White Sox releasing $5 upper deck ticket for TOR series

[SleepyWhiteSox]

Less dumb arguing and more info on how to get the tix please.

 

Edit: Nevermind I see 'em. Thanks.

Edited June 2, 2012 by SleepyWhiteSox

[ewokpelts]

Actually, it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world to let fans bring drinks/food in (maybe for Mon-Thursday games)...but once you started, it would be a pain in the ass to stop or reverse.

 

Or maybe they could let fans who sit in the upper deck do this...to make them feel poorer or cheaper, like steerage class on the Titanic or the current trend in "economy/budget terminals" like they have in Singapore.

you can bring in food NOW. you just cant bring in soda or beer. food and SEALED water bottles are ok.

 

[chw42]

I don't want to go sit in a s***ty seat for $5 on a week night.

 

Give me more half price mondays for EVERY seat and I'll go.

 

I'd much rather pay the $30 for some lower deck seats on Stub Hub.

Edited June 3, 2012 by chw42

[Marty34]

I guess I'll never understand why the 3rd largest city in the US cannot support this team and fill up the stadium when we have one of the best teams in baseball. I'm sick of all of the excuses over the years that even I have used to justify the lack of attendance.

 

Just look at 2005. We had weekend games in September where we could only draw 28K or 30K. A year where we were close to winning a 100 games.

 

I guess I've come to realize that our fan base is pretty small.

 

Respectfully . . . what's your point?

[Middle Buffalo]

Attendance is a problem throughout sports. Sometimes the problem is masked by the size of the fan base, though. Watch a regular season NBA game in most cities and you'll see plenty of empty seats - often the ones closest to the court. Watch a Yankees or Dodger game (traditionally two of the highest attendance fan bases) - empty seats right behind home plate. Teams have priced out the regular fan in favor of corporations. The Dodgers have the 6th highest attendance this season, but if you watch one of their games the park is empty most nights. http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance Remember, attendance is tickets sold, not actual people in the seats, and the White Sox probably don't rank favorably in season ticket sales when compared to other large city teams.

 

There are plenty of empty seats at Cubs games every night. When a team has a waiting list for season tickets, though, it's hard to see that fans are disastisfied because for every fan who decides they've had enough, there's another happy to take that seat. Consider, then, what it takes to have empty seats at Wrigley. I'm going to make up the numbers, but I don't think they're a huge stretch:

 

Let's say there are 1 million baseball fans in the Chicago area who go to at least one game per year. I don't think it's crazy to say that 75% of those fans are Cubs fans, 25% Sox fans. I actually think this percentage is probably generous to the Sox. So, 250K fans go to one or more Sox games per year, and 750K go to at least one Cubs game. That's their available fan base for each game.

 

So, if the Cubs have 35,000 fans at a game, 715,000 fans have made the choice not to go. If the Sox, have 20K fans at a game, 230,000 fans have chosen not to go. When the Cubs were filling up the park every night, it was just assumed that their fans were more loyal and the Sox fans had to have a winning team on the field to get them to the park. What's the reason for the empty seats now? It's not 3-5K fans that aren't going to every Cub game now, though their attendance figures would tell you that they're at 90% capacity for every game. It's 715K fans who've chosen not to come to games. Is it because the Cubs are bad? Is it the economy? Who knows? However, one thing for sure is that the Cubs are having a hard time getting they're fans to the games, too. They're saved by having a HUGE fanbase both locally and nationally. Wrigley Field, love it or hate it, is a destination for people coming to the city in the summer. The Cell is not. But empty seats at Wrigley, be it 1K or 15K, are a huge red flag that Cubs fans are fed up. Maybe they're sick of losing, maybe they're sick of being gouged for their loyalty.

 

I think the idea of deeply discounting tickets to create a buzz and fill up the our park is brilliant. The Sox economy is simply not the same as the Cubs, so they should quit competing for the same fans. It's simple supply and demand. Large demand for Cubs tickets allows for higher prices (though I think they might have finally reached the max. point). The Sox don't have the same demand. Sell tickets cheap. Get the young fan who doesn't have $140 for a bleacher seat to come to the park and return again and again. Get the casual fan. Get the older fan who remembers when baseball was affordable and simply doesn't consider going to games anymore. Get them back. If you get the fans in the park cheaply, they will buy food and drink, and they will return.

 

The Arizona Diamondbacks do a great ticket deal. $19 for a bleacher seat, a hot dog, a drink, and a coupon for another drink. http://arizonashoppingsecrets.blogspot.com...tickets-19.html That's a pretty good value. The Sox have to think this way.

 

The Charlotte Bobcats are offering a 2 for 1 season ticket deal. Buy 2012-13 season tickets and get 2013-2014 season tickets for free. http://www.nba.com/bobcats/1213_seasontickets.html That's what small market teams (or teams with newer fan bases like the Rays, Marlins, and Diamondbacks) have to do to fill up the park and create a fanbase. Sadly, the Sox have a small fan base, and they have to appeal to fans in this way also. If you're having trouble drawing fans, you need to be creative. If season ticket holders get upset (and they might), sweeten their deal a little. Offer them coupons or something reasonable to let them know they're valued.

 

I hope the Sox are still offering the $5 tickets when I get to Chicago in July. Put me down for five. Drinks on me.

[caulfield12]

Hungry fans may purchase a $35 game ticket for unlimited All-You-Can-Eat items. These items include hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, Pepsi soda products and ice cream. Sections 316, 317 and 318 are available to fans on an individual game and discounted group ticket basis. All-You-Can-Eat items are available when the gates open through the end of the 7th inning.

 

Oakland A's promotion

 

 

If they did some more packages like that with the upper deck tickets, or put them in combo packs where the parking price was included with the ticket and food, then by disguising the high individual, one-time cost for parking, fans (imo) would be much more likely to attend games, and it would keep the upper deck vendors much happier with more tips and less staff being sent home early every night.

[greg775]

So for the Brewers series. Well it might cost 150 bucks just to sit in section 548 for a family of four. Then add on 25 bucks or so to park. So you are 175 bucks in before you even think about dropping another few bucks down on a simple hotdog and a drink. Another fun oddity, is that tickets to the upper deck lock you in the upper deck. Not the case in most of the parks out there. This is one practice that they need to change. Not exactly something that the average Joe can do a lot over the summer.

 

That's crazy you can't leave the upper deck once you are in the upper deck. Stupid.

[kev211]

If this is true I will be there 3 times this week.

[Dick Allen]

So for the Brewers series. Well it might cost 150 bucks just to sit in section 548 for a family of four. Then add on 25 bucks or so to park. So you are 175 bucks in before you even think about dropping another few bucks down on a simple hotdog and a drink. Another fun oddity, is that tickets to the upper deck lock you in the upper deck. Not the case in most of the parks out there. This is one practice that they need to change. Not exactly something that the average Joe can do a lot over the summer.

Actually, most parks don't let you sit in sections you haven't bought a ticket to sit. I understand the argument, maybe there's something that could be done, like a steep day of game discount upgrade, but if you board a plane with a coach ticket and see a bunch of seats in business and first class not being used, do you complain you can't sit there? The amnenities are nicer. The problem is the OF concourse gets jammed with people who paid to sit in the UD. Is it fair to someone who actually paid to sit downstairs to have to stand in line for the bathroom or food for an inning or 2 because of the crowd of people who should be upstairs?

[Marty34]

The flip side of the attendance issue is, taking last year as an example, they had the highest payroll in their history and according to Forbes made money averaging only 25,000. It shows a pretty strong franchise with room to grow.

[The Beast]

Tickets are ungodly expensive today on whitesox.com and StubHub. I was planning on going but the prices are just too high for a Seattle series. I will be taking them up on the Thursday Blue Jays game (Peavy pitches), an Astros or Brewers game and a Cubs game on Wednesday though. That is my effort in trying to help attendance.

[Brian26]

3. Ozzie's blasts at the fan base the past few years, which rubbed raw a lot of people. (For example, I sent Brooks an e-mail after Ozzie's 'pissing on statue's' comment. It was a week before he got back to me, which is very unusual. Brooks apologized saying he was trying to catch up to all the fans who had written him.)

 

"As soon as you leave the ballpark, they don’t care about you any more. They don’t. The monuments, the statues they have for you, they piss on it when they are drunk. That’s what they do. Thank you for coming for 30 minutes for all the suffering you did all your life, day in and day out."

 

Ozzie Guillen

 

Did you copy these from a post on WSI? Driving me crazy because I thought I saw it somewhere else recently.

 

http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/vbullet...p;postcount=245

Edited June 3, 2012 by Brian26

[caulfield12]

Did you copy these from a post on WSI? Driving me crazy because I thought I saw it somewhere else recently.

 

http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/vbullet...p;postcount=245

 

 

The first quote is from Mark Liptak, their resident scribe from Idaho who I think works for a newspaper/media outlet. But yeah, in the original quote, I attributed it directly to him.

 

The second was a quote that I looked up from Ozzie.

[Soxfest]

People are still not happy about paying the highest parking in MLB at $25.00..............this has kept people away also.

[caulfield12]

The flip side of the attendance issue is, taking last year as an example, they had the highest payroll in their history and according to Forbes made money averaging only 25,000. It shows a pretty strong franchise with room to grow.

 

 

One of the neat little statistical comparisons between this year and last is that we're almost exactly 100,000 behind last year's attendance pace.

 

Through 27 home games in 2011 (cutoff is June 8th game with SEA), we had drawn 661,813 fans, for an average of 24,512.

 

Through 27 hom games in 2012 (cutoff is June 3rd game with SEA), we've drawn 561,934 fans, for an average of 20,812.

 

The net difference is 3,700 fans per game. However, when you take into consideration we lopped off roughly 20% of our payroll (more or less $25 million), a 15% decrease in attendance is clearly offset by the highest prices in baseball for parking, top 4-5-6 for tickets, etc.

 

So we're just as profitable, it not a tick or two more profitable, than 2011.

 

If the dynamic pricing model wasn't making them MORE profits, they wouldn't be sticking with it.

 

Perhaps actual attendance and announced attendance would show a disparity (one could assume more fans were using their tickets in early 2011 and less as the season wore on, as opposed to the opposite effect this year).

 

 

Edited June 4, 2012 by caulfield12

[southsider2k5]

People are still not happy about paying the highest parking in MLB at $25.00..............this has kept people away also.

 

The difference between $23 and $25 isn't keeping people away.

[caulfield12]

Why don't they try an experiment ONCE..."fan/customer appreciation day," on a Monday-Thursday game???

 

FREE PARKING. And just analyze the total revenue increase from those games in tickets sold, fans attending, concessions and souvenirs, etc.

 

Maybe it wouldn't be worth it...and they would lose money, but there's no other way to study this specific market (Chicago White Sox ticket demand) without at least trying it once to see what the effect is.

 

I don't think the season ticket holders who pay for parking as part of their packages would all threaten to burn down the front office. Maybe you can give them a preferred parking area that's closest to the stadium, some kind of giveaway (all you can eat those days for free, or all you can drink, or whatever, be creative!!)

Edited June 4, 2012 by caulfield12

[SouthSidePride05]

Well, assuming we win the division this year, it's a 50% chance at least 1 of the remaining regular season games will be a sell out... If the clincher is at home, it'll most likely sell out. I'm predicting that game will be the only sell out before the playoffs. Cubs series won't sell out; they didn't last year and they won't this year. They'll average 33K for that series. Overall, the attendance won't drop much from last season. Last season, we sold just over 2 million. This year it'll be just under 2 million, averaging just over 24K per home game. Next year all depends on advance season ticket sales. I study trends and numbers for a living, so this is how I see the attendance figures panning out.

Edited June 4, 2012 by SouthSidePride05

[Marty34]

Why don't they try an experiment ONCE..."fan/customer appreciation day," on a Monday-Thursday game???

 

FREE PARKING. And just analyze the total revenue increase from those games in tickets sold, fans attending, concessions and souvenirs, etc.

 

Maybe it wouldn't be worth it...and they would lose money, but there's no other way to study this specific market (Chicago White Sox ticket demand) without at least trying it once to see what the effect is.

 

I don't think the season ticket holders who pay for parking as part of their packages would all threaten to burn down the front office. Maybe you can give them a preferred parking area that's closest to the stadium, some kind of giveaway (all you can eat those days for free, or all you can drink, or whatever, be creative!!)

 

I don't think parking is a big issue. The Sox do allow tailgating two beers in the lots and you're roughly breaking even.

 

[caulfield12]

Well, assuming we win the division this year, it's a 50% chance at least 1 of the remaining regular season games will be a sell out... If the clincher is at home, it'll most likely sell out. I'm predicting that game will be the only sell out before the playoffs. Cubs series won't sell out; they didn't last year and they won't this year. They'll average 33K for that series. Overall, the attendance won't drop much from last season. Last season, we sold just over 2 million. This year it'll be just under 2 million, averaging just over 24K per home game. Next year all depends on advance season ticket sales. I study trends and numbers for a living, so this is how I see the attendance figures panning out.

 

Financial analyst or something to do with insurance/actuarial science?

[caulfield12]

I don't think parking is a big issue. The Sox do allow tailgating two beers in the lots and you're roughly breaking even.

 

 

Let's say the White Sox have the "average" parking price for majors, $15.00-17.50.

 

You don't think that would have an impact?

 

I'm always thinking they WANT to have fewer people parking, but charging MORE for parking...giving those people who do park the "premium" experience getting in and out.

 

Let's say the parking price was $12.50 instead...then wouldn't those people who loved having to fight with fewer and fewer people complain, or would they be made happier by the experience of watching the game in a stadium that was filled with more fans rooting for the Sox?

 

And if they had 5000 parked at $12.50 or 2500 parked at $25; wouldn't you still prefer to get 5000 out to the game because of the additional revenue you'd derive from concession and souvenir sales?

 

Or does half-price/discount night lead to much lower sales in concessions/souvenirs and not offset the negative experience of the fans who might have to fight longer lines, more crowding in bathrooms, harder to park, etc.

 

For discount/half-price nights, is there is a 50/50 split between upper and lower deck seats sold? Or is it 75% upper deck and 25% lower? Just curious.

 

When I worked for a minor league team, the assumption was always that free/discounted tickets led to lower sales of souvenirs and concessions...but I'm not sure how applicable this is to the Sox, in the 3rd biggest market in the US. However, one always gets the idea their market isn't "families" or "cheapskates" or "blue collar" workers like it traditionally has been. I mean, they do target families and groups on the weekends, but not as much as lots of other teams do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Middle Buffalo]

When I worked for a minor league team, the assumption was always that free/discounted tickets led to lower sales of souvenirs and concessions...

Really? Why? It seems to me that more people going to the games would increase concessions sales.

 

 

[Kyyle23]

I'm pretty sure I'm going Wednesday night. My first game in a long time

[justBLAZE]

I don't want to go sit in a s***ty seat for $5 on a week night.

 

Give me more half price mondays for EVERY seat and I'll go.

 

I'd much rather pay the $30 for some lower deck seats on Stub Hub.

 

You realize they offer $26 and $27 tickets for the same series, for outfield and bleachers seats...?

[chw42]

People are still not happy about paying the highest parking in MLB at $25.00..............this has kept people away also.

 

Don't drive to the game...?

 

Unless you live very far away, you can always take the Metra to Chicago and take the subway to the park.