After the Raiders left LA, many of us would go down to San Diego to see them play. For a while the Raider fans outnumbered the Charger fans. So the Chargers made a rule that said if you wanted to buy a ticket to the Raider game, you also had to buy a ticket to another Charger home game.

Now the rule has changed again. If you want to buy a ticket to the Raiders game, you have to buy tickets to TWO other Charger games PLUS a preseason game.

A big FU to San Diego!

Do other teams pull this crap?

Chargers 'premium' ticket policy irks fans

By Kevin Acee
STAFF WRITER

July 21, 2005


It is the sign of a successful team, a sign of the times. It is also a business decision that may have political ramifications.

When the Chargers put single-game tickets on sale Saturday, fans wanting to attend games against four "premium opponents" must also buy tickets to two other games, including one exhibition.

A family of four wanting to attend the season opener against the Dallas Cowboys – or games against the Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants or Oakland Raiders – will have to spend at least $792. That's because that family will actually be buying 12 tickets – four tickets to three different games.

The new policy has caused some fans to take their hands off their wallets and set their fingers to typing angry e-mails.

"Perfect," Chargers fan Greg Sloan said via e-mail, "get rid of the ticket guarantee but continue to alienate the average fan by requiring them to purchase tickets to three games, including one meaningless exhibition game. Good luck getting support for the new stadium. . . . Chargers management continues to turn the average fan away. I wonder if they really do want to stay in San Diego."

Selling tickets to exhibition games remains a challenge, even though Ken Derrett, Chargers vice president and chief marketing officer, said he is optimistic the team will sell out some regular-season games as soon as next month.

"Fans in San Diego should feel fortunate that they have tickets for the season opener available period," Derrett said. "We've been fortunate here – or unfortunate – our (ticket) base hasn't been as big as New York or Chicago. That has allowed Chargers fans to buy tickets. . . . Our marketplace has had available inventory, which gave people a lot of opportunity to purchase tickets. The landscape has changed."

Chargers Chief Operating Officer Jim Steeg said the team has sold more than 50,000 season tickets, an increase of about 15,000 over last year.

The Chargers are not the first team to require multiple-game purchases. The Cincinnati Bengals and Minnesota Vikings are among the NFL teams that have similar policies.

"In different leagues, in different styles and formats, it's not a unique element," said Abraham Madkour, executive editor of the Sports Business Journal. "The downside for the team is you do very little to create goodwill in the community when you're forcing somebody to buy a ticket."

Goodwill is something the Chargers are trying to cultivate as they push for a 2006 ballot initiative that will ask voters to approve construction of a new stadium in Mission Valley.

Certainly, going 12-4 last season and making the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade went a long way in bolstering the team's support in San Diego. But the new ticket policy carries with it a risk that a significant number of potential voters will feel fleeced by the very team that is asking for their support at the voting booth.

Steeg said he is "not at all" worried about a backlash that could affect the stadium issue. Like Derrett, Steeg alluded to the unavailability of tickets in many markets and that the Chargers are not alone in packaging games.

Sloan was not alone among those e-mailing The San Diego Union-Tribune. The irate fans were quick to link the ticket policy and the push for a new stadium.

"Fans are not going to love this," Madkour said. "Why would they?"

But, Madkour pointed out, "This is a business. (The Chargers) need to drive business where they can."

Said Derrett: "You always use the leverage of the strongest portion of your schedule."

It is the first time the Chargers have done this on more than an isolated basis. In 2002 the team required fans purchasing tickets to the game against the Raiders to buy the same number of tickets to two other regular-season games.

Aside from the unspoken goal of making more money, Derrett said the philosophy of the new ticket policy is similar to that employed when the Raiders policy was instituted. The thinking is that fans of the opposing team will be less inclined to buy tickets to multiple games.

"We want to sell as many tickets to Chargers fans as possible – more Chargers fans and more (fans) overall," Derrett said. "We're trying to grow attendance. We're trying to sell as many tickets as possible to as many Chargers games and have as many sellouts as possible."

As to his assertion that San Diegans are fortunate to have tickets available, Derrett has a point.

Eight of the 12 teams that made the NFL playoffs last season have waiting lists for season tickets. The Jets, Patriots, Steelers, Eagles and Packers have sold every ticket for the 2005 season. Only the Broncos, Colts, Seahawks, Vikings, Rams and Chargers have individual-game tickets available for their season openers.

The Chargers are not the only team to include exhibition games as part of their ticket packages. The Vikings, for instance, require fans to buy a ticket to their exhibition game against the Chargers in order to purchase tickets to their regular-season game against Pittsburgh. But that is the policy that seems to grate on fans the most.

"They're forcing you to buy tickets to meaningless exhibition games and basically forcing you to go to games you may not want to go to," Chargers fan Ramon Fernandez said. " . . . Here we are seeing some players that won't be on the team when the season starts and the prices we're being charged are the same. When you go to regular-season games you're getting your money's worth. Why should I spend my money on subpar games? To force me to buy tickets to exhibition games isn't fair at all."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050721/news_1s21chartix.html

In the past when I've bought tickets to the Cowboys Thanksgiving day game I've also had to buy (three years ago) preseason tickets or (two years ago) tickets to another game...

Why do they do this to begin with? Is it because no-one wants to see them play a crappy team?

See the concert tickets thread a few months back.

Why do they do this to begin with? Is it because no-one wants to see them play a crappy team?

Basically. Why else would someone want to buy full priced tickets to a preseason game?

That is bullshit. The Chargers' HQ needs to be burned to the ground.

That is bullshit. [The Chargers HQ] needs to be burned to the ground.

yeah

Oh...my bad. I'll edit.

I'm sure other teams do similar things. Chiefs fans have groused for years about having to pay regular season prices for preseason games, which are also part of all season ticket packages. The Royals recently started doing premium pricing for big series against teams like the Yankees, and this year I believe a big chunk of single-game tickets for the Cardinals series was only available in a mini package that required buying tickets to other games. A lot of college teams do similar things. I know at Missouri premium games cost more than others. The Nebraska ticket was always the most expensive ticket of the year because so many Husker fans came down for the game.

I think this is a bit different from the concert ticket thread. I think the NFL is a lot smarter than concert promoters. For example, the Chiefs have sold every ticket to Arrowhead for about 15 years. Based on the level of sales, they could easily be charging more money for tickets. The equilibrium price is obviously above the price of the ticket to a game, but they don't want to risk going above the equilibrium price and losing money. They would rather have too many people want to go to the game than have too few people want to buy tickets.

My experience of late has been that concert ticket pricing bears little resemblance to equilibrium. of the last half dozen concerts I've been to, the only one that was sold out was Jerry Seinfeld, and that was a small venue -- maybe 3,000 seats. I'd hazard to guess that the last Bruce Springsteen concert at Kemper Arena had at least 5,000 empty seats. The equilibrium was obviously lower than the ticket price. Had they sold tickets at a cheaper price, they probably would have made more money, sold more t-shirts, sold more sodas and had more people go out and buy CDs.

I can understand charging more for a better game. I know that OU charges 10 bucks more for football games during the regular season and the better preason games. That doesnt really bother me. But I dont think anyone should be forced to pay for tickets to a different game. Just because some team can't fill their stadium when crappy teams come to play. Actually OU men's basketball does the opposite during the x-mas holiday's. They have like 6 games where the cost to get in is 10 bucks, and you get a free hotdog and drink. I would imagine they do this because basketball teams quite a few weak teams during the preseason. Maybe some teams could learn from this, and try lowering the prices for crappy teams. I know that I would kill to go to any OU football game, even if it was against Tulsa.

Cincinnati started doing this back when the team sucked and they couldn't sell out any games other than the Browns and Steelers.

So they made 3 game ticket packs where you would buy Browns and 2 other teams or Steelers and 2 other teams. I don't think they forced preseason games on anyone though.

Actually, if it's your team, you can sell tickets however you want at whatever price. And if people keep buying them, why wouldn't you?

I've railed against this for years. You try paying full price for preseason games in a stadium that doesn't even have seats. A f-ing metal bench with numbered stickers on it. Then you got a guy yelling "push over" if you aren't sitting right on your number. And a parking lot with no pavement.

I deserve more than 3 superbowls for that crap.

Hey- Free Market- variable pricing. Would you prefer they just doubled the price of Raider games, to more accurately reflect the equilibrium price ?