Our good friend Kram revisited a great topic today and found a glorious example of what we could have here as IronPig fans.
In the 9th inning the Attendance for each game at The Coke is announced and often there is a groan heard around the stadium when the number is revealed. I hear it every single time…
“Lot of empty seats to be 9,534”
“Club level looks empty”
“Who buys tickets and doesn’t go to the games?”
“Man there should be something so people can get tickets to sold out games if others aren’t showing up”
Well, there is a way. We just need the IronPigs to lead the way.
While Coca Cola Park leads pretty much the entire minor league system in per game attendance average (9,018 per game) we do see seats that aren’t sat in. There are those who head out to the trough or rough it in the outfield with the Noise Nation but I’d bet there are a fair amount of tickets that fall into the “Not Used” category.
Kram sent me an email today showing me a great way to bridge this gap. The Lowell Spinners (Class A Short Season for the Red Sox) have created a Ticket Posting page.
Details from the Spinner’s website:
PLEASE READ THIS IMPORTANT PROCEDURAL INFORMATION
The intention of this TICKET POSTING option is to bring fans together to post their respective situation of obtaining or unloading tickets. This is done in a simple format.
Fans are directed to go to the proper link to select if they wish to “post a listing to obtain tickets to a sold out game” or to “post a listing to unload tickets to a game you can no longer attend”.
After making your selection you are able to select the options of posting your game selections or view what other fans have posted. Fans are invited to check this section of the site to read how to contact the users looking to obtain or unload their tickets.
Even though Spinners Management oversees the activities of these postings, we inform you that this is NOT a secure transaction. It is strictly between the fans. The Spinners are just trying to bring people together and will not resolve disputes that might arise amongst fans.
(The Lowell Spinners are not responsible for ticket transactions via this Ticket Posting method. The Spinners conduct financial ticket operations through the corporate office at LeLacheur Park and through Choice Ticketing, our secure internet server. This Ticket Posting Guest Book forum is NOT part of our financial ticket operations nor is it a secure method.)
Keeping it simple, the Spinners disclaimer absolves them of any liability and provides fans a means of exchanging tickets legally. Heck there’s even a trade forum for giveaways.
Kram tells us, “They get nothing other than less empty seats and more people willing to buy season ticket packages because they know they won’t get stuck with tickets or M-Th vouchers that they can’t use.” (Unused Season Tickets, like rained out games, can be exchanged for a M-Th game)
Granted, it’s no Stub Hub or Ebay… more like Craigslist, but it affords the opportunity to help each other out.
In my opinion, yes my opinion, this will only work if the IronPigs themselves create it. The Spinners post this link on their website on the Ticket Sales page. That way people know about it and can find it while looking for tickets on the team’s site. Really, if we set something up like that here on the Horn & Bell blog how many people would see it/know about it? Not many.
I encourage you to leave feedback in the comments section.
Food for thought though. Thanks Kram for sending over!
OinK!
noisenation.mlblogs.com 
Excellent idea. I believe the NFL has a similar site. You’re right, it’s sad to see all the empty seats — especially when you know people would love to be sitting in them.
The IronPigs would have to do it though, and the question is whether they’re willing to do it.
Well, they oughta be. Here’s the thing: the business model for minor league baseball is such that the money to be made is really on the $5.50 beers and the $3.00 hot dogs and the $3.50 cokes (and tennis balls, etc…). Once you’ve sold all the tickets, the only way to make more money is to sell more stuff. If half (!?) the seats are empty, sure, you’ve made some money on those seats, but what’s $9 (or $14) compared with the food, drink, souvenir money an average fan spends. The IronPigs (not the players; the franchise owners) should be jumping at the chance to fill empty seats even when they’ve already been sold.
For my part, I don’t care if the club level is empty because it’s less crowded and I can get beer faster. But once in a while I need extra tickets, and once in a while I can’t give mine away in time. It would be handy–and everyone wins.
Or, you could just put a 700 level on the top of the stadium, and….
😉
one more thing: if the seats really are FULL–not just sold–the advertisers will be happier and perhaps willing to spend more money. Think Nielson ratings…
This is a good idea. Too many people I talk to always say how hard it is to get tickets. There are some folks out there who would love to come to a game. And hey, the IronPigs can still make more money as Kram said.
Great idea. Some of you know, I sit by all the scouts and I can tell you every game there are at least 25 seats available. I realize they have to hold a number of tickets for scouts, but these are prime seats. They could make at least $200 a night or almost $15,000 if these seats were available. That is just for the tickets. Imagine food, drink, merchandise sales.
Yeah, I sit right above there and can look down and see the scouts and the pitchers charting pitches and whatnot. The real way to capitalize there would be to create a “Lodge” section….but that’s a suggestion for another day.
Personally I just find it hard to believe that all the tickets are ALWAYS being sold.
I’ve been a season ticket holder since the beginning and in my section, 109, I have had no one in my row more times than I’ve had anyone in the row.
My favorite game this year was the Dom Brown bobblehead night.
The game is supposedly sold out and people are supposedly camping out for hours to get one and that night there was no one in my row other than my family.
Last year I kept track for part of the year and after the first fifteen games I went to I had no one in my row eleven times.
The number of times since the beginning that I have been to a game and had a full row? Zero.
Right, here’s the most likely explanation:
109 is an excellent section, and the seats are season tickets or packages. The owners may not use them or may not sit in the seats–and may be afraid to give them up for fear that they won’t be able to get such good seats back. This is the dilema I will face when I win the Triple Play Challenge (I wish). Should I really give up my spot in 209 in order to have the free seats that I’ve won?
On a bobble night, many fans often leave after getting the bobble (I’ve seen them STREAMING out clutching their boxes as I arrive). Don’t underestimate “waste.” I know a guy (eh, tough to start a sentence that way) who bought two club level seats in 2009 and made it to exactly two games: opening day and Pedro Martinez. Why? “Too busy,” he says.
Another possibility is that the seats are not sold, but not for sale. They’ve been held back. Held for scouts or VIPs or sponsors or for groups in the outer sections, or whatever reasons. “Sold internally” if you will. I’ve been tracking some stuff via the online ticketing, and there are interesting variations of availability. I haven’t bugged my ticket rep about it because I already bug him about enough other stuff and it’s just not that important.
But it’s interesting, nonetheless.
In the club level, I always blame the corporate nature of the tickets. My section is filled with ReMax, Waste Management, some Air Products–among others. People don’t own those seats, companies do–and they don’t always give them out and people don’t always come to the games. Plus, it’s not entirely clear to me how the tickets come to be owned by those companies: It seems they may be connected with advertising or suite ownership or both–and may not be “valued” the same way I value my seats when I have to reach into my pocket for that $4k.
But all this goes back to the same thing: why not have a clearing house or trading post where the tickets can get to folks who want them? Look, the ownership/managment spends so much time and money trying to sell tickets (and they do a good job)–once they’ve all been sold, why not try getting more people to USE them?
“The owners may not use them or may not sit in the seats–and may be afraid to give them up for fear that they won’t be able to get such good seats back.”
Good theory Kram but I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it when I never see no one in my row.
I do know people like you talked about that never show up. Two friends of mine have two seats in 108 I think in row D or E and maybe they make it to ten games a year but they just give away their seats any night that they don’t come to members of their family or they sell them on Craigslist.
But in my row and in the rown in front of me there just are rarely people there. As I type this I’m sitting here and it’s my family plus three others in a row of twenty and that’s the norm.
You are right that the powers that be make a ton of cash on the ancilliary sources of revenue and with that being the case they are leaving a ton of cash on the table year after year because even though they may announce 10K tickets were sold, but it’s more like 15-20% below that for number of bodies physically on hand most nights.