Mapfre Stadium, formerly known as CCS...

Discussion in 'Columbus Crew' started by Kayak, Mar 7, 2013.

  1. General Disarray

    General Disarray Legendary

    Jul 7, 2005
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    yeah I have my booklet, but didn't go through it :) that's why we have this lovely forum
     
  2. CybrSlydr

    CybrSlydr Member+

    Columbus Crew
    United States
    Jun 30, 2013
    Casper, WY
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You know, since they've switched to this Membership Card that they scan, there's no reason for all these rules.

    Why isn't it just that each full STH has a credit for 17 games and they're yours to use as you wish? Don't go to 3 games in a row? You can then scan it 4 times and bring 3 friends and still have enough left to finish out the season.

    We've literally already paid for the games - why can't we use them as we see fit?
     
  3. crewfan_in_columbus

    Feb 25, 2001
    Columbus is home
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    At a high level, I agree with you. And they may get there once they work through the first year.

    I think at an execution level, they're probably unsure on exactly HOW to do that. How PISSED would you be if you had six tickets left, showed up with five of your buddies, and couldn't get more than two seats together due to game day popularity? Or worse, completely sold out?

    Now, it's easy to say, "Well, duh..... make sure you get there early, and it's not a sold out game." and again, I agree with you at the macro level. But you know as well as I do, things like this are planned to accommodate the lowest common denominator (i.e. the stupidest people alive).

    From a FO standpoint, it's nice to have some sense of predictability on the game day crowd. Could you imagine if only 50% of the Season Ticket holders showed up for the 9/6 game against FC Dallas, but then showed up for 9/26 with not only their own seats but people to occupy their tickets from the 9/6 game? It would be a sth disaster on par or greater than the Season Ticket Holder Score Index.
     
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  4. CybrSlydr

    CybrSlydr Member+

    Columbus Crew
    United States
    Jun 30, 2013
    Casper, WY
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That's an excellent point. Never even occurred to me.

    I suppose the only way they could is say those other 5 guys you bring get SRO tickets or something. That would kinda defeat the purpose of bringing your 5 friends though. lol
     
  5. zman31

    zman31 Member+

    May 5, 1999
    Columbus, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The 2 business day limit for exchange enables them to sell those seats. I have tried in the past to exchange tickets for a game and been told there was nothing available in my section only to arrive to a ghost town on game day. The new cards and policy make the likelihood of finding similar seats better at the expense of a bit more responsibility on my part to take care of things early.
     
  6. kgilbert78

    kgilbert78 Member+

    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    United States
    Dec 28, 2006
    Cowlumbus, OH
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Personally, I do not like the new card system. It's only there to get rid of scalpers (so the team/TicketBa$ard can make more money doing the same thing).
     
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  7. Smithsoccer1721

    Smithsoccer1721 Member+

    Feb 16, 2007
    Middle of the Table
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Or for those who don't want to carry tickets around. My brothers on several occasions left their tickets at home. This way they put their card in their wallet and now it's not a problem. There is some convenience factor with just having a card. As someone said above about lowest common denominator (my brothers in this case) it can be helpful.
     
  8. POdinCowtown

    POdinCowtown Member+

    Jan 15, 2002
    Columbus
    But the ticket exchange policy used to be much more liberal than it is today. I used to buy an extra half season ticket. I usually went to games alone but would trade in 9 or 10 unused tickets late in the season and take my nephews and siblings to the zoo and crew. There were no blackout dates then either. If I waited til the last game of the year there were other people also making exchanges so sometimes we were split up. But it was certainly doable.

    I think the team's focus on selling individual games out and de-emphasizing season ticket sales is unwise. It's what leads to terrible playoff attendance and fan disenchantment. The 2015 Crew will be a much better team than the 2005 Crew but the customer service experience is much worse.
     
  9. mmradio13

    mmradio13 Member+

    Apr 13, 2008
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think this is pretty harsh. These ticket policies are more lenient than most professional sports organizations. There were too many ways to take advantage of the ticket policies in the past in terms of exchanging tickets for future games, and these latest steps will prevent that. Some people used those methods to innocently exchange tickets, but others took advantage of the system. This isn't about preventing people from innocently exchanging tickets, but rather preventing people from taking advantage of those flaws by instituting new policies that help the bottom line.
     
  10. svc641

    svc641 Member+

    Aug 19, 2014
    West Liberty
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    In the past, games against the Galaxy and other like those at the end of the season, were not available for exchange so giving a blank check for 17 games would not work if they wish to continue restricting certain games. It would also not work if they sold out a game and you came up to exchange one of your tickets 60 minutes before the sold out game, at which point you'll have people yelling they were guaranteed 17 games, etc.
     
  11. DAK77

    DAK77 Member+

    Nov 10, 2008
    Merion Village, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Because our playoff attendance and fan enchantment was thru the roof (when they build one) before last year :rolleyes:
     
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  12. porchlight

    porchlight Member+

    Jul 27, 2013
    Crawlumbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    I ran into the "nothing available in my section" almost all the time even when planning a couple weeks out. I usually start by asking to check empty seats near me that I see all the time. Of course I have never gotten them. Now the seats that I did get were not terrible but certainly not as good. Im thinking the Phantom empty seats have something to do with Elvis.
     
  13. porchlight

    porchlight Member+

    Jul 27, 2013
    Crawlumbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Fan enchantment..hmm..includes fairy dust, dragon repellent, and a twizzler.
     
  14. west ham sandwich

    Feb 26, 2007
    C-bus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think there were always blackout dates, though maybe not at first. But at the very least it went from a few games being blacked out as ticket exchange options to only having a few games as being able to exchange tickets for. Especially for half-season ticketholders. Which is the biggest reason my wife and I dropped our half-season plans. Having kids means, for us, not always knowing when we will be able to go. We need to be home, and not visiting family out of town, and we need baby sitting, and/or we need to be able to exchange ticket(s) to bring our kid(s). While I think requiring 2 days in advance is reasonable for that sort of thing, only having a few options is not.

    I do certainly remember exchanging tickets right up until game time in the past too, not being required to do so an hour ahead. It really is a pain. Hopefully my wife and i make it out to a decent number of games, the last time we didn't get a half-season pack, we ended up never making a game (and now we can't watch on TV either).
     
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  15. west ham sandwich

    Feb 26, 2007
    C-bus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    When word first came out about using season ticket cards, instead of tickets, there was discussion that ticket exchange could be done online. Assuming that is the case, the easy thing to do is to load up a ticket with credits* and let people go online and book so many seats and print out any extra tickets. Then the earlier they book their tickets the better seats they can get with the exchanges. The problem with this, is it would probably have to be done in conjuncture with TicketMaster, and who knows what kind of compensation ticketmaster would want.

    *To me it makes sense that you don't want to just load up credits for everyone, you want season ticket holders, so that people show up every game. So I don't have a big problem with a few black out dates for exchanges and with needing to exchange tickets/credits for games you'll miss a couple days in advance (assuming you can do it online).


    I mentioned part of this in the parking thread. I made a similar recommendation to our ticket rep, when he was asking if we were going to renew our half season plans. I told him that even though we get to pick our games with the half-season plan, I really don't know when I'll be out of town and when I'll have babysitting available or when I'll have other conflicts, until well past the date I have to chose my games. And because of that the 5 exchange dates they allowed me were not enough (especially since 2 of the 5 were the first and third game, i think), for me to make good use of my tickets. I then recommended that if they could do some sort of card with credits for 5-10 games, that I could then use as the season went on that I would probably do that. His reply was polite enough, but also seemed rather curt.
     
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  16. Kryptonite

    Kryptonite Fancy Title Here

    Apr 10, 1999
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Originally, (at least from what I remember), the exchange policy being you could exchange PAST tickets for about 4-5 pre-selected games. What happened in about 2000 was that people were stockpiling unused tickets for the last game of the season which was one of these games. Naturally, that game became SRO and even sold out.

    The next year, they introduced the "ultimate exchange policy" where you could exchange any ticket for any game. The exception was that you couldn't exchange the playoff game(s) FOR regular-season games. If the team did not make the playoffs, only the playoff ticket(s) were/was credited or refunded.

    When DC United signed Adu via the fixed draft, that was when they introduced their blackout policy of not being able to exchange for certain games.
     
  17. MLSinCleveland

    MLSinCleveland Member+

    Oct 12, 2006
    Cleveland, Ohio
    Club:
    Cleveland C. S.
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Except for the cause of my schedule uncertainty (waiting on baseball promotional schedules) being different, this sounds a lot like my reason for not considering partial plans.
     
  18. POdinCowtown

    POdinCowtown Member+

    Jan 15, 2002
    Columbus
    What was the abuse? The exchange policy was always depending on seats available.

    I remember when Freddy Adu signed I got a recorded call from Lamar offering $5 tickets for the DCU game. Back then instead of blacking out games with visiting stars, they promoted the hell out of them. One time with San Jose came to town they offered Landon Donovan bobbleheads!

    Differences in the customer experience between 2005 and 2015: The beer and food selection is better nowadays. But back then tickets were not only cheaper but there were youth rates. The exchange policy was much more liberal. Players were mostly available in the tent after games for autographs. The team played charity matches vs OSU (the Connor Senn match) and a visiting minor league team (the Keith Evans match).
     
  19. kgilbert78

    kgilbert78 Member+

    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    United States
    Dec 28, 2006
    Cowlumbus, OH
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And much of that change is due to the last CBA not mangament. I think it was dumb on the part of the players, as they were acting like they are NFL players when the sport still has a lot of growing to do--so that any appearance they could make was helping to promote the sport. I know that was the attitide of the original guys. Now? Not so much.

    As for the first part of it, that fact is that folks wanted a better caliber of play. That costs money--and that means higher ticket prices. We also ran afoul of the fact that the league thought our prices were too low. When the league started, our prices were half that of LA (and I know that for a fact, as I was at the Rose Bowl and saw the ticket booths with prices). As I recall the cheap seat was $30. Given that the league is single entity, all teams have to pull their weight. While an argument can be made that costs are lower and the market is different in Columbus, which should lead to a somewhat lower ticket price vis-a-vis LA, for example, we are unlikely to see $5 tickets again. For youth rate, I hear the problem was with adults trying to get in with youth tickets. It was hard to manage. The one thing I liked in the old days was the ticket coupon books they used to sell. You could buy 10 games at a discounted price, and then use them any time there were tickets available.
     
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  20. zman31

    zman31 Member+

    May 5, 1999
    Columbus, OH
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ok, I finally took the time to read all the fine print on the exchanges. If I am interpreting it correctly, when I know I'm going to miss a game and want to exchange that ticket, I must do so 2 business days before the game. I don't like that but can live with it and understand the reasoning. It enables them to have time to resell that seat. But, it also seems that when I do this I must select which game I want to exchange it for rather than being able to "bank it" and deciding later. Further, once exchanged they can't be re-exchanged. To exchange I must know both that I'm going to miss the game and when I need an extra ticket. One or the other seems ok, but both really limits usefulness.

    I was also under the impression that these new policies would make it easier to exchange for tickets in East Preferred as they would know what was available. But exchanged tickets will not be there, but in other less valuable sections.

    All tolled, if my interpretation is correct, I'm not happy. Really considering cancelling my 4th seat that is only half spoken for. I just don't see a way my group will get much value from it.
     
  21. kgilbert78

    kgilbert78 Member+

    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    United States
    Dec 28, 2006
    Cowlumbus, OH
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think part of the reason for this is the fact that the team *did* have sellouts last season, for the first time in quite some time. But we dropped from 4 to 2 sometime back ourselves, as we had trouble getting friends to go even if the tickets were free (we got a lot of "think of us next time").
     
  22. Psycho_Derek

    Psycho_Derek Member+

    Nov 18, 2005
    Hard to manage like youths buying alcohol is hard to manage?
     
  23. Psycho_Derek

    Psycho_Derek Member+

    Nov 18, 2005
    ok I get that but how do you define pulling their weight? You think that the Crew are being forced to up their ticket price artificially? What if the Crew lowered their price and their total gate money increased?
     
  24. kgilbert78

    kgilbert78 Member+

    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    United States
    Dec 28, 2006
    Cowlumbus, OH
    Club:
    Borussia Mönchengladbach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm not saying this is the *best* call by the league, mind you. But it's one I heard a couple of years back when I was closer to the goings on. And it's not exactly artificial, if you take into account single entity. This is kinda like Subway deciding that all their franchiees have to offer the $5 footlong.

    At this point, we had enough sellouts last season, such that dropping the price probably won't happen (I'd still like to see it for Open Cup games, but USSF prices those--not the Crew). This kind of thinking seemed to be confirmed by the way they were talking about parking at the Supporters Summit ("not lowering the value of the product" or some such meme was spoken). Others can confirn that.

    The similar case was Marge Schott with the Reds. In the National League, the visiting team gets a share of the gate, and the other teams did not like the fact that the Reds had such low prices (still do, in comparison, but not as big a percentage difference). It was part of the reason she got dumped as an owner by the league. Sure she was a bigmouth and said stuff that got her into hot water. But sports has a lot of those. Mess with the money--that's a different story.

    More challenging when you are trying to get 20K+ folks into the stadium with reasonable speed. It already gets slow, as is. And I've seen scalpers pull tricks with this (Clippers games--but the same idea). I expect they did a cost analysis where it wasn't worth the bother for the possible greater attendance (and I expect the they give nice discounts toyouth groups). I wonder if other teams in MLS still sell youth tickets. You never know, it might have been a league directive.
     
  25. mmradio13

    mmradio13 Member+

    Apr 13, 2008
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Youth tickets are nice to get families out to games and I think they're not a bad idea: but youth pricing doesn't really hold a place in the major league sports landscape. I can't buy youth tickets to see the Tribe or Browns or Buckeyes or Cavs. The idea is that nobody should walk up to the window and expect to get their 5 year old in to see a "major league" team for $5. It's great to get the whole family out to a game, but this is why many people leave the kids at home for most games during the season. It's pricey, but that's the business.

    I touched on the exchange policy earlier, but the way they are handling it now is much more professional and takes away opportunities for them to be taken advantage of.

    KGilbert mentioned the CBA, which is what the Connor Senn and Keith Evans matches and player availability boils down to. The players are still out and about doing promotional events all over town and they're certainly more accessible than other professional leagues. Nothing is stopping the players from going and getting drinks with friends: you'll see them pop up at bars for away games. They're regular people. Just most of them probably don't want to go drink with fans in a tent on a Saturday night after the game.
     

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