HC Fribourg-Gottéron introduces minimum attendance rule for season tickets

According to the Freiburger Nachrichten, the new requirement was added to the club’s updated General Terms and Conditions in July. A season ticket will only count as used if the holder enters the arena and scans the ticket, or if the ticket is officially transferred or sold through the club’s platforms.

Season-ticket holders who fail to meet the 18-game threshold could see their renewal rejected for the following season, although justified absences such as illness or force majeure may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

General manager John Gobbi says the main objective is to ensure that more seats are occupied, particularly given that the club’s home games have been sold out for the past three seasons and other fans are thus not able to get tickets. “There are still empty seats in the stadium, even in the playoffs,” Gobbi states. During the most recent regular season, the club recorded a no-show rate of around seven percent, equivalent to between 600 and 800 empty seats per game, while the playoff rate was still between two and three percent.

The club is therefore encouraging season-ticket holders who cannot attend to make their seats available to other fans through the official resale or transfer system. While minimum-use requirements are already used by several major European football clubs, the measure is a first in Swiss ice hockey.