Hi Mr. DePaoli. Can I call you Lou? I’m going to call you Lou. Hi Lou.
I wanted to say hi.
You’re going to think that I am a major pain in the ass at first. I understand.
As time goes on you will come to see that my heart is in the right place and that I truly want what you want. I want all Mets fans to have an awesome time at Citi Field so that you can maximize your revenue.
I think a happy full stadium will get you your revenue in a way that the $63 Opening Day Tickets plan hasn’t. (We’ll talk.)
This was your ballpark last night.
Now look at that. Something is broken, right? This five year old stadium has an empty upper deck. This isn’t Pittsburgh. This is a franchise that can draw 4 million. It is not.
So here’s my first bit of advice.
Tomorrow, I want you to attend the July 4th game as a civilian. Nobody knows you yet so you can lay low. Just be Joe Mets Fan.
Drive to the stadium and arrive at say 12:30. See how it feels to park. Pay the $20.
Buy some tickets at the window.
Enter through the Rotunda. Bring a bag. See if security is nice to you.
Then sit out in the uppers somewhere, say in left field.
Buy a hot dog and a beer.
Try to move to a better seat late in the game if it is a blow out.
Then try to leave the stadium in your car.
Take notes. Experience it the way the paying customer will.
Then have a meeting Monday morning to review.
Nice to “meet” you and I’ll make the same offer I made Dave: I’d love to do a game together and we can use my seats. Off the record, just two baseball fans watching a game. I don’t want anything from you other than for you to succeed. My seats, pick a day.
Outstanding!
Great idea, Shannon. I hope you get a reply.
Hate to tell you but Citi Field only has 41,922 seats. If they sold every seat for every game (which no one does) maximum attendance would be 3.4 million. But that would be nice too.
Jay, don’t forget there is also a standing room only option…
It’s the Wilpon Way. Build a smaller stadium and live with decreased expectations and much higher ticket prices. Remember that Debits was built during the Madoff Exuberance, 18-20% ROI predicted.
Team still owned by Wilpons, who don’t give a crap what Mets’ fans think.
We have discussed the reasons ad nauseam by now.
Here’s what a concerned fan can do: don’t buy tickets from the mets, use stubhub or Craigslist or scalp at the stadium. Use up all those unused seats, and don’t give the wilponzies any of your $$. Taken train or park outside the stadium. Bring your own snacks. The wilponzies are $1 billion in debt, and can’t afford to lose $50 million every year. They’ll sell if they face losing SNY. starve ‘Em out à
Excellent idea and writing Shannon. I have written to the Mets that my wife and I dread entering Citi, but don’t dread airport security or Barclay’s security. We have been treated like perps, not customers. We are clean cut people in our mid 50’s. We wind up not going as much as we would like to because we dread the hassle.
I bought your book on my Kindle, but I am waiting until the winter to read it. It will make me think of Baseball and Spring on cold nights.