I don’t know what the heck happened that I have become the reasonable one…I’m just not bugged out about the new Mets ticket plans. I think the Times’ headline is snappy but a tad snarky in that it makes it sound like Dave from Flushing is standing on the 7 train passing out freebies.
Fans who sign up for one of these offers will get a bonus game thrown in. Dave Howard, the Mets’ executive vice president of business operations, said the extra tickets were an “added-value benefit” and that the flex packs were created “in response to feedback we have received from our fans through various research and outreach efforts over the past year.”
via As Attendance Falls, Mets Try Giving Tickets Away – NYTimes.com.
So now we’re going to bitch out the Mets for responding to feedback and giving some folks an extra ticket? Really?
Dave please stop trying to be fan friendly. It’s much easier to blog if you’re not 😉
Anyway like I said yesterday – if you are a wigged out 15 planner call and ask for an extra game and let’s see what happens.
“It is also another reminder, he said, that with the exception of the Yankees and the Red Sox, no team can expect to easily sell tickets anymore in the wake of the recession and rising ticket prices.”
THE AUTHOR SHOULD ACTUALLY DO SOME RESEARCH BEFORE WRITING. IT’S THE PHILLIES AND RED SOX THAT PLAY TO OVER 100 PER CENT CAPACITY, NOT THE YANKEES.
Jimmy,
The author was quoting someone. I’m not sure how you fault the author for someone else’s erroneous statement.
Might I suggest one fewer cups of coffee in the morning, and disabling your “Caps lock”
Im sure he just used the Yankees as an example that they don’t need plans in order to sell tickets, they sell out often enough, but you’re not going to sell 56,000 seats every night, especially at some of the prices they have.
Tom,
The Yankees sell an assortment of partial season ticket plans, just like everyone else. They also incorporate a variety of “Ticket Specials” to improve sales:
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ticketing/specials.jsp
Yankees attendance has actually reduced since moving to the new stadium, in both average game attendance & percentage of capacity, despite moving a small capacity park.
Seriously, don’t complain about the “free” tickets.
Besides, they’re hardly just handing out tickets. They’re selling x tickets for the price of x-1 tickets, and in the process guaranteeing the ability to get seats at face value for the handful of games that are most likely to sell out — or under face value if you think of it as a discount on a bundle of tickets rather than simply face value for all but one, plus a free ticket…
The free game didn’t motivate me to buy a flex plan. Waiving the fees helped, but I probably would have bought a flex plan even if they didn’t.
The big deal was being able to buy a plan with as few as six games, and pick the games that I actually wanted. That’s what sold me.