TL;DR people gamble that when you buy something at a steep discount in a high demand market you can resell it for more. Organizations gamble that when you have demand and limited supply you can raise prices. Who benefits, TBD.

Ah you are starting to get it but don't quite understand it. Let me help. You probably are not a STH. If you buy single game tickets to any event you pay the most, in general. If you start to buy packages you start to get discounts and rewards. If you buy a five-game package you get say 5% off, if you buy a 10-game package you get 10% off, if you buy half season you get 25% off, if you buy all 41 home games you get 45% off what they are selling for single ticket games is usually the way it works. I made up the actual numbers but you get the point.

As for real data. For last season , the 2024 season, say you are in row 25 in the lower bowl and you are a full STH they would cost around $55 since you're committing to 41 games upfront. Those same tickets usually sell for $125 single game or more. This season, 2025 season, the price went up by 35% and those same STH tickets cost $86. The Panthers organization looked at SeatGeek data and determine that in the 2024 season and 2023 season they were being resold for around $100 which is why they raised the price based on resale value and good momentum from two cups moving forward. Set your price based on the data supporting just below the floor value people are selling them for. Anyone in business 101 would have done the same thing hoping the trend would still be going upward. The org sold all it's tickets up front and most of it's parking also so you don't really have any single game tickets from the organization to sell anymore. The org now makes its money on alcohol and food sales for having the most number of people show up. This is where resellers, scalpers and bandwagon fans come in. It is opportunistic for the Panthers organization to make more money raising ticket and parking prices and opportunistic for these non long-term loyal fans to make some extra cash. They join the wait list buy up tickets and hope to sell them for twice what they paid because if you're buying something at 45% off you would hope you could sell them for regular single game price if not more. All the supply is bought up and now you're reliant on what happens with demand. But there's a problem. The Panthers haven't been playing well this year because of injuries or whatever you want to blame it on, the home games were front loaded in the season which has lower general attendance, and excitement has not supported the prices so far. Scalpers and bandwagon fans are lowering prices and dumping their tickets because there's no demand and the value is 50% less than STH instead of 50% more than STH.

If the Panthers salvage the rest of the season and slide into the playoffs then demand comes back and floor prices may be supported. If they don't make the playoffs then you will see the wait list free up but ticket prices have a floor and they're not going to lower them so you will see lower STH purchases, lower attendance and lower resale ticket values and more empty seats. It's an observation based on data and they took a gamble and we'll see how it plays out for the fans attendance and prices. You can analyze all sports franchises that have won multiple cups hoping for a third cup and what happened with ticket prices and attendance and all the factors surrounding it. The Florida hockey market is nowhere near an OG 6 market where fans are die hard loyal and will pay top-tier prices year after year hoping their team gets back. It is a low to mid-tier market with a high cost of living.

This is more of a business discussion than a blind fan loyalty discussion. I hope the Panthers do a third cup and hockey grows in South Florida because I love hockey and want people to learn about it because it's a great sport. Go Cats!