Ticket Pricing Model for the Winnipeg Jets
Student Capstone Project
True North Sports and Entertainment (TNSE) is a Winnipeg-based company that owns the Winnipeg Jets and the Manitoba Moose, among other ventures. The Winnipeg Jets are a Canadian NHL team with a lot of history. Having been founded in 1979, the team experienced successes before unfortunately leaving the city in 1996. In 2011, the Jets returned to Winnipeg and season tickets sold out quickly. In an evolving fan market, True North must remain adaptive to changing consumer behaviours to maintain fan avidity, maximize attendance and optimize revenue.
TNSE worked with a group of UBC Master of Data Science Okanagan students to create a ticket pricing model from scratch using Jets ticket sales data from the past decade. This included many different factors, such as the day of the week, the opponent, and the date, to name a few. The final deliverable needed to provide a recommended price for each ticket in the arena for each home game of the season.
The students had to clean the data and generate insights before building the model. After the data was prepared and grouped, the students generated a new variable representing the proportion demanded of a seating section and row combination. This variable was then used to predict the demand for an arena section for the given criteria of game date, day of week, opponent, and time.
Several machine learning models were fitted and evaluated to predict demand for each game, given the criteria and seating information. An optimal model was chosen, which was then used to test different price values. Once demand was multiplied by price, it generated revenue for each game.
Then the model was adjusted to maximize demand for the lower bowl seats, ensure the arena was as full as possible, and maximize overall revenue. Finally, this model produced a table containing the optimal prices for each ticket in the arena for each game of the season.
With the upcoming 2023-24 hockey season schedule released, the students will be cheering for the Jets as they look to compete for the Stanley Cup and maximize fan attendance and revenue using the model.