wjag, on 06 May 2012 - 07:37 PM, said:
The price of Sabres tickets is ridiculous. All this talk of economics, supply and demand had me thinking about the price of NFL Sunday ticket... Last year I reached my breaking point and refused to pay that $334 rate. I know a lot of folks called DTV and bluffed their way into a cheaper rate. That's not my style to fake leaving. I called them and told them I wanted a reduced price or I would leave. When they would only drop it to 250 for me (others did much better), I told them they could keep it and walked away. That was the first time I did not have Sunday ticket since 1995. So now I see they are offering NFL Sunday ticket for 199 this year, I wonder if enough folks like me walked away that we actually did effect the price. It was not worth 334 nor 250. I'll pay 199 this year.
We've had this debate the past few years with the Sabres. With 16K+ "season ticket holders", I find it interesting that so many promotions are needed to get rid of those last 2k or so tickets for each game. You would think that with 1,000,000 plus in the Buffalo metro area with the help of So. Ontario and Rochester, and 90% of the arena sold out to 16,000.......that those relative few seats would be gobbled up in a second.
I've contended the season ticket holders are artificially holding up the price for the Sabres. They have taken away all the risk for the team because of pent up demand and fear of missing another run like '06-'07. Others have made good points about the ease of selling on the secondary market, but I feel that if the fearful few who buy the season tickets at all costs just stepped back and responded to actual performance, there is no way the team woul dget away with the prices they charge, especially in the prime sections.
If someone was always going to buy tickets no matter what, that is cool....but traditionally that is 6-8 thousand. With the performance of the team the past 2 years, you would be lucky to get 13-14k on an average night. I used to not be able to give away tickets back in the day. It's an interesting dynamic that has taken hold. I don't know how much is Buffalo specific, but to me it's the old Yogi Berra saying, "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." Yogi was chiming in about Chet and Muffy.