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From canadakicks.com
MAKING OFF LIKE BANDITS
There was a time in Canadian soccer history when the visit of any European club team let alone one of the biggest club names in world soccer would have had people falling all over each other to get tickets at any price either financially or to their local side.
“We’re hosting ______________________ (insert any top division club name here) and we have to change our regularly scheduled league game and pay up to ten times as much as normal for a ticket to see a bunch of overpaid European players on vacation! Great! When can I buy my tickets?” This would have been the only question.
Times have changed though – perhaps the sign of a maturing market, perhaps just sign of the tightness of the economy or a combination of both – because people are complaining already about the impending August visit of said big name club to face local side Toronto FC.
A couple of things have raised people’s ire:
The quick rescheduling of a league match to two weeks from now in mid-June against the New York Red Bulls and the fact that the “friendly” will not be designated as the included friendly in season tickets packages.
The first one is unfortunate the second close to unforgivable from a fan’s point of view.
Face it about the only really horrible thing about facing the Red Bulls in two weeks is that you are facing the Red Bulls in two weeks. If you were looking to miss a game at some point this summer as a season’s ticket holder this one probably ranked right near the top of the list. Dallas ohh, San Jose jeez, New York ummm
Let’s see grab the sun block, buy a new swim suit, pack for trip to cottage and oh yeah see if I can convince the neighbours kids to take those tickets to the TFC game versus the always bad Red Bulls in early August…
You certainly weren’t going to waste time trying to sell them on Stubhub were you? I didn’t think so.
The second one is a bit harder to take as a fan. You’re a season ticket holder; one international friendly is included in your package, an international against one of the better known names in the sport is announced but SURPRISE according to the club “oops that’s not the game we meant”. @$$&*#$@#!!
Actually it’s really not that much of surprise. More surprising, then again, is the fact that MLSE didn’t handle things a little better – why not announce another international first – the one included in the package and then as a bonus here comes the original Real Salt Lake. People would still have been unhappy but at least there would have been less of a bandit like appearance to the purchase of tickets to the game.
It does not excuse MLSE for their handling of this but what people constantly seem to fail to realize is that this is a business – sometimes not a very well managed one but a business none the less. The main object of said business being to generate greater revenues than expenditures in any given year - you don’t do that by giving away the opportunity to realize your largest gate of the season.
In all likelihood season ticket holders will get first crack at the Real Madrid tickets allowing for a bit of give on both sides – fans get their tickets if they want to pay a higher price and MLSE gets their revenues which helps ensure the viability of the club into the future.
By the way anyone want tickets for the Red Bulls game? Anyone??...
Posted by Bill at 3:27 PM 0 comments
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Labels: MLS, MLSE, Real Madrid, Toronto FC
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MAKING OFF LIKE BANDITS
There was a time in Canadian soccer history when the visit of any European club team let alone one of the biggest club names in world soccer would have had people falling all over each other to get tickets at any price either financially or to their local side.
“We’re hosting ______________________ (insert any top division club name here) and we have to change our regularly scheduled league game and pay up to ten times as much as normal for a ticket to see a bunch of overpaid European players on vacation! Great! When can I buy my tickets?” This would have been the only question.
Times have changed though – perhaps the sign of a maturing market, perhaps just sign of the tightness of the economy or a combination of both – because people are complaining already about the impending August visit of said big name club to face local side Toronto FC.
A couple of things have raised people’s ire:
The quick rescheduling of a league match to two weeks from now in mid-June against the New York Red Bulls and the fact that the “friendly” will not be designated as the included friendly in season tickets packages.
The first one is unfortunate the second close to unforgivable from a fan’s point of view.
Face it about the only really horrible thing about facing the Red Bulls in two weeks is that you are facing the Red Bulls in two weeks. If you were looking to miss a game at some point this summer as a season’s ticket holder this one probably ranked right near the top of the list. Dallas ohh, San Jose jeez, New York ummm
Let’s see grab the sun block, buy a new swim suit, pack for trip to cottage and oh yeah see if I can convince the neighbours kids to take those tickets to the TFC game versus the always bad Red Bulls in early August…
You certainly weren’t going to waste time trying to sell them on Stubhub were you? I didn’t think so.
The second one is a bit harder to take as a fan. You’re a season ticket holder; one international friendly is included in your package, an international against one of the better known names in the sport is announced but SURPRISE according to the club “oops that’s not the game we meant”. @$$&*#$@#!!
Actually it’s really not that much of surprise. More surprising, then again, is the fact that MLSE didn’t handle things a little better – why not announce another international first – the one included in the package and then as a bonus here comes the original Real Salt Lake. People would still have been unhappy but at least there would have been less of a bandit like appearance to the purchase of tickets to the game.
It does not excuse MLSE for their handling of this but what people constantly seem to fail to realize is that this is a business – sometimes not a very well managed one but a business none the less. The main object of said business being to generate greater revenues than expenditures in any given year - you don’t do that by giving away the opportunity to realize your largest gate of the season.
In all likelihood season ticket holders will get first crack at the Real Madrid tickets allowing for a bit of give on both sides – fans get their tickets if they want to pay a higher price and MLSE gets their revenues which helps ensure the viability of the club into the future.
By the way anyone want tickets for the Red Bulls game? Anyone??...
Posted by Bill at 3:27 PM 0 comments
Links to this post Labels: MLS, MLSE, Real Madrid, Toronto FC
Older Posts