Yeah, in general, I hate ads like that. Yet, for some reason, I love this one. Can't put my finger on why that would be.
Per this article from the Columbus Business Journal less than 40% of the premium seats and 6 suites (out of 34) are still available for next season. No word on the rest of the stadium but there has been an 80%+ conversion rate of season ticket holders though. https://t.co/t88aBLiR9D
Not a ton of hard info, but it's nice to finally get something. This is such a weird situation. Normally, the club's focus would be on selling tickets for THIS season, still, as the playoffs approached. On the surface, saying they've exceeded their "goal of having 80% or more of current season ticket members convert their membership to the new stadium" doesn't get us to the kind of number we need in the new stadium. What does that translate to? 8.5-9K season tickets? The eventual goal will probably be around 15K. But, it's just early October. And the club has only talked to existing season ticket holders thus far. The club certainly sounds happy with the results so far. Ever the realist (some would say pessimist), to me this reads as the FO still having a lot of work to do. But that's to be expected at this stage.
I would think 20% of a teams current season ticket holders not buying season tickets for next year is not good! Since the season ticket money for this year is being refunded and can be used for next year. It is probably not a good sign If fans who have been season ticket holders for years are not buying tickets for next year already! Some may not want or able to pay the increased price for their current seats! Some may not be happy they are being priced out of seats they have held for years. Some may not be happy they will be sitting in less desirable seats and possibly paying as much or more than they had been paying for seats that they have previously bought! If current season ticket holders haven't bought their current seats for next year they probably are not going to. The real question is how many of these new,more expensive seats have been sold and how many new season ticket holders has the new stadium produced! If the Crew have acquired more new passionate fans at a higher price point than the old loyal fans who have been with the team since the beginning,then all this may be financially smart for them!
I'll only note that the article states that the club's goal was to translate at least 80% of 2020 season ticket holders into 2021 season ticket holders, and that the Crew have "already surpassed" that goal. So more than 80% have re-upped, fewer than 20% have said no. Also, amending my previous response, these percentages are about season ticket "members", not season ticket packages. So, again, my previous post, estimating 8.5-9K season ticket packages sold for '21 is likely to be off base. A single season ticket member might have multiple season tickets on one account. On the other hand, there are also partial season packages (and members) to account for. Anyway, the club seems happy, claims they're ahead of where they'd projected they'd be, and says virtual meeting to meet with fans and sell tickets have worked well. Time will tell. Damn, I just realized I'll be in Oregon next summer, from late June until July 11. Which means I'm likely to miss the first match or two in the new stadium.
I would add a caveat here: In business -pretty much ANY business - you plan on a year-to-year 10% customer bleed rate. It's axiomatic that every year a company needs to recruit new customers to equal 10% of their base just to stay even. It's an immutable fact. The reasons why you lose those 10% every year are as varied as the customers themselves. Any and every scenario you can think of. So we're down to explaining another 10%, and frankly, in 2020, with employment issues, economic uncertainty and concern about exposure to a very communicable virus, I would say 10% is less than what you might expect. And as it happens, I have a longtime personal friend who has been a Crew STM for decades who told the rep that until he's confident that games can safely be held he isn't risking his or his wife's health on Crew seats. And I'm willing to bet he's not the only one, aside from the aforementioned economic stuff: if I don't have my job any more, or I'm worried my job is going away, I ain't in the market for soccer tix. That said, I don't think there's much doubt that the reasons you posit are responsible for SOME of the attrition, but to say they represent the MAIN factors is, I think, entirely unsupportable. It's also axiomatic that you always lose customers when you raise prices. Everybody does. Always. And yet, companies raise their prices all the time and seem to survive anyway. Under the circumstances, I think Lyons is spot on: 80% is colossally strong.
Just spoke to a long time season ticket holder today. He'd held off on renewing for a variety of reasons. But he reached out to me today to ask where my seats were before his zoom meeting with his rep today (he could have had his meeting in the first wave due to being a member for 20 years). He pinged me back to say he got the seat 5 rows behind mine. I'm sure there are others like him that took the full refund of 2020 and arent' too bothered about the "perfect seat" in the new location like I was. I still have some fears about the team selling 15k season tickets or even 11k full season tickets and 4k partials that add up to 15k. This an unprecedented time and with all the uncertainty in the world folks are hesitant to part with cash. I don't envy the sales job ahead for the folks trying to sell Jimmy from Pataskala who has gone a couple games the last 3 years into a 2 season ticket holder for $1500.
Yeah, in the best of times this was going to be hard. Doubling the ticket cost and amount of premium seats and then having to double their amount of holders. (roughly) is no trivial matter. Throw in a global pandemic. Ugh. I am glad they've put out some positive numbers and that they're meeting the goals they set out. Frankly, I'm really surprised and very encouraged by that.
If the Crew have sold 60% of the premium seats and all but 6 suites is impressive! I stand corrected!
And now another tale of a dog that didn't bark. This morning's Columbus Dispatch has an article featured on the top of the front page, covering large parts of two pages of the sports section. It is an expose' of the large increase in the cost of season tickets to the Crew for the 2021 season, in the new stadium. To readers of the Dispatch, this is big, shocking news. It says nothing which hasn't been discussed, at length and in detail, in this thread for about the last two months. And, because it says nothing new, no one else here has even mentioned this article. This is yet another example of the gap between the level of insight about the team we can gain here, compared to what the general public has access to through commercial news sources. Rather like the way we expected the Crew to be saved when most Columbusites knew for a fact they were doomed, during the summer and early fall of 2018.
Over 1,000 upgrades from general seating to premium seating? That is a WIN. The most expensive seats in general are $1,400/seat. The least expensive premium seats are $2,850/seat (I think?). That's almost 1.5mil in extra revenue. Dang. That's impressive. By comparison, Mapfre's capacity is 19,968. Club seats for new season ticket members are $60/game. That's only 1.2mil. So people can bitch about the new stadium prices all they want. But this is why the team was saved. To generate revenue for the owners. And as much as I am thankful for Dr. Pete and Dee and company, I'll never forget that they're in it for the $$ first and foremost.
I perhaps didn't make it clear enough in my original post, but that $1,200,000 is if the ENTIRETY of Mapfre stadium was sold at the $60/seat/game West Club VIP prices.
I would argue that in fact its doubtful that the new owners expect to stuff their.pockets with ticket revenues. The goal, as in most major sports, is to use that I come to cover operations. Franchise appreciation is where the value is for them. Didnt we read not long ago that just since they bought it the market value of the team had gone up something like $150 million? If you're the Haslam and you just sold your gas stations for $8.5 billion, you're not hoping to pocket an extra million bucks a year from ticket sales. Dee and Jimmy wouldn't pluck a hair for a million bucks, and only an idiot would invest $600 million bucks to do it. You can get that kind of return buying granny bonds.
It's interesting that that article says it's not clear whether the $400M includes the Orlando stadium. Implying it's a huge amount either way. Well, maybe, but whether or not the stadium is part of the deal is one big-ass variable to sort of wave aside. Remind me never to ask this writer to help me negotiate the purchase of my next house. I have to assume that, yes, the stadium is part of the package.
I'm not so sure. The place opened in 2017 and cost $155 million to build. If the stadium is included in the price, that means the team was only valued at $250 million, which is well below the going price for an MLS team. Less than a year ago Charlotte paid something like $325 million to get in. I guess its possible, but $400mm seems kind of light.
add in the women’s team and the USL team too. While not a lot of $$, if they are included, then it makes $400 look even worse. Exploria is a depreciating asset, so let’s assume that’s $100 and let’s assume the other two teams are what? $5-10 combined? If they are all included, that values OCSC at $290? Seems sketchy to me.