Soul Home Attendance Figure Increases

June 25, 2008 - Arena Football League (1987-2008) (AFL I)
Philadelphia Soul News Release


PHILADELPHIA (Wednesday, June 25) - With their ever-growing popularity and status as one of the best teams in the Arena Football League, the Philadelphia Soul continued to impress when it came to attendance figures during the 2008 regular season.

Having drawn a total of 131,817 fans during the 2008 regular season, the Soul managed to post their best home attendance figure since 134,815 guests walked through the gates in the team's inaugural 2004 campaign. The Soul sold out four of their eight home games in 2008, posting an average of 16,477 per game and filling either the Wachovia Center or Wachovia Spectrum to an average of 94 percent sold out capacity, which was up from the 93 percent sold out capacity the team averaged over its first four seasons.

"Our front office has put a lot of time and resources into making this team a success both on and off the field," general manager Rich Lisk said. "We have a very loyal fan base that cares very much about our product. We try to involve our fans as much as possible and the Soul's Strategic Advisory Board (SSAB) is just one example of how we include our fans in our decision making."

The SSAB is a select group of season ticket holders who are involved in grass roots efforts to help increase Soul ticket sales. The board meets on an average of once a month and has been involved in a number of Soul ticket selling efforts, including the very successful Fan Appreciation Night and Heroes Night. Both events took place during the Soul's regular-season home finale, which was a sellout of 16,637 at the Wachovia Spectrum this past Saturday night.

During the past three seasons, the Soul have steadily been among the AFL's top teams in total home attendance. Since 2006, when Lisk joined the team, the Soul have continued to increase the number of fans that come out to see their games. Attendance has steadily risen from 123,708 (2006) to 126,735 (2007) to 131,817 (2008), which is a 7 percent increase over that period. During those three seasons, the Soul have eight of the top-10 attendances in the league.

Since the Soul entered the AFL in 2004, the 646,043 fans that have walked through the gates are the most in the league over that time period.

"We still have a great deal to improve on," added Lisk, "but we are moving in the right direction."

To get an idea of where fans are coming from, the Soul took a random sampling of ticket purchases from this season to break it down. Over 40 percent (roughly 52,000 fans) of the total sampled are coming from South Jersey (Camden, Gloucester, Burlington Salem and Cumberland counties) and 55 percent (72,500) are coming from Pennsylvania. Breaking down the Keystone State numbers further, about 20 percent of that total is coming from the City of Philadelphia, while 50 percent is coming from Montgomery and Bucks counties and the remaining 30 percent from Delaware and Chester counties.

The remaining five percent sampled came from outside the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley area.

"This helps us understand where our fans are coming from and where we might need to concentrate some more efforts," said Lisk. "Additionally, we hope to use these numbers to encourage surrounding media outlets to generate more coverage of the team."

The Philadelphia Soul (13-3), YOUR Team...YOUnited, are off until the National Conference Divisional Round game on Saturday, July 5 at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast live in ESPN2 and ESPN2HD. The game can be heard live on 950 ESPN Radio and will stream live at www.950ESPN.com. For ticket information call 888-PHIL-AFL.

The Soul are celebrating their fifth anniversary this season. The team has drawn an AFL-best 646,043 fans combined during the first five seasons. Following last season, the Soul were recognized with the Commissioner's Award as the Organization of the Year and were an honorable mention for the PRISM Award in the category of fan appreciation. For more information call (888) PHIL-AFL or log on to www.philadelphiasoul.com.



Arena Football League (1987-2008) Stories from June 25, 2008


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