Get the latest Boston sports news
Receive updates on your favorite Boston teams, straight from our newsroom to your inbox.
Is Agganis Arena the future for the Boston Fleet? Two upcoming games could help answer that question.
“It’s just us continuing to test and learn and understand where we fit in in each market, and ultimately what is best for the team.”
More in PWHL
Near the end of the second PWHL season, the Boston Fleet’s attendance is thousands below the standard set by the league’s Canadian teams — and there isn’t an obvious remedy.
The Fleet have the second-lowest average attendance in the league at their primary home venue, UMass Lowell’s Tsongas Center. While league executives aren’t worried about Boston’s lagging attendance, they have an eye on growth as the young league tries to find its footing in the North American professional sports landscape.
Two upcoming Fleet games at Boston University’s Agganis Arena are part of that effort to gather audience data and reach new fans — but they could also be a look into Boston’s future.
Advertisement:
“What people have to remember is that we’re in Year 2 of our existence, and every game that we play, regardless of venue, we learn something,” said PWHL executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
The Tsongas Center seats 6,500 for hockey games, while the Fleet have averaged 4,260 fans per game, nearly 2,000 below the league average of 6,062 in games played at teams’ primary home venues.
League and team officials said they have no plans to relocate the Fleet, and they aren’t viewing the games at Agganis as a tryout for a potential new primary venue. But both games at the 6,150-seat venue — Saturday vs. Montreal and March 26 vs. Toronto — are sold out, and if the games are successful, it could indicate to the league that it’s time for a change.
Advertisement:
“It’s just us continuing to test and learn and understand where we fit in in each market, and ultimately what is best for the team,” Scheer said. “We’ll play our two games there, see how they do, and then take our learnings back and continue to think about what future years look like.”
The Fleet practice in Wellesley and play in Lowell, about a 50-minute drive from downtown Boston that can stretch up to two hours in rush-hour traffic. Their weeknight attendance suffers as a result, averaging 3,956 on weeknights at Tsongas compared with 5,018 on Saturday and Sunday. Their lone sellout this season came on a Sunday, as 6,032 fans watched the Fleet beat Minnesota, 4-2, on Feb. 16.
Rather than banking on a caravan of Bostonians making the trek north for every home game, the Fleet hedged their bets on drawing from southern Maine, New Hampshire, and the North Shore.
The Boston area and South Shore, as a result, remain untapped fan markets, particularly in the case of fans who rely on the MBTA as their primary form of transportation, making the games at Agganis all the more appealing.
“They want to be part of this, and they want to be fans, and they want to see us in person,” said Fleet general manager Danielle Marmer.
Advertisement:
Struggling to draw Boston-area fans to the Tsongas Center is not unique to the Fleet.
The AHL’s Lowell Lock Monsters (later renamed the Lowell Devils), who played at the Tsongas Center in the late 1990s and early 2000s, had a similar problem. In Lowell’s final season with an AHL franchise in 2009-10, the team averaged 2,498 fans, fewest in the league. It was the fourth straight year that Lowell finished last in attendance. The franchise relocated to Albany, N.Y., the following season.
“Boston is sort of a double-edged sword,” Marmer said. “You want to be in a city where people care about sports and want to be in a sports city, so that’s what Boston has to offer. The other end of that is that it’s a saturated market. You’re competing with so many different professional teams for their attention.”
But the Fleet aren’t necessarily trying to attract the prototypical Boston sports fan to their games.
At the advent of the PWHL, Marmer expected the Fleet’s fan base to be dominated by Bruins fans. While there is some crossover, many fans are new to hockey and consider themselves fans of women’s sports first, while men’s sports are secondary.
Advertisement:
Walking around the Tsongas Center between periods, Marmer has spotted fans Googling the rules or overheard others explaining the game to their companions.
“It’s an incredibly diverse and inclusive fan base, which I think is something that’s really different from what you see in traditional men’s professional sports teams and their fans,” Marmer said.
It’s another reason why the games at Agganis make sense: A large chunk of the Fleet’s roster played college hockey in the Boston area, and current and former students are eager to support alumnae. Marmer likened it to how college football fans keep up with players from their alma mater once they’re in the NFL.
Jerseys bearing the names of Aerin Frankel (Northeastern), Alina Muller (Northeastern), and Megan Keller (Boston College) are some of the most popular among fans.
“That is what’s really helpful,” Marmer said. “We talk about what our fan base is going to look like and if we’re going to struggle to sell out and continue to gain fans. But hockey is not foreign in Boston. Women’s hockey is not foreign in Boston.”
That familiarity played into the PWHL’s selection of its original six markets, as all six (Boston, Minnesota, New York, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa) had a history of supporting women’s hockey.
Even so, the league is still trying to work out which venues work best in each market, leading to three teams — New York, Montreal, and Toronto — finding new primary home venues this offseason.
Advertisement:
Montreal and Toronto, having struggled to keep up with demand in Season 1, moved to bigger venues, and New York, which split time between three venues last season and recorded the lowest average attendance in the league, found a more permanent home at the Prudential Center in New Jersey. In their new venue, the Sirens have seen an uptick in attendance from last season but still post the lowest average in the league.
Four teams — Boston, Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto — added games at secondary venues in their home cities this season, and the league added a slate of nine Takeover Tour games at neutral sites in non-PWHL markets.
“We’re always in growth mode,” Scheer said. “How do we build our audience? How do we get more eyeballs on our product? Because the game is so good, and we do feel you need to see it in person to appreciate the skill level of our players.”
Asked whether keeping the Tsongas Center as the Fleet’s primary venue was the long-term plan, Scheer said at the end of the season the league will “evaluate all of our data and continue to talk internally about what we think is best for the Boston Fleet and the Boston fans.”
The Fleet’s season ticket sales tripled from Year 1 to Year 2, reaching 1,600 this season, and attendance is up across the league, which Scheer and Marmer said indicate the potential for continued audience growth even without a venue change.
Scheer and Marmer were clear that no matter what the future holds, the team and league have a great relationship with UMass Lowell, and they praised the quality of the arena and the staff’s professionalism.
Advertisement:
“When we started this, we didn’t know what we needed,” Marmer said. “What’s been great about the people at Tsongas is that they’ve adjusted with us and helped us evolve. They’ve been unbelievably supportive in helping us create what we need to create in order for this to exist and to be the professional experience we all want it to be.”
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com