Thursday, December 10, 2009
THE REAL REASONS.
I was dismayed earlier today to read a tweet from Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post that the Mets admitted that ticket plan renewals were “slow” and that they attributed the slowness to people waiting to see if the Mets would make moves.
Once again, they are either oblivious, or doing damage control. Based on the results of the entirely unscientific METSGRRL.COM 2009 METSFAN SURVEY, I can share with you the results of our study below. Out of 33 respondents, 26 said they were NOT renewing, and 7 said they were renewing their ticket plans.
I personally was surprised by the reasons given for not renewing. We hear about the economy as a reason and the lack of star power as a reason, but the reasons for not renewing are actually things the Mets could control - if they were bothered to do something about it. Let’s break it down.
- FINANCES: Two respondents indicated financial reasons - not due to layoffs but rather due to the payment being due in December instead of January as usual, and one due to a lack of Christmas bonus
- UNSATISIFIED WITH SEATING LOCATION/QUALITY: No one wants to sit in the top four rows of the Promenade, which is where partial plan holders were stuck. 3 respondents mentioned this specifically.
- UNSATISFIED WITH PLAN SCHEDULE: This broke down into two categories - weekend plans giving you four games that weren’t on a weekend, and weekday plans being unevenly constructed. Many people who buy Saturday plans travel a distance to be there and weekday games aren’t an option. One person noted that last year they were able to sell those games because the stadium was new, but that they had no confidence in being able to do so this year. 4 games in a 15 game plan is a little over 25% of the plan!(I am told that the Saturday plan has 10 Saturdays and FIVE weekdays!) In the non-weekend plans, there is no rhyme or reason to the schedule. If you bought a Tuesday/Friday plan at Shea, you got to see one game in every series over the course of the season. You saw every opponent. The plans now are over-weighted with too many repeats and too many omissions.
- AVAILABLE SEATS WERE BETTER THAN PLAN SEATS: Getting a Flushing Flash offering 50% discounts was insulting to people who had paid in full six months earlier.
- NO DECREASE: When the Mets said the magic words of “10%,” everyone expected to open their invoices and see reduced ticket prices. Very cleverly, the Mets had neglected to mention that the discount was because they downgraded games from Silver to Bronze, not because they dropped ticket prices. That may have worked with a small portion of the fanbase but most people figured out the bait and switch fairly quickly.
- INVOICE DUE IN DECEMBER: In this economy, this was probably the final straw for a lot of people. Yes, they let people break up the payments and the second one wasn’t due until February, but that still didn’t change the fact that the payment was due in DECEMBER, right before the holidays. And, for some people, long before any moves were made to improve for 2010.
- NO ADVANTAGE TO BUYING A TICKET PLAN: There’s no discount, there’s no post-season rights for partial plan holders even at the 40 game level, any hot games are sold in public lottery with a password like OMARSUX. Why lay out a chunk of cash when you couldn’t give tickets away last year? Painting the stairwells blue and orange doesn’t quite cut it, guys.
- SEATS ARE OBSTRUCTED OR PARTIALLY OBSTRUCTED: “Every seat in the house is great,” says the SNY talking heads. *rolling eyes* They will never admit it or do anything about it but fans are not going to buy the same seats they sat in and couldn’t see right field out of last year.
The signing of, say, Matt Holliday will assuage some of these people, the ones who are on the fence, but not all of them.
The Mets could fix this. They could bring back the old plans, they could provide additional benefits, they could waive the invoice due date, they could improve people’s seating locations without requiring them to pay their invoice first. But they are arrogant and will remain arrogant until their treasured PAID ATTENDANCE number drops for a few years running.
Posted by Caryn at 07:48 AM
I think the Mets office is oblivious. A friend of mine contacted them by phone in regards to his season tickets (which I’ve been buying a few games from him since 2006). The Mets viewpoint seems to be that things tanked when the product on the field got so bad that execs couldn’t bring their clients to the games, generating the tsunami on StubHub. We have “box” seats where you can’t see RF.
This friend offered the Mets a deal in which he pays his invoice price for Prom Box 405 and gets Excelsior 311 seats instead (he said that was basically a deep discount). The Mets turned down his offer.
I seriously don’t think the Mets understand exactly why people stopped going and aren’t renewing.
I was contacted by the Mets (Kirk King) after writing the front office a letter as to why I would not be renewing my ticket plan. I sited many of the reasons that you offered above. Their solution (and I have it in writing if you want it) was to buy a LARGER ticket plan. I genuinely could not believe the disconnect between the organization and the fanbase. I don’t see this getting better anytime soon.
Yes, the “Every seat in the house is great” claim is BS. I don’t understand how they could say something like that with a straight face. Or how they could build a stadium with problems like that, given that they can model stuff in advance.
For me it’s because I lost my job but had I not I would be in wait and see crowd; and not for signings mind you but whether key guys will be healthy and playing. There’s no guarantee that say Beltran, Reyes will be back to 100% or that Wright would be back to his norm. So like Spring Training for me if I were employed.
As far as obstructed views this is just something I would guess happens? I don’t know I haven’t been to as many stadiums as you, but I fill those spaces in with the video.
Honestly, I’d be willing to give them another go if they’d address these issues as well as move the fences in a bit. I think you can find the happy medium like Detroit did.
I hope the Mets brass read this and address it, if they do they should be allowed a fair shot at winning our business back.
Here is what the Mets did with weekend plans. In Shea, a Saturday or Sunday plan was for all 13 dates. At Citi, Sat. and Sun. dates became 15 game plans with 10 for the weekend day and 5 weeknights. This allowed the Mets to create a third plan called weekends. This plan includes the 3 Saturdays and 3 Sundays the other plans don’t include, along with 6 weeknight games.
I live in Northwest NJ and it takes me a good 1 1/2 - 2 hours each way to get to and from Citi, which precludes any chance of my attending weeknight games. In addition, as a Shea plan holder my “priority” seats last year were in the outfield in the upper rows of the upper deck. At Shea I had second row Upper Reserved right at 1st base.
Last season I went on Craig’s List and bought 7 Saturday games from a full season ticket holder (who has not renewed this year). This year I will use StubHub at the last minute and buy discounted tickets.
Correction: The Weekend Plan includes 3 Fridays, 3 Saturdays, 3 Sundays and 6 weeknights, for a total of 15 dates.
This was a great post. The Wilpons have failed miserably as owners. Many people want to echo that its Omar’s fault but you know what its not. He has a very good track record of bringing in players and making this team a competitive one since he’s been GM. I’ll go as far as saying his good moves vastly outweigh the bad ones. Other than bad contracts to Castillo, not protecting Flores, the Alou situation..exactly how many moves has he made thats blown up horribly.
This team has made the playoffs 3 times since ‘88. They’ve had plenty of opportunities to add star players like A-Rod, Vlad, etc but instead this team has a history of bringing them in when they are way past their prime.
For the life of me i dont understand why they wont pony up the bucks for star players but overpay mediocre or old stars. Fans see this and every year they try selling us some cock & bull story why they dont need to pursue players for positions that need filling. How could they focus on second-tier SP’s when they arent a whole lot better than what we have and we still need a number 2.
They were interested in Lowe at 35 or 36 last year but havent been as interested in Lackey until recently. How does that make any sense? You rather give the 35/36 yr old 15/16 million for 3 years but the 31yr old who is clearly BETTER you dont like his price..which is similiar just longer years. But its worth it because he’s younger and can be an ace on many teams. You rather mortgage a ton of prospects for 1 starter in Halladay when this team was exposed for no depth. I rather take my chances on keeping the prospects and giving Lackey 16+mm a year at 36/37 than Halladay 23 million at 37 plus the loss of multiple prospects.
How hard can it be to figure that out?
Thanks for sharing, TimeIsTicking, but we weren’t talking about roster moves and this isn’t WFAN.
LOL @ Caryn :)
I really feel for the partial plan holders, I do. I was one myself and my uncle took over the rights to my dad’s old plan and has the luxury of working odd hours and living by a convenient train line that gets him into Manhattan and therefore into Queens in a timely manner. Many people do NOT have that option and I often muse aloud on my own—who exactly are running the Fan Relations teams there?
I can say this though. As a season ticket holder, I was happy with my options and even very pleased with the way they are seemingly bending over backwards to kiss our collective butts, with “behind the scenes” tours (about friggin time, if you ask me), special access in PSL (hallelujah), and pre-game access things on weekends. My only gripe was that my sales rep was not educated on this at all and that they were hawking certain areas for “upgrades.”
I am also fortunate enough to have partners and interested fans who like to buy one off games from me. If I had a partial plan, I would test my luck on the secondary market too.
Great coverage Caryn. I’m just amazed they don’t see these warning signs from the people who actually buy tickets. i’ve been a fan for 20 years, but as a TV fan, not an attendee, and i’m even considering not *watching* in 2010 if the mets don’t improve (and the Granderson -> yankees move makes me ill). So in the end, they won’t get their ticket sales and SNY won’t get their Neilson ratings.
Mets will not allow even upgrades from Promenade Reserved (Section 503) to better seats further towards plate or even lower (willing to pay more for decent seats)—until after 12/18 when they know who didn’t renew (understandable). Even then, it may make more sense to bounce around and pick up select games on Stubhub. Even looked into getting Phils 6 pack(includes 2 Mets games—seats available in all price points). Most expensive seat in Phillie is $60 and is 1 1/2 hours away from NY. They have no idea how many empty seats they are looking at - and I shudder to think how bad it will be if they don’t substantially improve the roster. I will attend no matter what—but I don’t have to purchase from the Wilpons directly (I can have flexibility and choice - novel concept). Have had various plans since 1999. I would expect that they might offer smaller packs (much like the Phillies—- when their ticket office becomes a ghost town), because the 15 packs are not suitable for many as packaged. Mets should take a peek at what Phillies (and others) are offering and realize that they must adapt or suffer consequences.
What kills me the most is that the Mets have been losing money on us every year. We barely scraped together pennies to get our Tuesday/Friday plan in 2006. We had planned and budgeted for the 40 game plan, only to realize we couldn’t afford it because they don’t offer one on the Promenade. Our friends who also had a T/F plan were about to do the same, and were fine with the better seating location, but balked at the lack of post season rights.
EVEN THE YANKEES GIVE BLEACHER PARTIAL SEASON TICKET HOLDERS PLAYOFF RIGHTS
I’m sorry, am I yelling?
I used to be one of those guys who would camp out at Shea for 24 hours to get seats. There was no reason for me to get a plan as I could get virtually ay seat location I wanted as I was usually first at a window. The same held true for playoffs. Once they started to put the best games and the playoffs in a lottery I decided to go with a saturday plan.
I started to get really fed up with the incompetence of the Mets FO when they would lottery out the playoff and best regular season tickets to anyone. As a partial plan holder they offered me upper and Mez reserves (no matter where my seats were). But the lottery winners had access to the best seats. The people who support the team in the regular season should be given first dibs while the ebay sellers from Nebraska who win the lottery should at best get whatever is left over. That’s a no brainer and when I asked my exec about it I got some canned response. This is what the Yankees do. The partial season holders get access to everything in a lottery (it’s not guaranteed but when you sell 20,000 partial plans what can you do).
So last season I decided to go with a full season plan. I liked the off season moves and I thought the team was going to compete - plus the new stadium made me feel I could avoid eating any games I couldn’t go to. OK so I was wrong. But with the way the orgaiozation has run the club I just decided I couldn’t support it anymore. Not when I’m being asked to fork over cash for 40 year old catchers when I’m doing holiday shopping. When the Wilpons come out of denial let me know.
I didn’t rener and I didn’t even get a phone call from the Mets.
I think the Mets office is oblivious. A friend of mine contacted them by phone in regards to his season tickets (which I’ve been buying a few games from him since 2006). The Mets viewpoint seems to be that things tanked when the product on the field got so bad that execs couldn’t bring their clients to the games, generating the tsunami on StubHub. We have “box” seats where you can’t see RF.
This friend offered the Mets a deal in which he pays his invoice price for Prom Box 405 and gets Excelsior 311 seats instead (he said that was basically a deep discount). The Mets turned down his offer.
I seriously don’t think the Mets understand exactly why people stopped going and aren’t renewing.