from Amazon
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Ticket prices cut in half if the team doesn’t make the playoffs
That’s what the St Louis Blues are doing. You pay half up front. If they make the playoffs (16 of 30 teams do), you pay the other half. If they don’t, you don’t.
You would think there’d be backlash by the fans who paid up early, but:
The Blues say they have experienced no backlash from fans who had already paid full price for season tickets before the start of the promotion. “We’ve had no complaints,” McLoughlin said. “I think the focus is that this (promotion) is limited to the 600 seats where we have lots of availability. As a result, we’ve had no complaints.”
It seems to me some fans may complain at the end of the season if the Blues don’t make the playoffs. I presume that anyone who bought tickets in the same section are going to be given the same option next year.
Anyway, I love the boldness of the idea. The NY Rangers had a policy of no increase in ticket prices unless they made the playoffs. They held to that as they missed the playoffs for a few years running.
“’We’ve had no complaints,’ [Peter] McLoughlin said.” Whereupon Peter McLoughlin promptly ran off to become the president of the Seattle Seahawks. (Neverthelss, with only 600 seats involved, the idea is a good one.)