Season ticket priority deadline 2/27 question

[rrlbees]

The end of an era for me. I've had two season tickets (many years four) since the dome opened in 1980. Before that, you didn't need season tickets to attend games in Archbold; I attended most games since I graduated from SU in 1973. My devotion is obvious as I had to travel from the Albany area to attend games. You can count on my fingers the number of home games I missed over that span (mostly due to those insane people who decided to get married on a fall football Saturday). Last year, I didn't attend one game. I transferred my tickets to a relative in Syracuse. A serious early September illness prevent me from attending the first three games. The two October games were at night which became harder for me to travel to as I aged. Then, I had no interest in attending the BC game on Thanksgiving weekend. For me, the cost is not an issue. Despite the enthusiasm and hope Fran Brown has injected in the SU program, I have decided it's time. I've witness so my great memories in the dome over the years; I'm sure I'll miss being there. I will no longer be sharing my dome passion with my wife and friends who I brought to the dome. Kudos to my wife who tolerated my passion and traveled to almost every game with me for decades. It's been such a big part of my life. It was a great run! GO SU! I'll close with "BROMINSKI!"

kudos to you sir.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Decided not to renew because I couldn't sell anything when the product went in the crapper. Figure it's simpler to get single game tickets for 2-3 games if the product has improved. Putting it nicely, the program is too unpredictable most years for seasons to be a safe investment. Plus my kids are entering their teen years and I don't want them to feel obligated to attend because they have seats that need to be used. Hot dogs and ice cream only go so far when the team stinks, the dome is half empty and the game atmosphere is dead.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

When do we get to choose new seats? I'm looking to move (tried something last year and hated it) and also add a seat.

I would do both now and then during the upgrade window look to improve. That way worst case you have what you find now. Anything that you see now is open to the public. The seats that were not renewed will be open during upgrade. If you see something that you like now, grab it.

 

[JeffCuse]

I would do both now and then during the upgrade window look to improve. That way worst case you have what you find now. Anything that you see now is open to the public. The seats that were not renewed will be open during upgrade. If you see something that you like now, grab it.

I've looked. Nothing even close to somewhere I would want to sit in my price tier...will likely wait to add when I upgrade, hope something opens up

 

[upperdeck]

It will be interesting to see what opens up after today. if the norm is like 10% dont renew then there has to be a good chunk all around right?

I mean just casually looking 308-314 there are only 4 seats free. Did they really sell every seat last year in the upperdeck?

 

[JeffCuse]

It will be interesting to see what opens up after today. if the norm is like 10% dont renew then there has to be a good chunk all around right?

I mean just casually looking 308-314 there are only 4 seats free. Did they really sell every seat last year in the upperdeck?

You would know, right? Check your arm...

 

[JRHEETER]

When do we get to choose new seats? I'm looking to move (tried something last year and hated it) and also add a seat.

generally in May

 

[TexanMark]

It will be interesting to see what opens up after today. if the norm is like 10% dont renew then there has to be a good chunk all around right?

I mean just casually looking 308-314 there are only 4 seats free. Did they really sell every seat last year in the upperdeck?

I expect you'll be able to move

Seats always come available

 

[GaydenFan47]

When do we get to choose new seats? I'm looking to move (tried something last year and hated it) and also add a seat.

We will receive an email with a time slot to select seats this month, according to my ticket rep. Based on donation ranking a time slot will be given via a link to go on and change if needed.

 

[upperdeck]

they haven't even bothered to show us donation rank since the last update 2 yrs ago have they?

 

[Cusefan95]

Well that's a totally separate problem that applies to any bad team. And our home schedules normally aren't all that attractive, save for a game or two.

No one wants to go to the BC or Pittsburgh games, like ever. Clemson found their way to the middle and FSU found their way toward the bottom. Those are traditionally the most attractive ACC names, but probably won't carry as much weight. Miami has come to the Dome once in our 14 seasons in the ACC, thankfully that one game really worked out.

If ND is undefeated, people can probably sell that ticket to ND fans and recover most of the year.

There’s two separate issues, only one does the team being bad really impact.

One is Ticketmaster setting a minimum sale price. If I want to sell tickets at $12/ea but can’t lower it to less than $20 - it’s impossible to even list. The only option then is other sites like StubHub which are a bigger hassle. What’s even more aggravating is the “sell now” option where you can sell at $1.50 back to Ticketmaster - so they won’t let you list at the price you want to sell at, but will buy them at a much lower price.

The biggest issue is the sites have driven market efficiency. It’s simple for sellers and buyers to find each other, so it’s effectively increased supply and driven down prices. It’s great when I am looking to buy - it’s not great generally for sellers. Even a few years ago, you could usually make money or at least break even on big events. That’s not the case anymore - variable pricing and huge resale markets mean it almost all downside for sellers now; there’s almost no such thing as a “big event”. I’d guess that tickets for Notre Dame will go for around $20-30 over face value even if ND is undefeated. I remember looking up the prices on Miami tickets two years ago and being shocked at how low they were generally, and the market feels like it got much worse overall since then.

I think teams are aware season tickets themselves are an awful deal now, and they appear to be trying to address that with exclusive perks. Meet the player events, high five tunnels, food price discounts, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Syracuse add more benefits in over the next 3-5 years, regardless of how the team does.

 

[upperdeck]

It seems strange that TM/SU has control of how much you are able to ever sell a ticket for in this way. You would think a class action suit would come from this

 

[JRHEETER]

It seems strange that TM/SU has control of how much you are able to ever sell a ticket for in this way. You would think a class action suit would come from this

What would the lawsuit be for? Someone trying to make a profit off of someone else's event? That they are doing all the work for?

I mean people should not be buying tickets with the thought of making a profit off of them. Whether you like it or not, this is a large reason you have seen major price increases on events with fans. If other people can take those tickets and sell them at that price, why would the people hosting the event not want to make that money? After all, they did a majority of the investment. They are not selling the tickets at wholesale for anyone to go out and sell them and make money off of.

 

[upperdeck]

its not even profit thought. I buy something for $100 and want to sell it for $50 and cant do it?

 

[JRHEETER]

its not even profit thought. I buy something for $100 and want to sell it for $50 and cant do it?

So now you are degrading the price of their event and hurting their sales?

 

[upperdeck]

So now you are degrading the price of their event and hurting their sales?

When I buy a car does Honda get to decide what I sell it for 2 months later?

I get from the SU Business side. but if you sell me a ticket for $100 and the product sucks and I want to sell it to someone who thinks its only worth $50?

On the flip side if I buy it for $100 and demand rockets up as the team goes 10-0 and I want to sell it for $500 they are fine with that.

SU decides the opening price. They control how valuable the product becomes.

Do all schools do this? I dont see it with other tickets I Buy from TM. I know I can buy MLB/NHL and such at market prices not controlled.

 

[JRHEETER]

When I buy a car does Honda get to decide what I sell it for 2 months later?

I get from the SU Business side. but if you sell me a ticket for $100 and the product sucks and I want to sell it to someone who thinks its only worth $50?

On the flip side if I buy it for $100 and demand rockets up as the team goes 10-0 and I want to sell it for $500 they are fine with that.

SU decides the opening price. They control how valuable the product becomes.

Do all schools do this? I dont see it with other tickets I Buy from TM. I know I can buy MLB/NHL and such at market prices not controlled.

You are talking apples to oranges here.

If you buy a car your buying something physical, tangible that can be held on to for as long as you want.

When you buy a ticket, you are paying for an experience provided by the company. This is a moment and it is not tangible.

While SU sets the price, if a bunch of folks go on and start putting in tickets at a lower price, does that not degrade their price? Wouldnt people stop buying those tickets and wait for cheap seats? This takes the control of the price to their event out of their hands.

And this is not a Syracuse thing it is a Ticketmaster thing and yes it is done at almost every other event.

 

[Cusefan95]

When I buy a car does Honda get to decide what I sell it for 2 months later?

I get from the SU Business side. but if you sell me a ticket for $100 and the product sucks and I want to sell it to someone who thinks its only worth $50?

On the flip side if I buy it for $100 and demand rockets up as the team goes 10-0 and I want to sell it for $500 they are fine with that.

SU decides the opening price. They control how valuable the product becomes.

Do all schools do this? I dont see it with other tickets I Buy from TM. I know I can buy MLB/NHL and such at market prices not controlled.

It’s not uncommon for teams to set minimums on prices of tickets for resale on Ticketmaster - and it’s highly likely to continue to spread since people dumping tickets at a major loss can screw with their yield management algorithm. Businesses with fixed perishable capacity end up going down this road eventually.

There is absolutely no chance of a successful lawsuit. The argument would be that all they are doing is impacting one platform, you can still sell at whatever you want on StubHub, Vivid, etc. They aren’t going to admit those sites are a bigger hassle to use and that does discourage some sellers (which is really the goal). But those options means a lawsuit is pointless.

I’m mostly just amazed at how good teams are getting at accurately pricing tickets to market demand to maximize revenues. It leaves very little upside (if any) on the resale market.

 

[JRHEETER]

When I buy a car does Honda get to decide what I sell it for 2 months later?

I get from the SU Business side. but if you sell me a ticket for $100 and the product sucks and I want to sell it to someone who thinks its only worth $50?

On the flip side if I buy it for $100 and demand rockets up as the team goes 10-0 and I want to sell it for $500 they are fine with that.

SU decides the opening price. They control how valuable the product becomes.

Do all schools do this? I dont see it with other tickets I Buy from TM. I know I can buy MLB/NHL and such at market prices not controlled.

Also no one is saying you cant go to stubhub or seatgeek or one of the many other resellers to sell the tickets.

OR you do it the old school way and sell it to someone for cash.

No one is going to take a lawsuit on this because there is no lawsuit to be made.

They arent preventing you from selling it for below value, they just are not going to allow it on their platform for their event.

 

[upperdeck]

It’s not uncommon for teams to set minimums on prices of tickets for resale on Ticketmaster - and it’s highly likely to continue to spread since people dumping tickets at a major loss can screw with their yield management algorithm. Businesses with fixed perishable capacity end up going down this road eventually.

There is absolutely no chance of a successful lawsuit. The argument would be that all they are doing is impacting one platform, you can still sell at whatever you want on StubHub, Vivid, etc. They aren’t going to admit those sites are a bigger hassle to use and that does discourage some sellers (which is really the goal). But those options means a lawsuit is pointless.

I’m mostly just amazed at how good teams are getting at accurately pricing tickets to market demand to maximize revenues. It leaves very little upside (if any) on the resale market.

I get that. But also people tend to migrate towards a platform. if you buy it on TM like we do then you most often look there first. You can go to TM and see both sides of the market. You cant do that on one of the others to compare the value easily.

But pushing price hikes they are also making it harder to sell it.

Now if they want to come out when I buy the ticket and tell you that you wont be able to sell the ticket at a loss then maybe thats is on the buyer. Its not like when you buy you know what the selling price will be.

I know in other markets that if you buy on a platform that is not TM then resell is often on a non-tm platform.

I rarely go looking and I never re-sell, I just eat the cost so I don't really care. But I do know people who wont buy because the product is bad and the cost is high.

Is the assumption that people will but the over priced ticket at a higher rate then the lower priced re-sell that never gets old. I am sure its a numbers game. From the consumer side its a bad thing. I dont care its a bad thing from the SU side of the house.

 

[upperdeck]

and this discussion is also not far off from the current TM class action on price gauging, charge artificially high prices, and anti-market practices

 

[Cusefan95]

and this discussion is also not far off from the current TM class action on price gauging, charge artificially high prices, and anti-market practices

I don’t think the class action lawsuit and this discussion are related issues in any way. The lawsuits focused on concerts, where Ticketmaster has a monopoly on venues and artists basically have no option but to let Ticketmaster set pricing. Artists have no leverage since they do a concert maybe every other year and for a short period of time. Sports teams have a different business arrangement from artists - the team deals with Ticketmaster in an ongoing partnership so teams have leverage and are involved in setting the prices and price minimums for resale.

And it’s hard to see how not letting you sell tickets at a loss bigger than some locked in minimum qualifies as “price gauging”, and there’s still other platforms you can successfully sell on at whatever you want. And they don’t need to advise you of moving price minimums for resale when you buy the tickets, since the expectation is you will use the tickets.

This is a weird hill to die on, since your position is basically that you want legislation to mandate teams are forced to make bad business decisions. I’m not sure why you think that will work out to your best interest as a consumer - it’s about eight billion times more likely that they would just ban all resale of tickets on their platform than screw up their algorithm, and you’d just be forced to use other sites. We’re where we are at because technology is able to drive increasing market efficiency for the team. The team does not have any obligation to help you sell tickets you already purchased - you should look at that option on Ticketmaster as generosity on their part (because it is), and be less upset about efficient markets. This is one of the very few areas of our hyper-financialized capitalist system where things are actually getting better for consumers overall and not going through the enshitification process.