wouldn’t mind having a voice in how you’re entertained. That’s why Serba, of Mt. Laurel, N.J., was one of a couple dozen ticketholders who jumped at the invitation this fall to join a Flyers’ fan advisory panel. It’s not new in this city. The Soul, for instance, formed one last season, and the Sixers said yesterday they are planning to unveil one by next month. “This council will not only give them access to management, we will get valuable input from them,” Lara Price, the Senior VP of Business Operations, wrote in an e-mail earlier today.

Gathering ticketholders is something the Flyers already do, in what they call a “town meeting” setting. Serba says it’s part of the reason he calls the team the most fan-friendly of the pro teams in town. He recalled the “town meeting” from March of that miserable 2006-07 season. “They have these town meetings every March; they’re very up front. ‘You know, here’s what we were thinking.’ Even the year they had the worst record. ‘All right, here’s what we thought. We were wrong. It happens.' Obviously you don’t want every year to be wrong, but they were very up front. ‘Here’s what we’re planning on, we have a lot of guys in the system. We think we can turn it around,’ and they were right. I just thought the honesty, the brutal honesty, was refreshing.”

Those give ticketholders a chance to direct questions at not only the marketing folks but also the upper management and coach, allowing the conversation to cover issues about the team and its personnel. The advisory panel takes the interaction a step further, giving more opportunity to suggest ideas that improve the experience at the Wachovia Center. This panel features a cross section of fans: young and old, male and female, original ticketholders and new members of the “family.”

Panelist David Seltzer, of Mt. Laurel, N.J., said they’ve had one get-together so far. “The first meeting, it was actually at one of these marketing research places,” he said the other day. “And they just sat us around a table; and they had a set list of questions and they just asked us different things, and we just went around the room and we just basically went around the room and everybody gave their thoughts to each of the questions. They asked us what could be improved, what we would like to see changed, what our best memories were of growing up with the Flyers, things like that. So you got to talk a little bit and answer questions, and it was nice. And you know what, I learned a lot, too, listening to other people, their ideas. There were things that made sense. Supposedly they’ve already implemented some of the things that were brought up.”

They got dinner with that meeting; they’re expecting lunch and a Flyers jersey for the next meeting, right before the afternoon game against the Penguins on Dec. 13. So they've received a few perks for the time they've given up. All told, they’ll probably meet five or six times total, the remainder of the meetings to take place at the Center.

Serba said he just wants to represent the guy who’s sitting in the stands. “One of the things I wanted to make sure is, ‘Hey, here’s my opinion, and I’m not always saying that my opinion is going to be what the majority says, but I wanted to make sure that some loud voices didn’t necessarily portray [how most of the fans feel].'”

They kicked around a number of issues, including the volume of the horn after the Flyers score and the overall noise level in the building during a game. While Serba had no problem with those, he said that one of his pet peeves is all the games put up on the scoreboard during stoppages. “I don’t think they need to do that at every game,” he said. “If you want to do it on the afternoon games where there are  a lot of kids, then, yeah, I agree. But I don’t think at every stoppage you need some guy telling me, find where the puck is.”

Talked to separately, Seltzer touched on the same complaint.

“Somebody said that the music is just constant, whether it announcements or music, as soon as there’s a break in the action, you have more entertainment,” he said. “
be the music or just announcements,  soon as there’s a break in the action, you have more entertainment. It’s like, give us a little bit of a break sometimes. Maybe you want to talk to somebody next to you. But then it’s the advertising and they’re making their money and, so, I get that part. But they [the panelists who complained] are right. It could be a little less of a barrage of entertainment sometimes.”

Among other topics has been the scheduling of promotions that recognize a former player, such as Eric Desjardins Night, which don’t generally get added to the schedule until the season starts. Serba related the conversation. “Like one woman said, ‘Well, I had already sold that game and I would have loved to have gone to that, or what have you.’ So the feedback to Flyers special promotions is, ‘Hey, we understand, you can’t schedule a lot of this back in August and September, but try to give more notice to season ticketholders.’”

Parking has come up, as has the release of the “day-of the game facts” that get faxed to season-ticketholders, Serba said. “My comment was, gee, a lot of times I’m getting out at 5 o’clock, I’ve already left. So I’m reading it the next day.” Since they brought up that topic, he said, the facts have gone out earlier in the day. “I think it’s been a two-way conversation,” he summarized. “I think they heard some things that people didn’t like and they’ve tried to improve on them.”

With the economy taking a bigger bite out of everyone’s wallet, you gotta figure the Dollar Dog promotion will increase in popularity.

The Phillies ran seven of those during the 2008 campaign, all of which were hugely popular. And the Flyers are following suit, running a similar promotion for the third straight season. The next one is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 11, at the Center when Carolina comes to town. Hot dogs are $1 apiece, and there are no limits to how many fans can buy.

Shawn Tilger, Flyers Senior VP of Business Operations, said the team ran one last November and 18,912 hot dogs were consumed by many of the 19,312 in attendance. “It’s one of our most popular promotion,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We are looking at dates for our next Dollar Dog Night, most likely in February or March.”

Meanwhile, all three teams – the Flyers, Sixers and Phantoms -- are asking their fans to bring a new, unopened toy with them to the Center during a selected game night to help those less fortunate this holiday season. The Comcast-Spectacor Foundation, the charitable arm of the three teams, is directing the initiative.

“In the spirit of the holidays we are asking our fans to help us help those less fortunate,” Comcast-Spectacor President Peter Luukko said in a release. “We’re hoping to collect more than 15,000 toys which will truly help put smiles on the faces of thousands of young people throughout the Greater Philadelphia Region this holiday season.”

That begins with tonight’s Flyers game vs. the Devils and Saturday’s Sixers game vs. the Nets.

The Phantoms are asking their fans to bring toys with them games against the Lowell Devils on Friday, Dec. 19, or against the Norfolk Admirals on Saturday, Dec. 20. Both games will be played at the Wachovia Spectrum.

Fans who bring toys to support any of the three toy drives will receive the following offers: $25 tickets to select Flyers games, $10 tickets for select 76ers games, buy one get one free to select Phantoms and Wings games, and a 10 percent off discount at the Fan Gear store.

Officially putting a spade into the dirt at the site of the $115 million pro soccer stadium on Monday in Chester begins a new phase for a team that is scheduled to begin play in Major League Soccer in 2010.

Thomas Veit of MLSPhilly2010 said yesterday that fans should know before the end of the month how much tickets will cost, then a name-the-team contest will follow early in the new year. By spring, this franchise should have a name and what amounts to a logo and colors.

Veit said they’ve been reviewing the prices of MLS teams across the league as they land on a range of prices that appeals to all sectors of the base that they hope to attract.

“We want to make sure that everybody has an ability to come, regardless or price, and we want to make sure that people who want the amenities [can get them,]” he said. “There was a tradition for a long time in Philadelphia of guys that could be the trash hauler sitting next to the CEO, and so one of the things we worked really hard on in ticket pricing is that we’re going to have suites and we’re going to have club seats and other stuff that people want to spend money on, but we don’t want to isolate the common out fan, too. So we’ve been stacking our areas where, ‘hey, there are VIP areas and that’s great, but just because you’re not going to buy a club seat doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have an opportunity to sit on the sidelines right on the middle of the field in the front row, because we can do that somewhere else in the middle part of the stadium.

“So we’ve been working real hard on providing a broad range to allow everybody, to have the people who want to spend the money and have the big, padded seat and can go to the club. And the guy that wants to still sit in a great seat, but doesn’t really worry bout wanting to go to a club but would rather go for a hot dog with his kids . . . then that Philly tradition of having a diverse group of people all sitting together is something we really worked hard on. I think we’ve gotten there and we’re in the final stretches of having those prices finalized where people [know what they’ll be paying.]”

The franchise says that about 6,000 people have made deposits for tickets, which to this point have yet to be quantified. “The amazing ting about those seat deposits,” Veit said, “is that they did it without knowing what the price of the tickets would be. So I would say that the pricing of the tickets and the scale of where they’re going to be and how much they’re going to cost in the sections is probably the next thing you’re going to see come out, and you’re probably see that before the end of the year, and after that will be the logos and names and the colors and things like that.”

As a way to compare, tickets to see D.C. United range in cost from $1400 to $200 for a full season on action, which includes 15 league games and five international games. That team also offers half-season and flex plans (eight vouchers). The range is similar for the New York Range Bulls, with a 20-game package going from almost $1100 down to $272.

Meanwhile, officials continue to whittle down potential names. It hasn’t been easy, Veit said, “Every name in the known universe is being used by someone, somehow, somewhere,” he said. “Frankly, we started with over 135 names, and we’ve been vetting them out between what ownership liked and other people we’ve talked to.” The ultimate goal is to get it down to four possible names for the team that are not patented “or is close enough where we know we can get the trademarks and used them legally.”

The plan, Veit said, is to launch the naming contest sometime in January, where fans can vote online -- and possibly through a sponsor if those arrangements are completed – for one of the four names, or they can submit one of their own. Once the name is chosen, they’ll move on to how the jersey will look, including its colors, and what markings or badges will be included in the makeup of the uniform.

“In soccer, you have a couple different things,” he said. “First we’ll have a word mark and we’ll have a badge. The badge will get created later because the badge really isn’t specific to the name at times; if you look at a lot of the different teams it’s symbols and things more than that. But once we have the team name we’ll come up with the word mark look, the colors, and put that all together, and reveal that, and we’ll probably do that sometime early to mid first quarter.”

All the while the stadium should start to take shape down on the Chester waterfront, something that should be noticeable as folks drive by early in 2009.

“I would say sometime in the next few months,” he said. “You drive by now and you see a complete change in what it was. We have some before and after pictures and it’s amazing. There’s been a whole metamorphosis on the site land and I think you’ll start seeing stuff out of the ground pretty quick.”  

Not that you'll see this happen in Philly anytime soon. But out in San Francisco, where the Giants finished fourth in the National League West and 18 games under .500, fans next season will find the price of their ticket will vary significantly depending on demand. For instance, tickets for an April game against Milwaukee might pay half as much as they would for a weekend game with the Dodgers later in the year.

The walk-up sales price for up to about 2,000 seats could even go up or down on game day, an Associated Press story says. The change would be minimal, anywhere between 25 cents and $2.
   
According to the AP, team president Larry Baer calls it “dynamic pricing” and figures it might just become the way of the future for professional sports franchises. The Giants have partnered with a software company that will make it possible to quickly change the ticket prices based on the popularity of a given game — not to mention weather, a possible milestone or a player from a visiting team who brings extra interest.

“We’re going to experiment with this a little bit in a few sections of the park,” Baer said. “What this really is, is the
ticket business is changing dramatically and quickly. There’s a chance we might wake up 10 years from now and tickets will be priced according to demand, like the airlines.”

Baer said, for example, fans might spend $25 to see the Giants play host to a team like the Dodgers in August or perhaps even the popular Cubs in September, but might only charge $8 for the same seats in April when the Brewers come to the Bay Area. The Phillies make one visit to the Bay area, starting a four-game series on Thursday, July 30. It will continue through Sunday, Aug. 2.
   
The team says it will see how many fans come out next year before deciding whether to duplicate the varied-price approach in 2010. Attendance failed to reach 3 million for the first time in the nine-year history of the waterfront ballpark. Having a bad team and not having Barry Bonds shooting home runs into the bay both accounted for the drop-off.

“We’re talking hundreds of seats, not thousands of seats,” Baer said. “We’ll see how it works and how the fans like it. This would be a first. We have innovative people in our ticket office.”

Baer vowed after the 2008 season not to increase ticket prices, especially considering the economic challenges. He said for the most part the team’s prices will be flat for next year. Four or five categories will be stay the same, while two or three will go down and one section has gone up slightly.

For 2009 individual ticket sales, 50 percent of prices were reduced, 38 percent remained the same and 12 percent were increased. Of season tickets, 55 percent were either reduced or stayed the same and the other 45 percent had what Baer called “minor contractual increases.” One section is up $2, he said.

Still, AP reports, someone who shows up expecting to pay $10 to see a game could wind up spending a little bit more — or less. The Giants also have worked on promotions that drop the ticket price based on the number of strikeouts a starting pitcher records or even deals at the concession stands.

“In sports, entertainment and theater, some tickets are on demand,” Baer said. “This might be the way of the future.”

The only team in Philly having a chronic problem drawing fans are the Sixers. See something like this working for them? As far as the Phillies, their biggest challenge besides repeating will be topping the 2008 season's franchise-record attendance of 3.4 million.  
 

Some standing-room tickets still remain for the Army-Navy Game on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. The tickets, which are $45 each, can be bought at Philadelphia-area Ticketmaster outlets, online at http://www.ticketmaster.com, or by calling Ticketmaster at 215-336-2000. There is a limit of six tickets per purchase.

Activities will begin as early as 8:15 a.m. Saturday with the Fan Fest at the stadium. The March-ons will start at 9:30, and the game is scheduled to start at noon. It will be the 81st time the game has been played in Philadelphia.

There also will be extra service on Market-Frankford Line, putting train in motion every 5 to 8 minutes. That will begin from 69th Street Station at 6:21 a.m. and continue until 12:15 p.m. Extra trains will leave Frankford Transportation Center between 7:08 a.m. and 12:40 p.m. 

What has been for a while a flight under the radar is about to end. Philly's Major League Soccer team has scheduled a groundbreaking ceremony for 2:30 p.m. Monday at the site of the 18,500-seat soccer-specific stadium in Chester.

One thing about already having a fan club, in this case the Sons of Ben, is that the bleachers set up for the event likely will be full. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis to see franchise officials and MLS commissioner Don Garber turn the first chunks of dirt for the future pitch.

The team is scheduled to start play in 2010, but the Sons of Ben figure it’s never too soon to begin doing work in the community. To that end, the club is asking attendees to bring canned food for its second annual “Help Kick Hunger” drive, benefitting Chester’s Bernardine Center. MLS Philadelphia will match donations up to $500.

Reached on Wednesday, the CEO and Operating Partner of Keystone Sports & Entertainment, LLC, the ownership group for the MLS 2010 Philadelphia, said the franchise has managed to push ahead despite the sour economy. Nick Sakiewicz wrote in an e-mail that “we are over 6,000 season-ticket deposits and are about to announce our second major stadium sponsor next Monday. Been in the ground for about 8 weeks and very excited about the future. Looks like we’ll sell out the stadium the first year and we are very focused on building the best stadium we can and servicing our great fans.”

At some point over the next two months, they expect to build momentum by kicking off a naming campaign and releasing info on season-ticket prices, leading up to announcing the team’s name, logo and color scheme. Word about the coach, players and Daughters of Ben — there will be cheerleaders, won’t there? — come much later.

It's cold, Thanksgiving night and the Eagles are on the tube. 

So what better time to post a few of the Phillies ticket dates to circle on your calendar? Season-ticket packages have been on sale for the past several weeks. Six Game Packs will go on sale Dec. 10, sales for groups of 25 or more will go on sale Jan. 14, 2009, and individual game tickets become available a little more than a month later, on Feb. 19.

A chance to register online for the home opener and next year's series against the Red Sox will be announced at a later time.

For anyone planning to head to Florida for any of the Grapefruit League games, season tickets for spring training already are on sale. Three-game packs will become available Dec. 18 and tickets for individual games in Clearwater, Fla., will go on sale Jan. 8, 2009.