Single game tickets went on sale last Friday.
I stepped into the virtual waiting room, at 10 AM, and got to the order window at about 11:15 or so. I searched to find a game. Yes...just one game that I would purchase tickets this season for my family (3 tickets...since my 1 year old son will is free). Well, six days I decided I would choose from. I deliberately decided against anything in the upper deck since that is where I have mostly sat for the last 9 seasons. I got my tickets
I was able to find good seats to all six of the days that I potentially could buy tickets to. I picked the day with the cheapest tickets, and got some nice seats not too far from the field and a Sunday afternoon against Sean Marshall and the Reds.
When I was done with that order, I went back to the Cubs site to see how backed up the virtual waiting room was. To my surprise, there was no wait. None.
About that same time, Wayne Buckner from The Wrigley Blog posted a picture showing the ticket windows in front of Wrigley...and not a single person buying tickets.
Um...whoa.
So what's going on here?
Three possibilities...
The Cubs already sold a majority of the tickets in other sales...season tickets, 9 & 6 game packs and the Mastercard pre-sale.
Or...
People don't want to buy tickets.
Or...
The people expect to get tickets for much cheaper on the secondary market.
Here is the reason I believe the first explanation is probably false...
As of this evening, not a single game has sold out...none of the Boston games and not even opening day. If you want to go to opening day, you can go right now to the Cubs website and buy a ticket.
The game closest to selling out is the Saturday game against the Red Sox...and they have tickets available are, unbelievably, bleacher seats! Cubs-White Sox...there are tickets available for all three of those games too.
The truth is, the Cubs tried get people to buy these 6 and 9 games packages under the impression that this was best way of getting opening day or Red Sox tickets. Now those people bought tickets to all those other "crappy" games when they could have paid face value for those good games, and then gone to StubHub and paid only half or a quarter of the price for the crappy games in that package.
We could assume that the second reason is very much. The economy is still not very good, and despite what the Cubs say, ticket prices went up on the games that people are most available to go to (or willing to go to). They can make the ticket prices for all the games in April $2.50, they still aren't going to sell out those games with a team this crappy. So they made more crappy games cheaper and advertised that ticket prices were reduced. Big deal. I bought tickets for the right field corner against the Reds on a Sunday afternoon and still spent over $100 per ticket. Do you think I've shed many tears giving up my season tickets? I could buy tickets to every game this season on StubHub and via the Cubs website and probably pay 75% of what I would have paid for a full season package.
That brings me to the third point. Last season, a large number of games (probably close to 25 or 30), good seats were going for $5 or less on the secondary market. Why bother paying the Cubs full price when season ticket holders and ticket brokers were virtually giving tickets away.
There was a time I could make a profit on my season ticket package. I couldn't go to all the games living way up here in Wisconsin. But I could sell 1/2 my tickets, with a focus on some of the biggest games, and end up paying for my entire package and then some. I never intended to always do that...my hope was to be able to move back to Chicago at some point and then be able to go to all the games in my package. Nine years later, I still lived in Wisconsin, and I had a harder time giving away Cubs tickets than tickets from Chuck E. Cheese's.
The Cubs have made a lot of ticket brokers rich since 2003...but now those ticket brokers are in trouble. If the Cubs can't sell out the supposed biggest game of year, Saturday against the Red Sox, how are these guys going to make any money this year?
Another sign that people just don't want to buy these tickets? The season ticket waiting list. Realizing that I might need more than just the 2 seats I had with my season ticket package at some point in the future, I decided that I would put my name on the season ticket waiting list number of years back. Last year I was at the 68,000 spot on the list. This year I'm at 57,000. I was able to move up 11,000 spots in one year. There is no way that 11,000 people didn't renew this year. Not seats...people. I even doubt that 11,000 season tickets were not renewed this year either. What has happened is that probably upwards of a thousand or so people (including me) decided against renewing their season tickets this year and only 1 in 11 people on the waiting list actually chose to go ahead and purchase tickets this year resulting in 10,000 people forfeiting their spot in the queue.
Things will likely change if this team gets better...but that probably isn't going to happen for a few years. In the mean time, as the Cubs attempt to pay off the huge debt they have, and try to figure out how to pay for renovations to the ballpark, are beginning to suffer from a drop in revenue from ticket sales.
And ticket brokers are stuck with a huge supply and absolutely no demand.
This isn't surprising.
The economy sucks.
The prices suck.
The ballpark sucks.
And the teams sucks.
Showing posts with label tickets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tickets. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Dynamic Pricing has arrived
About a year and a half ago, I mentioned that a number of teams were beginning to institute a relatively new concept of "dynamic pricing". Simply put, dynamic pricing is a way for teams to eat into secondary ticket market sales to their advantage.
In Crain's Chicago Business yesterday, Danny Ecker wrote that the Cubs intend to implement dynamic pricing on the bleacher seats for the 2012 season. This likely will be extended to the rest of the seats at Wrigley at some later date.
What is dynamic pricing? It's a way for a team to alter the price of currently available tickets over time based on demand for those tickets. So let's say that you want tickets to the Cubs-Red Sox series, instead of having a flat price of say $75 a ticket, the price will go up (with a likely cap of say $150) based on how many tickets the Cubs still have available and how fast they sell. For a game against the Astros in the middle of April that would have had a flat price of $20, the Cubs could drop the price of that ticket to as low at $5 a seat in efforts to try to sell it and to compete with tickets that are available on sites such as StubHub.
At the high end, the Cubs will be able to make more money off of ticket that are in high demand, and at the low end, the Cubs will be able to sell cheap ticket adding to the overall gate receipts.
The Giants, Cardinals and White Sox all have used dynamic pricing over the last few years and many other teams are starting to pick up on this. It is a way of adding to the revenue stream (while taking away revenue from places like StubHub and ticket brokers). For the Cubs not to do this is a mistake, leaving added revenue on the table that other teams may be able to pick up on.
If I were a still season ticket holder, I'd be a bit upset with this development as it would make it more difficult for me to sell tickets to games I couldn't go to. In the past, owning season tickets, for me and many others, was a profit making opportunity. I was able to usually make back the money I paid for the tickets just by selling about 1/2 of my package during the year.
However, that wasn't the case over the last 2 seasons. The number of no-shows at Wrigley has skyrocketed due to a combination of performance and a bad economy, and people have been able to get tickets to some of the less desirable games for just a few dollars on StubHub while the Cubs end up with tickets unsold at $40 a piece. This will now make those unsold tickets competitive with the tickets available on StubHub.
MLB has partnered with a company called QCue to offer this service to any team that wants to use it.
If you want a more detailed description of dynamic pricing, see the post I made on the subject last year.
In Crain's Chicago Business yesterday, Danny Ecker wrote that the Cubs intend to implement dynamic pricing on the bleacher seats for the 2012 season. This likely will be extended to the rest of the seats at Wrigley at some later date.
What is dynamic pricing? It's a way for a team to alter the price of currently available tickets over time based on demand for those tickets. So let's say that you want tickets to the Cubs-Red Sox series, instead of having a flat price of say $75 a ticket, the price will go up (with a likely cap of say $150) based on how many tickets the Cubs still have available and how fast they sell. For a game against the Astros in the middle of April that would have had a flat price of $20, the Cubs could drop the price of that ticket to as low at $5 a seat in efforts to try to sell it and to compete with tickets that are available on sites such as StubHub.
At the high end, the Cubs will be able to make more money off of ticket that are in high demand, and at the low end, the Cubs will be able to sell cheap ticket adding to the overall gate receipts.
The Giants, Cardinals and White Sox all have used dynamic pricing over the last few years and many other teams are starting to pick up on this. It is a way of adding to the revenue stream (while taking away revenue from places like StubHub and ticket brokers). For the Cubs not to do this is a mistake, leaving added revenue on the table that other teams may be able to pick up on.
If I were a still season ticket holder, I'd be a bit upset with this development as it would make it more difficult for me to sell tickets to games I couldn't go to. In the past, owning season tickets, for me and many others, was a profit making opportunity. I was able to usually make back the money I paid for the tickets just by selling about 1/2 of my package during the year.
However, that wasn't the case over the last 2 seasons. The number of no-shows at Wrigley has skyrocketed due to a combination of performance and a bad economy, and people have been able to get tickets to some of the less desirable games for just a few dollars on StubHub while the Cubs end up with tickets unsold at $40 a piece. This will now make those unsold tickets competitive with the tickets available on StubHub.
MLB has partnered with a company called QCue to offer this service to any team that wants to use it.
If you want a more detailed description of dynamic pricing, see the post I made on the subject last year.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Happy "Single Game Tickets Day"
It's like a national holiday...
Cubs single game tickets officially go on sale today. Of course Cubs fans have had ample opportunity to buy tickets before today whether they were in a 13 game pack or a 6 game pack or single game tickets at a 20% premium....
Still, this is another milestone as we approach the beginning of the season. The next milestone? The first spring training game, which happens on Sunday.
Anyway, have a good day everyone...I hope you get tickets to all the games you want. This year I plan to sit on the sidelines. I've purchased tickets in previous seasons on this day, but not this year.
So while you're waiting in the virtual waiting room, here is a little entertainment...
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty.
Cubs single game tickets officially go on sale today. Of course Cubs fans have had ample opportunity to buy tickets before today whether they were in a 13 game pack or a 6 game pack or single game tickets at a 20% premium....
Still, this is another milestone as we approach the beginning of the season. The next milestone? The first spring training game, which happens on Sunday.
Anyway, have a good day everyone...I hope you get tickets to all the games you want. This year I plan to sit on the sidelines. I've purchased tickets in previous seasons on this day, but not this year.
So while you're waiting in the virtual waiting room, here is a little entertainment...
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Conway Twitty.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Dynamic Pricing...coming soon to Wrigley Field?
As a season ticket holder who lives considerably further away than the average STH, I watch very carefully how baseball, and more specifically the Cubs, handle the sales of their tickets as I tend to have an inventory that I try to sell every year. If I could, I’d go to almost every game I had tickets for, but living 3 hours away from the ballpark, I have to be somewhat selective in the games I choose to go to.
In years past I have had considerable success selling tickets to friends as well as on secondary market sites. Last year that changed. Ticket prices had risen so much that even people that I normally could rely on to buy tickets shied away. On top of that, the team played poorly and there was very little on the individual achievement end of things to draw anyone to the park as well. As a result, the Cubs didn’t sell out many games in the second half of the season and the secondary market dried up for people like me who were trying to sell tickets for games they couldn’t attend.
As many of you know, I was very torn this fall as to whether or not I would renew my season ticket package. In the end, as you know, I chose to renew this year. Many of you that are close to me probably thought this was the inevitable decision…but, believe it or not, I was really damn close to not doing it. I’ve had a number of debates with my wife, after the fact, as to whether or not I should have done it (she was probably the one that talked me into renewing). There are many days I have regretted it.
With a second child on the way in another month or so, I believe in this coming season, I’ll be able to go to a smaller percentage of the games for which I have tickets than I ever have before.
With all that in mind, I’m watching for whatever signals I can see as far as hard or easy it will be for me to sell the extra tickets I’ll have this year.
I’ve used sites like StubHub for a number of years, and in recent years, the Cubs (and Major League Baseball) have partnered up with StubHub to make selling tickets on that site even simpler. Unfortunately, as the no shows increased at Wrigley and the team dropped in the standings, StubHub became almost a ghost town as ticket prices for games plummeted 75% of list price or more for games. Even at that reduced rate, the likelihood that you could sell tickets at that price was probably only around 50% last year.
This is a risk I take as a Cubs Season Ticket hold who can’t attend every game. In previous years, this wasn’t a money losing deal for me. Last year I took a hit, obviously. It appears I’m setting myself up for a similar (if not worse) situation this year.
Now to get to the true reason for this post…
A new ticket pricing scheme has been experimented with by a few teams in baseball called Dynamic Pricing. The Giants are where the first time to fully implement this scheme last season with a couple other teams, including the White Sox, having tinkered with it. The Cardinals have also announced that they are going to implement it for the 2011 season.
Dynamic pricing is a variable ticket pricing scheme that adjusts the price of tickets continuously based on a wide number of variables including opponents and weather. An example of a similar technique that has been used for years is the pricing of airline tickets.
Now most of the teams that have talked about doing this are teams that, for the most part, don’t sell out a majority of their games. It’s a way to make the tickets for less popular games much more reasonable in cost.
But what does that do to season ticket holders that buy their tickets for a fix price before the season is even close to beginning? Well, both the Giants and Cardinals have reassured their season ticket holders that their implementation of the dynamic pricing plan will not result in those ticket holders having purchased their package for more than the sum result purchasing individual games via the dynamic pricing plan.
That is a bit easier for teams like the Cardinals and Giant to do as they, like most other major league teams, give price discounts to their season ticket holders. The Cubs don’t give a discount like this to their season ticket holders. Why? They don’t have to. For most teams, season tickets are often life-lines for ticket revenues for teams as they are guaranteed gate receipts and are not affected by team performance in the middle of the season as well as weather. Not offending season ticket holders is of the utmost importance to most other Major League teams. This isn’t exactly true for the Cubs.
A lot of people have expressed anxiety over this trend as it slowed expands in baseball. In the end, tickets for a number of games will become much more expensive and tickets for a number of games will become significantly cheaper. For baseball, it’s a way to try to milk out as much revenue as possible out of tickets sales on top of increasing attendance. (I’m looking forward to dynamic pricing of Bud Lite at the games as well…higher prices on sunny and hot afternoons and lower prices on cold evenings.)
But back to the Cubs, with the Ricketts family desperately trying to milk out every possible penny of revenue and their research into how to set ticket prices appropriately (with the continuous addition of new pricing tiers for tickets), you have to wonder if some sort of system like this will be implemented in the near future. For the Cubs, the reasons for implementing a system like this would be 2-fold…first to increase the sales of single game tickets, something the plummeted last season…and second to maximize value for high demand games like when the Cardinals come to town.
Unlike other teams who have implemented some form of dynamic pricing (White Sox, Cardinals, Giants), the Cubs have sold out all of their season tickets, which is something which will probably remain true through our lifetime. As I stated before, the Cubs season ticket holders do not receive a discount on their tickets (and haven’t for the last 8 years) unlike most other major league teams. With the possibility of PSL’s happening to pay for renovations to Wrigley (which the Ricketts family continues to deny, but you still have to wonder…) and a season ticket waiting list that was at 116,000, could the Cubs just stick it to the season ticket holders and still implement a Dynamic Pricing system? It would appear to me, with the continued manipulation of the pricing tiers, the next logical step would be to implement a dynamic pricing system. The question was posed on the fan survey the Cubs sent out 2 months ago, so we know they are considering it.
A new company called ScoreBig is looking to create a new centralized dynamic pricing system for tickets…and it may very well get teams from major sports league, not just baseball, to buy into their system. With its website now in beta testing, it is possible that it could become live before the end of the 2011 season and a number of baseball teams could look to use it in a limit fashion late next year to test out a dynamic pricing system similar to what the White Sox did late last year with a much larger rollout in 2012. No talk about this has been made public yet, but people interested in this should keep an eye on ScoreBig.com to see what progress is being made in this area and see if Major League Baseball would partner up with them.
MLB Advance Media has already partnered with a company Qcue which is a software company that provides solutions for dynamic pricing. This is the software that the Giants and the Cardinals are using and Major League Baseball has made the service available to all the teams. With Qcue has the means of determining the price and the possibility of using ScoreBig as a distribution network, the trend toward dynamic pricing appears to be picking up steam.
So, how could the Cubs implement a dynamic pricing system that would be fair to the season ticket holders? Or is the benefit of getting first dibs on playoff tickets (once every 5 years) worth the potential added price? One thing for sure, dynamic pricing will pretty much destroy the traditional secondary market for games which are not sold out.
In the end, with dynamic pricing as a possibility, it could affect my decision on renewing my tickets in future seasons. With a dynamic pricing system in place, I might find is more effective to just purchase individual game tickets in the future.
In years past I have had considerable success selling tickets to friends as well as on secondary market sites. Last year that changed. Ticket prices had risen so much that even people that I normally could rely on to buy tickets shied away. On top of that, the team played poorly and there was very little on the individual achievement end of things to draw anyone to the park as well. As a result, the Cubs didn’t sell out many games in the second half of the season and the secondary market dried up for people like me who were trying to sell tickets for games they couldn’t attend.
As many of you know, I was very torn this fall as to whether or not I would renew my season ticket package. In the end, as you know, I chose to renew this year. Many of you that are close to me probably thought this was the inevitable decision…but, believe it or not, I was really damn close to not doing it. I’ve had a number of debates with my wife, after the fact, as to whether or not I should have done it (she was probably the one that talked me into renewing). There are many days I have regretted it.
With a second child on the way in another month or so, I believe in this coming season, I’ll be able to go to a smaller percentage of the games for which I have tickets than I ever have before.
With all that in mind, I’m watching for whatever signals I can see as far as hard or easy it will be for me to sell the extra tickets I’ll have this year.
I’ve used sites like StubHub for a number of years, and in recent years, the Cubs (and Major League Baseball) have partnered up with StubHub to make selling tickets on that site even simpler. Unfortunately, as the no shows increased at Wrigley and the team dropped in the standings, StubHub became almost a ghost town as ticket prices for games plummeted 75% of list price or more for games. Even at that reduced rate, the likelihood that you could sell tickets at that price was probably only around 50% last year.
This is a risk I take as a Cubs Season Ticket hold who can’t attend every game. In previous years, this wasn’t a money losing deal for me. Last year I took a hit, obviously. It appears I’m setting myself up for a similar (if not worse) situation this year.
Now to get to the true reason for this post…
A new ticket pricing scheme has been experimented with by a few teams in baseball called Dynamic Pricing. The Giants are where the first time to fully implement this scheme last season with a couple other teams, including the White Sox, having tinkered with it. The Cardinals have also announced that they are going to implement it for the 2011 season.
Dynamic pricing is a variable ticket pricing scheme that adjusts the price of tickets continuously based on a wide number of variables including opponents and weather. An example of a similar technique that has been used for years is the pricing of airline tickets.
Now most of the teams that have talked about doing this are teams that, for the most part, don’t sell out a majority of their games. It’s a way to make the tickets for less popular games much more reasonable in cost.
But what does that do to season ticket holders that buy their tickets for a fix price before the season is even close to beginning? Well, both the Giants and Cardinals have reassured their season ticket holders that their implementation of the dynamic pricing plan will not result in those ticket holders having purchased their package for more than the sum result purchasing individual games via the dynamic pricing plan.
That is a bit easier for teams like the Cardinals and Giant to do as they, like most other major league teams, give price discounts to their season ticket holders. The Cubs don’t give a discount like this to their season ticket holders. Why? They don’t have to. For most teams, season tickets are often life-lines for ticket revenues for teams as they are guaranteed gate receipts and are not affected by team performance in the middle of the season as well as weather. Not offending season ticket holders is of the utmost importance to most other Major League teams. This isn’t exactly true for the Cubs.
A lot of people have expressed anxiety over this trend as it slowed expands in baseball. In the end, tickets for a number of games will become much more expensive and tickets for a number of games will become significantly cheaper. For baseball, it’s a way to try to milk out as much revenue as possible out of tickets sales on top of increasing attendance. (I’m looking forward to dynamic pricing of Bud Lite at the games as well…higher prices on sunny and hot afternoons and lower prices on cold evenings.)
But back to the Cubs, with the Ricketts family desperately trying to milk out every possible penny of revenue and their research into how to set ticket prices appropriately (with the continuous addition of new pricing tiers for tickets), you have to wonder if some sort of system like this will be implemented in the near future. For the Cubs, the reasons for implementing a system like this would be 2-fold…first to increase the sales of single game tickets, something the plummeted last season…and second to maximize value for high demand games like when the Cardinals come to town.
Unlike other teams who have implemented some form of dynamic pricing (White Sox, Cardinals, Giants), the Cubs have sold out all of their season tickets, which is something which will probably remain true through our lifetime. As I stated before, the Cubs season ticket holders do not receive a discount on their tickets (and haven’t for the last 8 years) unlike most other major league teams. With the possibility of PSL’s happening to pay for renovations to Wrigley (which the Ricketts family continues to deny, but you still have to wonder…) and a season ticket waiting list that was at 116,000, could the Cubs just stick it to the season ticket holders and still implement a Dynamic Pricing system? It would appear to me, with the continued manipulation of the pricing tiers, the next logical step would be to implement a dynamic pricing system. The question was posed on the fan survey the Cubs sent out 2 months ago, so we know they are considering it.
A new company called ScoreBig is looking to create a new centralized dynamic pricing system for tickets…and it may very well get teams from major sports league, not just baseball, to buy into their system. With its website now in beta testing, it is possible that it could become live before the end of the 2011 season and a number of baseball teams could look to use it in a limit fashion late next year to test out a dynamic pricing system similar to what the White Sox did late last year with a much larger rollout in 2012. No talk about this has been made public yet, but people interested in this should keep an eye on ScoreBig.com to see what progress is being made in this area and see if Major League Baseball would partner up with them.
MLB Advance Media has already partnered with a company Qcue which is a software company that provides solutions for dynamic pricing. This is the software that the Giants and the Cardinals are using and Major League Baseball has made the service available to all the teams. With Qcue has the means of determining the price and the possibility of using ScoreBig as a distribution network, the trend toward dynamic pricing appears to be picking up steam.
So, how could the Cubs implement a dynamic pricing system that would be fair to the season ticket holders? Or is the benefit of getting first dibs on playoff tickets (once every 5 years) worth the potential added price? One thing for sure, dynamic pricing will pretty much destroy the traditional secondary market for games which are not sold out.
In the end, with dynamic pricing as a possibility, it could affect my decision on renewing my tickets in future seasons. With a dynamic pricing system in place, I might find is more effective to just purchase individual game tickets in the future.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Ticket Prices, Payroll and Bob Brenly
It seems that a week doesn’t go by where we hear pointless comments from Tom Ricketts. So…we again hear yesterday that Ricketts is non committal when asked if the Cubs will lower ticket prices going into next season.
In fact, most of what he had to say indicates that more of the “price tinkering” we saw last year will likely occur this year as they try to squeeze more revenue out of ticket sales.
What we are doing is doing a really thorough study of what we’re charging for which sections, trying to really understand the value proposition that we’re offering people. I think we’ll do that study, and we’ll come up with a ticket-pricing strategy keeping in mind tough economy. And it’s ultimately our goal to get more fans in the park.
What does this mean? To me it indicates that areas of the ballpark that have a higher number of season ticket holders (00, 100 and 400 sections) will go up in price while the areas that usually have more single game ticket sales (200, 500 and bleacher sections) will likely have no price change, or slightly lower prices. I don’t know this for sure, but that is what my gut is telling me. The last part of that statement is very important. As I have said in the past, just selling the tickets isn’t enough. No shows are a huge problem for this team. There is a lot of money that is being lost in concessions, souvenirs, and even parking (the Cubs do have a number of lots of their own that they run). Getting people into the ballpark is important. Just that means that getting people to buy the single game tickets (the people more likely to show up as well) is important.
On to payroll…Ricketts did indicated that it is likely that payroll will be reduced next season. What does that mean? Well, unless something can be done with the contracts of players like Zambrano, Ramirez, Fukudome, or Soriano, the Cubs are not going to be able to add any significant players this offseason. It also means that the Cubs are going to try to be a lot younger next season. The three C’s (Colvin, Cashner and Castro) will all likely be guaranteed spots on the rosters going into next season, but then you then start to think about who else could make the team. Coleman (another ‘C’), Barney, Diamond all have a shot next season too. Then there is right field/1st base and you have to wonder if Micah Hoffpauir (who is out of options) might actually make the team next year.
Hoffpauir is an interesting case…he isn’t exactly young and he has had a number of opportunities to make a contribution over the last 4 years. Anyway, that is a discussion for another time.
And, as FrankS mentioned in the comments the other day, Bob Brenly has withdrawn his name from consideration for the manager job. Some people can say that it was because he didn’t want to manage such a messed up team, but I really don’t think this is the case. Brenly has his best opportunity since being fired by the D-Backs to become a manager again. The writing was on the wall in Chicago…he wasn’t going to get the job. Almost everyone agrees that when the Cubs would have interviewed Bob, it was more out of respect for the man than out of serious consideration for him. Removing himself from this process will now allow him to pursue a job somewhere else…and, honestly, I think the Brewers job would be a really good fit for him. I think the Brewers made a big mistake in selecting Ken Macha over him a couple years ago. Macha is very unlikely to return to Milwaukee after this season, so they just might try to remedy their mistake and hire Brenly this time. That being said, it won’t be an open and shut type of thing. The Brewers have been very high on Bob Melvin for a long time as well.
If Milwaukee isn’t the right spot, there won’t be a shortage of other openings available. Here is the current list I have made of the likely MLB manager openings this off-season:
Cubs
Marlins
Braves
Seattle
Mets
Cardinals
Milwaukee
White Sox
Blue Jays
Arizona
Two other possibilities exist as well as Dusty Baker might not return to the Reds after this season (though his choice for a new job was recently given to Don Mattingly in LA) and, as we all know, Joe Girardi might not return to the Yankees.
Other notes about that list…we don’t know what Tony LaRussa is actually thinking right now…so he might actually come back. Also, it is very possible that the Kenny Williams/Ozzie Guillen feud could be settled in some other way than Ozzie bolting the team. The “100% without a doubt” manager jobs are the Cubs, Marlins, Braves, Seattle, Arizona and Toronto.
Some final notes…I went to my final game on Saturday. I always feel a little sad going to my last game of the season. I take in a little more of what is going on around me. I notice things that I haven’t noticed all season. And, my yearly debate begins on whether or not I will re-up my tickets again next season.
Now as we come down to the last 7 games of the season, I start to reflect on what this season, in the large sense, meant and how it will affect things in the future. We’ll see all the “season summaries” and “year end awards” and all that BS, and I’ll do it to. But one thing is for sure, as interesting as last off-season was, this coming off season will likely have many more story lines.
In fact, most of what he had to say indicates that more of the “price tinkering” we saw last year will likely occur this year as they try to squeeze more revenue out of ticket sales.
What we are doing is doing a really thorough study of what we’re charging for which sections, trying to really understand the value proposition that we’re offering people. I think we’ll do that study, and we’ll come up with a ticket-pricing strategy keeping in mind tough economy. And it’s ultimately our goal to get more fans in the park.
What does this mean? To me it indicates that areas of the ballpark that have a higher number of season ticket holders (00, 100 and 400 sections) will go up in price while the areas that usually have more single game ticket sales (200, 500 and bleacher sections) will likely have no price change, or slightly lower prices. I don’t know this for sure, but that is what my gut is telling me. The last part of that statement is very important. As I have said in the past, just selling the tickets isn’t enough. No shows are a huge problem for this team. There is a lot of money that is being lost in concessions, souvenirs, and even parking (the Cubs do have a number of lots of their own that they run). Getting people into the ballpark is important. Just that means that getting people to buy the single game tickets (the people more likely to show up as well) is important.
On to payroll…Ricketts did indicated that it is likely that payroll will be reduced next season. What does that mean? Well, unless something can be done with the contracts of players like Zambrano, Ramirez, Fukudome, or Soriano, the Cubs are not going to be able to add any significant players this offseason. It also means that the Cubs are going to try to be a lot younger next season. The three C’s (Colvin, Cashner and Castro) will all likely be guaranteed spots on the rosters going into next season, but then you then start to think about who else could make the team. Coleman (another ‘C’), Barney, Diamond all have a shot next season too. Then there is right field/1st base and you have to wonder if Micah Hoffpauir (who is out of options) might actually make the team next year.
Hoffpauir is an interesting case…he isn’t exactly young and he has had a number of opportunities to make a contribution over the last 4 years. Anyway, that is a discussion for another time.
And, as FrankS mentioned in the comments the other day, Bob Brenly has withdrawn his name from consideration for the manager job. Some people can say that it was because he didn’t want to manage such a messed up team, but I really don’t think this is the case. Brenly has his best opportunity since being fired by the D-Backs to become a manager again. The writing was on the wall in Chicago…he wasn’t going to get the job. Almost everyone agrees that when the Cubs would have interviewed Bob, it was more out of respect for the man than out of serious consideration for him. Removing himself from this process will now allow him to pursue a job somewhere else…and, honestly, I think the Brewers job would be a really good fit for him. I think the Brewers made a big mistake in selecting Ken Macha over him a couple years ago. Macha is very unlikely to return to Milwaukee after this season, so they just might try to remedy their mistake and hire Brenly this time. That being said, it won’t be an open and shut type of thing. The Brewers have been very high on Bob Melvin for a long time as well.
If Milwaukee isn’t the right spot, there won’t be a shortage of other openings available. Here is the current list I have made of the likely MLB manager openings this off-season:
Cubs
Marlins
Braves
Seattle
Mets
Cardinals
Milwaukee
White Sox
Blue Jays
Arizona
Two other possibilities exist as well as Dusty Baker might not return to the Reds after this season (though his choice for a new job was recently given to Don Mattingly in LA) and, as we all know, Joe Girardi might not return to the Yankees.
Other notes about that list…we don’t know what Tony LaRussa is actually thinking right now…so he might actually come back. Also, it is very possible that the Kenny Williams/Ozzie Guillen feud could be settled in some other way than Ozzie bolting the team. The “100% without a doubt” manager jobs are the Cubs, Marlins, Braves, Seattle, Arizona and Toronto.
Some final notes…I went to my final game on Saturday. I always feel a little sad going to my last game of the season. I take in a little more of what is going on around me. I notice things that I haven’t noticed all season. And, my yearly debate begins on whether or not I will re-up my tickets again next season.
Now as we come down to the last 7 games of the season, I start to reflect on what this season, in the large sense, meant and how it will affect things in the future. We’ll see all the “season summaries” and “year end awards” and all that BS, and I’ll do it to. But one thing is for sure, as interesting as last off-season was, this coming off season will likely have many more story lines.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
How did this happen? More expensive than Yankees' tickets?
As reported by 300 other sites, the Cubs have the most expensive tickets prices in all of baseball this year.
I've posted here about the reality of the price increases this season.
But this reality is quite shocking.
And depressing.
Yes, the Cubs are charging more, on average, for a ticket than the Red Sox...and they are charging more than even the Yankees, who's fans rebelled last year after the eye popping price increases when they moved into their new stadium.
Look, we do know that Cubs have limitations as far as revenue streams...they have a nasty television contract that runs until the second coming. They have to fight every time they want to put up an advertisement of any sort. They have no video board. And they have an aging stadium that is going to require a massive renovation.
Demand is still relatively high for tickets, but there is a point were people will stop coming.
Maybe it is just the economy, maybe it was the price increases this year, but I personally have noticed a change in ticket buying behavior this year.
I usually put some of my sets of tickets up for sale on places like StubHub...I also have a number of family and friends that I sell tickets to every season.
The tickets I'm trying to sell haven't been selling. The people I usually can count on to buy tickets have started to balk at the price this year and have either taken a pass or reduced the number of games they want to go to.
And over at StubHub, all I've heard are crickets (and crickets tend to be able to get into the games for free, so they aren't going to buy any tickets).
Maybe things are different for other people...I do have a different ticket package this season, so there may be some adjustments I need to make in my thinking here.
But unchecked ticket increases can only go on for so long before the team starts to turn off people.
The average ticket price this season is supposedly $50 a seat. If you multiply that by 40,000 seats, and then figure there are 81 games, that 's well over $150 million in revenue a season for just selling tickets (minus taxes and all, then you come up with a slightly smaller total).
So what are we as fans supposed to do?
Look, refusing to go to games isn't going to work. People are going to go to games, for now. But this team is making a mistake if they think they can keep doing this, especially with the current product they are putting on the field. The stadium needs a renovation...and it is going to be paid for by private money, so not spending at the ballpark isn't an option (else we start bringing up the PSL's again...boo!). So we sit here and take it like (insert some politically incorrect term here).
If prices are going to be forced to stay this high, then I'm going to have to rekindle my childhood fantasy that the Cubs put a third deck on the ballpark as a way to satisfy demand. Why do the Cubs have higher ticket prices than the Yankees? They have 13,000 more seats to sell per game.
I don't know what to do about it...
But this is really sad. We are paying the highest price in baseball for our tickets and we don't have a bullpen to show for it.
I've posted here about the reality of the price increases this season.
But this reality is quite shocking.
And depressing.
Yes, the Cubs are charging more, on average, for a ticket than the Red Sox...and they are charging more than even the Yankees, who's fans rebelled last year after the eye popping price increases when they moved into their new stadium.
Look, we do know that Cubs have limitations as far as revenue streams...they have a nasty television contract that runs until the second coming. They have to fight every time they want to put up an advertisement of any sort. They have no video board. And they have an aging stadium that is going to require a massive renovation.
Demand is still relatively high for tickets, but there is a point were people will stop coming.
Maybe it is just the economy, maybe it was the price increases this year, but I personally have noticed a change in ticket buying behavior this year.
I usually put some of my sets of tickets up for sale on places like StubHub...I also have a number of family and friends that I sell tickets to every season.
The tickets I'm trying to sell haven't been selling. The people I usually can count on to buy tickets have started to balk at the price this year and have either taken a pass or reduced the number of games they want to go to.
And over at StubHub, all I've heard are crickets (and crickets tend to be able to get into the games for free, so they aren't going to buy any tickets).
Maybe things are different for other people...I do have a different ticket package this season, so there may be some adjustments I need to make in my thinking here.
But unchecked ticket increases can only go on for so long before the team starts to turn off people.
The average ticket price this season is supposedly $50 a seat. If you multiply that by 40,000 seats, and then figure there are 81 games, that 's well over $150 million in revenue a season for just selling tickets (minus taxes and all, then you come up with a slightly smaller total).
So what are we as fans supposed to do?
Look, refusing to go to games isn't going to work. People are going to go to games, for now. But this team is making a mistake if they think they can keep doing this, especially with the current product they are putting on the field. The stadium needs a renovation...and it is going to be paid for by private money, so not spending at the ballpark isn't an option (else we start bringing up the PSL's again...boo!). So we sit here and take it like (insert some politically incorrect term here).
If prices are going to be forced to stay this high, then I'm going to have to rekindle my childhood fantasy that the Cubs put a third deck on the ballpark as a way to satisfy demand. Why do the Cubs have higher ticket prices than the Yankees? They have 13,000 more seats to sell per game.
I don't know what to do about it...
But this is really sad. We are paying the highest price in baseball for our tickets and we don't have a bullpen to show for it.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Updated: Single game tickets go on sale today...again...but cheaper.
In just a few minutes, Cubs single game tickets will be going on sale online...
The sale already started at Wrigley this morning with the whole bracelet thingy.
Of course we did this whole online thing on Monday already.
It will be interesting to see how many tickets are actually still available today.
Like Monday, I will once again be monitoring the virtual waiting room and give updates as to availability of tickets.
Update:
There have been some changes to the online ticket purchasing process this season. You can't go into the virtual waiting room unless you actually select the game you want to buy tickets for. This hurts people who open up 50 browser windows on their computer because it limits your options once you get in.
First game to sell out: June 12th against the White Sox.
Update #2
Wait times in the VWR seem to be diminishing considerably right now. The big problem once you get in is that once you try to specify the number and type of tickets, you get stalled out waiting for the servers to free up in order to complete the transaction. It can take 5 to 10 minutes of resubmitting the order before you can proceed. Funny...I thought that was why they had the VWR...to prevent the servers from being overloaded. (This isn't a new problem. People saw this last year and on Monday as well.)
Update on the sold-out games:
Opening day, April 12th vs. the Brewers
May 29th and 30th vs. the Cards
June 11th, 12th and 13th vs. the Sox
June 19th vs. the Angels
July 17th vs. the Phillies
July 23rd, 24th and 25th vs. the Cards.
August 21st vs. the Braves
The sale already started at Wrigley this morning with the whole bracelet thingy.
Of course we did this whole online thing on Monday already.
It will be interesting to see how many tickets are actually still available today.
Like Monday, I will once again be monitoring the virtual waiting room and give updates as to availability of tickets.
Update:
There have been some changes to the online ticket purchasing process this season. You can't go into the virtual waiting room unless you actually select the game you want to buy tickets for. This hurts people who open up 50 browser windows on their computer because it limits your options once you get in.
First game to sell out: June 12th against the White Sox.
Update #2
Wait times in the VWR seem to be diminishing considerably right now. The big problem once you get in is that once you try to specify the number and type of tickets, you get stalled out waiting for the servers to free up in order to complete the transaction. It can take 5 to 10 minutes of resubmitting the order before you can proceed. Funny...I thought that was why they had the VWR...to prevent the servers from being overloaded. (This isn't a new problem. People saw this last year and on Monday as well.)
Update on the sold-out games:
Opening day, April 12th vs. the Brewers
May 29th and 30th vs. the Cards
June 11th, 12th and 13th vs. the Sox
June 19th vs. the Angels
July 17th vs. the Phillies
July 23rd, 24th and 25th vs. the Cards.
August 21st vs. the Braves
Monday, February 15, 2010
Updated: RED ALERT! Go get your Cubs tickets NOW!!!!
I have been doing investigation this morning into the Cubs Pre-sale sale.
This is what the press release has stated:
It remains to be seen if this is actually true.
Fears are running high that most tickets will be sold today leaving only a handful for Friday's general sale.
I don't intend to purchase any tickets today or Friday, as I already have more than I would ever know what to do with, but I am watching this closely.
If most all the tickets are sold today, it will be a big blow. I have argued that it is ok for the Cubs to charge more for a good number of their tickets as long as some cheap tickets remain available for lower income families to attend games.
If most tickets are sold today, that goes against that idea, and that would be bad.
Update:
Looked at the purchasing site...it does appear the Cubs are holding back entire areas of tickets for the pre-sale...
From what I can tell, the Terrace Reserve outfield seats are not generally available as are the Club Box infield seats.
With that said, I believe you can still get tickets in those sections in some cases, but you can't specify tickets there.
Also...plenty of tickets are still available for games like opening day. The only game that has been limited at this point is the June 12th game verses the Sox.
More info as it becomes available.
This is what the press release has stated:
"There will be a limited number of tickets made available to every regular season home game for the MasterCard First Chance Pre-Sale"
It remains to be seen if this is actually true.
Fears are running high that most tickets will be sold today leaving only a handful for Friday's general sale.
I don't intend to purchase any tickets today or Friday, as I already have more than I would ever know what to do with, but I am watching this closely.
If most all the tickets are sold today, it will be a big blow. I have argued that it is ok for the Cubs to charge more for a good number of their tickets as long as some cheap tickets remain available for lower income families to attend games.
If most tickets are sold today, that goes against that idea, and that would be bad.
Update:
Looked at the purchasing site...it does appear the Cubs are holding back entire areas of tickets for the pre-sale...
From what I can tell, the Terrace Reserve outfield seats are not generally available as are the Club Box infield seats.
With that said, I believe you can still get tickets in those sections in some cases, but you can't specify tickets there.
Also...plenty of tickets are still available for games like opening day. The only game that has been limited at this point is the June 12th game verses the Sox.
More info as it becomes available.
Friday, February 12, 2010
No hike in Cubs ticket prices...but....
The Cubs didn't raise ticket prices this year...
But they will be getting a heck of a lot more money from ticket sales this season.
The Cubs are actually charging a lot more for tickets for a number of games this year.
Let me explain:
Ticket prices have remain the same and look like this:
Here is the issue: the Cubs have four different price levels based on what they consider to be the higher demand games and here is how the game levels have broken out between last year and this year.
The Cubs have almost doubled the number of Platinum games while cutting the number of Silver games by 9 (with only minor adjustments to Gold and Bronze games).
That average price of a Platinum ticket over a Gold ticket is about $10...spread that out over 40,000 seats for 12 extra games and you get $4.8 million. This is a very conservative number considering many of the games added to the Platinum list are basically replacing Silver games.
The Cubs are also converting 6 of the luxury boxes over to the new mezzanine club/lounge which will have 71 tickets selling for an average of $300 a game. Doing the math, that would be $1,725,300 if they sell them out. I'm just taking a wild ass guess here, but that is probably a lot more than they would have gotten for renting out the 6 luxury suites. Probably $1 million more...(just guessing).
Then there was the announcement that came out yesterday...
The Cubs will be having a pre-sale of tickets for all 81 games that will go from February 15th until the 18th. I'm not sure how many tickets will be available for each game, but they are likely to sell out very quickly. The catch about this is that those tickets are being sold at a 20% premium over the list price. Now let's just say that they choose to release a couple thousand tickets for each game...at an average price of say $50, the premium would be around $10 a ticket. Spread that across 81 games and the Cubs get another $1.62 million.
Now all these are rather conservative estimates and in no way accurate. What this demonstrates is that the Cubs, without raising ticket prices, are going to be bringing in over $7 million more this season (assuming the tickets all sell out). And that is money that will be coming out of the pockets of us fans.
One last note on tickets...the Ricketts family has made approximately 800 more tickets per game available for sale this year (many via season ticket packages)...this is due to the fact the Tribune company doesn't have to set aside a large number seats for their own use any more. Those tickets could also create a large amount of revenue for the team. If we conservatively estimate that those tickets average the price of a terrace box seat, the Cubs could make another $3 million from them this season.
So, technically prices have not gone up, but on average we will be paying more for games this year and the opportunities for lower income families to get affordable tickets this season will decrease significantly.
But this is the cost of being a high revenue team. And it is something we will need to live with.
Update: One thing that I also forgot about was the Amusement Tax which has been separated out from the general ticket price this year. Go over to WPBC to see more about this. (and read a similar well written blog entry...great minds think alike!) Thanks, CCD, for the heads up!
But they will be getting a heck of a lot more money from ticket sales this season.
The Cubs are actually charging a lot more for tickets for a number of games this year.
Let me explain:
Ticket prices have remain the same and look like this:
| Type | Platinum | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| Club Box (Infield) | $100.00 | $90.00 | $70.00 | $55.00 |
| Club Box (Outfield) | $90.00 | $70.00 | $60.00 | $40.00 |
| Field Box (Infield) | $90.00 | $70.00 | $60.00 | $40.00 |
| $70.00 | $55.00 | $50.00 | $30.00 | |
| $63.00 | $54.00 | $45.00 | $27.00 | |
| $52.00 | $46.00 | $40.00 | $22.00 | |
| $63.00 | $54.00 | $45.00 | $27.00 | |
| $52.00 | $46.00 | $40.00 | $22.00 | |
| $42.00 | $32.00 | $25.00 | $14.00 | |
| $36.00 | $29.00 | $21.00 | $14.00 | |
| $27.00 | $20.00 | $14.00 | $10.00 | |
| $22.00 | $18.00 | $14.00 | $8.00 | |
| $54.00 | $45.00 | $36.00 | $22.00 | |
| Dugout Box | $315.00 | $290.00 | $180.00 | $110.00 |
| Bullpen Box | $225.00 | $200.00 | $160.00 | $90.00 |
| Bud Light Bleacher Box | $76.00 | $67.00 | $55.00 | $36.00 |
| Family Section | $70.00 | $55.00 | $50.00 | $30.00 |
Here is the issue: the Cubs have four different price levels based on what they consider to be the higher demand games and here is how the game levels have broken out between last year and this year.
| Year | Platinum | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
| 2008 | 14 games | 34 games | 28 games | 5 games |
| 2009 | 26 games | 30 games | 19 games | 6 games |
The Cubs have almost doubled the number of Platinum games while cutting the number of Silver games by 9 (with only minor adjustments to Gold and Bronze games).
That average price of a Platinum ticket over a Gold ticket is about $10...spread that out over 40,000 seats for 12 extra games and you get $4.8 million. This is a very conservative number considering many of the games added to the Platinum list are basically replacing Silver games.
The Cubs are also converting 6 of the luxury boxes over to the new mezzanine club/lounge which will have 71 tickets selling for an average of $300 a game. Doing the math, that would be $1,725,300 if they sell them out. I'm just taking a wild ass guess here, but that is probably a lot more than they would have gotten for renting out the 6 luxury suites. Probably $1 million more...(just guessing).
Then there was the announcement that came out yesterday...
The Cubs will be having a pre-sale of tickets for all 81 games that will go from February 15th until the 18th. I'm not sure how many tickets will be available for each game, but they are likely to sell out very quickly. The catch about this is that those tickets are being sold at a 20% premium over the list price. Now let's just say that they choose to release a couple thousand tickets for each game...at an average price of say $50, the premium would be around $10 a ticket. Spread that across 81 games and the Cubs get another $1.62 million.
Now all these are rather conservative estimates and in no way accurate. What this demonstrates is that the Cubs, without raising ticket prices, are going to be bringing in over $7 million more this season (assuming the tickets all sell out). And that is money that will be coming out of the pockets of us fans.
One last note on tickets...the Ricketts family has made approximately 800 more tickets per game available for sale this year (many via season ticket packages)...this is due to the fact the Tribune company doesn't have to set aside a large number seats for their own use any more. Those tickets could also create a large amount of revenue for the team. If we conservatively estimate that those tickets average the price of a terrace box seat, the Cubs could make another $3 million from them this season.
So, technically prices have not gone up, but on average we will be paying more for games this year and the opportunities for lower income families to get affordable tickets this season will decrease significantly.
But this is the cost of being a high revenue team. And it is something we will need to live with.
Update: One thing that I also forgot about was the Amusement Tax which has been separated out from the general ticket price this year. Go over to WPBC to see more about this. (and read a similar well written blog entry...great minds think alike!) Thanks, CCD, for the heads up!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)