Red Sox vs. Revs Season ticket issues

[mpruitt]

Howard Bryant, who's an excellent writer and has just further helped the Herald bury the Globe has done a couple of good pieces on the Red Sox's Smart Fan ticketing system. His stuff is not available online because of the Herald's new pay per view columnist policy, but i'll try to give you an idea of what he's saying.

The idea with the Smart Fan system was that season ticket holder would be able to post tickets that they're not using online where the average fan could then buy them, instead of both parties using a ticket broker or scalper. The idea would be to help stem the tide of ticket scalping, which honestly his a huge problem at Fenway. But honestly, it was more to help out the season ticket holders, who pay an astronomical ammount of money for season tickets. This is evident in that, in order to buy the unused single game season ticket online, you first have to pay a $50 registration fee, then you must pay a $7 transaction fee, and a $3 handling fee, even though you pick up the tickets at a kiosk as opposed to the will call window.

While this has little to do with the Revs, and the situations are obviously very different, as the Sox have 16,000 season ticket holders in a 34,000 seat stadium it goes to show that the Sox are in least part making a small attempt to give more back to their season ticket holders, as they view that 16k figure as being too small. From Bryant's most recent article, Mike Dee VP of Buisness Affairs for the team said, "The Red Sox sesaon ticket-holder hsa never been taken care of historically... They had always been entitled to a veyr short list of benefits. One thing we sat out to do was offer more benifit to our season ticket base."

Overall I think it's good that the Red Sox are doing this, although the cost of getting those tickets would make it prohibative for me to trying the system. I just thought that there are some interesting parallel issues between some of the things that have been discussed on here before and what Sox season ticket holders have dealt with. My point honestly isn't to say 'Jeez look very the Sox are concerned about the season ticket holders.' It's that you have a high level Red Sox exec saying that their season ticket holders historically have not gotten a lot in return, also from the article "Under the Yawkey dynasty (season ticket holders) recieved little appreciation or communication from the club other than a bill when the money came due."

This isn't to say that the Sox don't have an ability to do that becaus eof demand, or that the Krafts shouldn't be really trying to SELL season ticket packages, I just think it shows that it's not just the Evil Krafts who are shafting the Poor Revs season ticket holders. Your thoughts?

P.S. i'm sorry i don't have the full articles for this but really try to check it out in today's paper.

[ToMhIlL]

Quite some time ago, I used to have Red Sox season tickets. The package I had was for the weekend games, plus Opening Day and the 11:00 am Patriots Day game. Back in the days before inter league play, they'd play each of the 13 teams in a series at home, once during the week and once on the weekends, so we'd get 2 games with each team (there was a similar plan for only the weeknight games)

This was from 1988 to 1993 that I had these tickets, and the per-game ticket was $10 for a grandstand seat in section 13, and later went up to $12. The only "perk" we got was a Christmas ornament and guaranteed tickets (bleachers) to the 2 times in that span the Sox made the playoffs.

Scalping is definitely a problem at Fenway, but there is demand. Whenever I couldn't go, there were enough people I knew who always wanted to buy my tickets (at face value, of course). With the Revs, sometimes you can't even give away tickets to someone who will actually go.

I gave up on the Sox and baseball as a whole when they went on strike again in 1994, but it sure does seem that the new Sox owners are at least trying to do a few extra things to make more of a connection with their fan base, as opposed to only seeing them as another potential cash sow.

Tom

[rkupp]

Originally posted by maxim-1
While this has little to do with the Revs, and the situations are obviously very different, as the Sox have 16,000 season ticket holders in a 34,000 seat stadium it goes to show that the Sox are in least part making a small attempt to give more back to their season ticket holders, as they view that 16k figure as being too small.
That's what I thought when I first heard about the plan. Then I heard the Sox guy explain the details and it became clear that this is just a new frontier in profiteering - the Sox doing the scalping instead of the scalpers.

First, potential buyers have to pay the subscription fee ($50?) to even request tickets. Then they pay a %20 markup over the season-ticketholder's price (thanks season-ticketholder, we'll give you your ticket price back IFF we can resell it for %20 more!). And then, as though they aren't profiting enough already, they add a $5 handling charge to each, no not order, but TICKET.

[NikeBlues]

Originally posted by maxim-1
Howard Bryant, who's an excellent writer and has just further helped the Herald bury the Globe has done a couple of good pieces on the Red Sox's Smart Fan ticketing system.

The Herald will never bury the Globe! Globe has the best sports section in the country! Herald does have a few good writers, but its no where near the Globe with Bob Ryan and Dan Shaugnessy!

[mpruitt]

Originally posted by NikeBlues
The Herald will never bury the Globe! Globe has the best sports section in the country! Herald does have a few good writers, but its no where near the Globe with Bob Ryan and Dan Shaugnessy!

Oh i used to be a big Globe guy but you're dead wrong. Ryan is great but he writes so often it might as well be a cameo. Shaugnessy is a jackass, just a hatefull little man screaming for signifigance. I know the Globe sports page had a great reputation but their quality is way way down. The Herald has better reporting and more engaging columnists. But anyways... I remember that people were looking for or complainign about the lack of a ticket exchange program with the Revs? Wasn't that true?

[ToMhIlL]

Originally posted by maxim-1
I remember that people were looking for or complainign about the lack of a ticket exchange program with the Revs? Wasn't that true? No need to reinvent the wheel, just the same setup they have at the other teams. Of course, that wouldn't work for the Sox because there aren't enough empty seats to use as trade-in bait for someone who swapped a game they couldn't go to.

Tom

[mpruitt]

Originally posted by ToMhIlL
No need to reinvent the wheel, just the same setup they have at the other teams. Of course, that wouldn't work for the Sox because there aren't enough empty seats to use as trade-in bait for someone who swapped a game they couldn't go to.

Tom

I just was unsure as to exactly what it wanted, I thought that it was something like that, obviously these two situations are vastly different. Just seems to me that with Bruins season tickets going up, Red Sox season tickets the highest in baseball, and people generally not liking the Fleet Center for Celtics games, it doesn't seem that the Krafts are all that unique in terms of how they treat their fans. Maybe that's an institutional problem, and all that stuff's been discussed ad nauseum in the Revs fan thread, but anyways.

[ToMhIlL]

As a general rule, big time sports teams are not always fan-centric, figuring that if you, the consumer get pissed off and leave, there are 10 people in line behind you who will gladly snap up your season tickets. Recall the whole thing with the Pats "zero-tolerance" policy in revoking tickets if someone you sell your seats to misbehaves.

On the other hand, minor league sports have always been the ones to go the extra mile to get people to notice them and come out. Not all the promos are great, but in general, you have to give them credit for the effort and imagination to promote a team that "no one" cares about, often with a very limited budget to boot.

Despite what the name suggests, MLS is definitely in the second category of sports/entertainment oprions. Unfortunately, some of the people running things don't believe this and act as if they are in the first category. It's one thing to say that you aspire to be an equal to the local Big Four, but right now, the Revs have more in common with the Breakers, Cannons, Lowell Spinners & Lock Monsters, Brockton Rox, Norwich Navigators, Worcester Ice Cats and Manchester Monarchs than the Pats, Broons, Sox and Celts.

Tom