I jotted down some notes from David Howard’s interview with Francesa. I am on packed mass transit typing with my left thumb so don’t consider this a transcript.
Overall I thought David was very good. The majority of the interview was about ticket sales.
– there were challenges renewing all the full season (packages) and plans.
– a combination of the economy and the way season unfolded last year
– If you take the current averge crowd it projects to 2.4 million as the Mets get into prime selling season.
– Mike said he heard from MLB on March 31st that the Mets had sold 1.3 million for the season. Howard said that didn’t include packs and says the Mets will draw at least 2.5. They have already exceeded 1.9
– “we’ll be sold out tonight.”
– they gave 100-150 tickets to long term season ticket holders who did not renew.
– Mike asked if people have a fair point being annoyed about paying full price and then finding out the person next to him was discounted. “It’s a fair comment” and the Mets have not been discounting because of last year’s complaints.
– Do tickets go on sale nightly? “Yes. At face value.”
– re stubhub: it is competition. The information (the Mets get from transactions) is important market data.
– “Any suggestion the Mets are dumping tickets on Stubhub is ridiculous.”. Unfounded. Ridiculous. Absolutely not.
– the Mets did not give tickets to the Yankees to sell.
– the Phillies advance series is doing well. The advance there “we’re in the low 30’s”. “What will happen is this one homestand will increase our average substantially.”
– Mike asked if “you” were taken aback by decrease. “Unfortunately we thought that might happen. We were hoping for better.”
– Jeff’s trip to Atlanta was effective. If you wait until the team gets home….there are too many distractions.
Well Dave, it comes down to one of two things. Either the Mets are dumping tickets on stubhub, or they are selling group tickets to brokers and telling the general public group tickets are not available to the premium games. I have personally inquired about group seating for these games and told it is not an option as they were not any group sales for those games.
Either way, it’s shady.