The Boston Red Sox have announced a price increase for single game tickets for the 2011 season. Here are the new prices vs last years prices
Maybe living in New England has jaded me a tad. With Fenway Park 6 miles from my home and TD Garden being the home of the Celtics & Bruins only 8 miles away the buzz over the World Series in Boston is non existent. Most bars I went to last night had the Bruins game on not the San Fran vs Phillies NLCS, as thrilling of a 3-2 game as it was. Come to think of it, I don't think its Boston. Somehow I feel that New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and all other major markets are in full NFL & NHL mode & gearing up for the NBA season. Where does this leave the MLB & their end of year "showdown"? My guess, in the toilet.
We heard constant complaints about the poor ratings for the Yankees vs Texas series, and the so-so ratings of the Phillies vs San Fran NLCS. Can you imagine the ratings of a World Series with NO major market team in it? Going up against the gridiron ratings machine of the NFL, this is not going to be pretty. Before the season starts, the NFL talks about how every team has a chance to play in the "Big Game" Everyone loves the fact their team has a chance to win, and while that may be great for the NFL & the Superbowl, the MLB is nowhere near this.
If the final teams that remain are the Pirates and the Rays, or in this years case the Giants and the... wait I already forgot.... oh yeah the Rangers. We are left with a week of baseball that cant and won't outrank next weeks episode of Dancing with the Stars. While I live in Boston and love the Red Sox, I also love watching the game of baseball being played on the biggest stage. I unfortunately am in the minority as most fans just want to see their team play, and I cant blame them.
So as far as this years World Series goes, sure I'll catch a game or two, but I feel like I will certainly be in the minority.
Love them or hate them, & around here its mostly hate, the New York Yankees are as solid of an organization as it gets. You can debate the payroll of the team all you want, but take a look at what the owners of other teams are actually worth vs what they financially decide to invest in their own team. You can go all around the country from the lowly Pirates to the premier Rays, most owners just don't pay. Same goes with other sports, owner are hard pressed to give their young talent long term contracts so they rarely hold on to the players that end up in Boston or New York. The Yankees pay, over pay but still pay. They also develop, as you can see by the up and coming players currently making a run at the World Series. And last of all they build. The new stadium is an investment made by the City of New York along with the Steinbrenner family to keep the money flowing in and their organization elite.
So how does this relate to our Boston Bruins you say? I know most Boston fans are instantly bothered that I am not comparing the Bruins to another Boston team like the Red Sox, Patriots or Celtics but lets look at the facts. The Red Sox hit their peak of popularity after the 2004 World Series. 2005 Was the biggest year for ratings, pink hats, ticket sales as well as tying up 90% of all sports talk radio with calls about the Sox. Since then, even though the 2007 year ended with a World Series run and victory, the popularity of the team and the overall "buzz" in the city has been slowly going down. The Bruins on the other hand if anything, are more like the 2001-2003 Red Sox. The buzz is finally back and you can just feel a championship is within their grasp... just not yet. You certainly can't compare them to the Patriots or the Celtics who are both at the tail end of their "dynasty" and heading straight into rebuilding mode. Both teams are in the process of finding and developing new, younger talent.
So this brings us back to the team I think the Bruins are more likely to become, the NY Yankees. Over the past few years the Bruins have drafted young guys like Milan Lucic, David Krejci, the new powerhouse goalie Tuukka Rask & our stud to be Tyler Seguin who have all become the foundation to their lineup. They have also shown that they will pay, and I mean PAY with the $20 million given to Tim Thomas last year. The 7 year $45.5 million contract extension handed over to Zdeno Chara, who happens to be & looks to stay the team captain for the remainder of his career. The $15 million 3 year extension given to Patrice Bergeron and I can go on and on. This organization has proven, at least to me as a hockey fan that they will continue to pursue the Stanley Cup with full speed. The closest organization I could think of, that in the next 2 to 3 years, has a solid if not Vegas odds on favorite chance to be fighting for a trophy is the New York Yankees.
The Boston Bruins have the City of Boston and their entire fan base all around the country buzzing with excitement. The fans believe in the team, they believe in the owners and they believe in the organization. Its a great place to be in as a fan, a place most Yankees fans know fairly well.
As a fan of the Red Sox its hard for me to care who was going to face the NY Yankees in the ALCS but I am glad the Tampa Bay Rays lost. To me that team stands for everything I hate about baseball. The ungrateful fans who cant even sell out a playoff game and when they do, and actually attend a make or brake game 5 of the PLAYOFFS you see them leave in the 8th inning because their team is down 5-1. Are you kidding me?? You guys are in a rush to leave early for what??? Your baseball season is OVER you cant give your team that fought hard all year for you the respect of staying 15 more minutes? Seriously it makes me sick and from the comments of a few Rays players past week I am not alone. Think about it fans, when a players contract is up why in the world would he want to stay in Tampa and play for such ungrateful fans that never even show up? Your team was a basement bargain joke of the MLB for years and now that you have a winner you STILL don't care?
This bring me to the other point of why I can't stand the Rays. What makes the Rays so good is their "Young Guns". The kids they brought up from their "Amazing" farm system over the past 5 years. Well have you ever asked what makes their farm system so amazing? Its pretty freakin simple. The Rays lost, they lost BIG, every year, over and over and over. They never spent a single penny on any free agents so they could purposely have awful seasons and have the first few picks of the draft year after year after year. WOW how brilliant I wish I had a guinness beer! The owners decide they don't want to spend ANY money on a team so they devise a plan to not even show up year after year and stock pile draft picks. In 5 years they finish last or close to last in the standing and have first dibs at the all star caliber talent from the draft. And when those players become all stars you have a winning team full of players making the league minimum $300,000-$500,000 instead of the $10 million they are worth. When the team controlled time for them is up you let them go and suck again for the next 10 years and stock up new draft picks. Can you imagine what sports would be like if every team did this? Can you imagine the Lakers tanking every year for 5 years so they could sign Dwayne Wade, Lebron AND Kobe? The Rays are a joke and as much as I hate the fact their fans don't show up and then walk out on them, a part of me agrees with them! This team does not deserve to be in the Major League Baseball organization, it makes me sick!
So the Boston Bruins lost on opening day again for the second year in a row except this time the blame goes to the NHL. What in the world makes them think that traveling to Europe to play 2 games during the regular season and coming back to the states is not a disadvantage. Not only do the players have to adjust to what, a 7 time zone shift but we as fans have to sit at home or drink at a bar at NOON on Saturday? Are you kidding me NHL? I don't have the time or energy to sit here and write out every reason for why the NHL is the worst run sports organization out of the bunch but hey lets see the last lock out went to who? Yup, the NHL, the same organization that was the LAST to accept the "mobile" transformation of their www.NHL.com website. That's right folks up until 2009 NHL.com wouldn't even load on cell phones in mobile format. Because they weren't sure if this cell phone thing would catch on, give me a break!
While I realize MLB sent teams to Japan to open the season once, but did you see them do it again?? Is the commissioner of the NHL that obtuse that he cant look at the other organizational failures and accept the fact that maybe your American League sport should stay in America? While it seems to be random luck which teams got selected to go and which did not, it seems unfair to take 2 games out of a 82 game season and make the team fly to the moon to play. Last time I checked no fans in Prague pay for Bruins season tickets, nor do they purchase any concessions at the Garden. Fans in Boston spend their hard earned money to support their team. In this economy its hard enough to pay your mortgage never mind take a family to any night out with the price of 4 tickets parking and food. Our countries unemployment rate is at 10% and you're worried about promoting the NHL franchises in Europe? Great job NHL my hat goes off to you, way to show support to the people that you desperately need to buy your tickets! Im not only speaking as a Bruins fan. How does this joke of a European trip help a bankrupt Phoenix team?? The fans in Arizona deserve to see their team score 5 goals on Tukka Rask LIVE, not at 9am West Coast time on a Saturday watching TV. Your team cant even support itself in its own city and you use it to promote your sport in another country? Yes lets take the execs from Enron and ship them to India to teach the people how build successful companies.
I am a hockey fan and always have been. The demise, re birth and now just plain stupidity of the NHL needs to stop. Stop screwing the hard working people that love your sport, you need us to survive!
My usual blog entries seem to run about 4 paragraphs longer then I intend them too so I just want to throw up a quick comment on the MLB Playoffs and their fans, from a brokers stand point of coarse. What most fans around the country seem to miss is that the majority of people enjoy winning but don't seem to want to pay for it. The word "fan" was shortened to describe a "fanatic" supporter of a team but as I watch the Tampa Bay Rays unable to sell out their home playoff games it makes me realize we need a new term for people who simply "like" a team. Don't start telling me about how the "economy" is the reason the Rays cant sell out a playoff game when tickets are selling for $15. Last time I checked the movie theater by my house charges $13.75 and they seem to always be packed. The Atlanta Braves, also in the playoffs were known to have thousands of empty seats every playoff game. This time around they might be able to finally sell out the stadium but only because their fans haven't seen a playoff game in years.
The only teams that seem to have "fanatics" watching are the Red Sox, the Phillies and the Yankees. These fans seem to support the team year round and go try to find a playoff ticket to this Saturdays Yankees game. Prices start at almost $200 PER ticket. Compare that to the empty blue seat in Tampa waiting for a fan. The people in New York, Boston and Philadelphia have truly earned the name "Fan". We need to find a new term for the people that "enjoy" an occasional baseball game in cities like Atlanta or Tampa. I say lets go the movie theater way, people that pay $13.75 to see a movie are called "movie-goers" So the people that refuse to pay $15 to see their teams live in the playoffs should be called "Baseball-goers" during the season, not "Fans"
In the ticket business we call these people "bottom feeders". While that term does bring some derogatory emotion you must see it from a ticket brokers point of view. The same 5% of the people call 1 hour before every single Red Sox or Bruins game wondering if they can get in the door for $15. The story is usually the same, years ago they waited until last minute to decide if they wanted to go to see their favorite sports team, and when they finally made up their mind it was 55 and misty outside. Or the team had just come home from loosing 4 in a row and the fan base along with the ticket prices went sour. At this point the so called "fan" was able to purchase tickets for nothing and got the bright idea that they should never purchase tickets in advance. Well I work for a ticket broker and let me set the record straight.
While waiting until last minute may pay off sometimes especially for an outdoor even since the price is so determined by weather, think about it. If its 55 and raining yes you can get Red Sox seats for 1/2 price but do you really care? Do you really want to sit in a half filled Fenway Park on a damp seat waiting an hour through a rain delay? Is that really worth "waiting" to save $20 a ticket? Better yet look at the Boston Bruins 1st pre season game Sep 25th vs Florida. Balcony tickets were selling for between $7 and $15 from June until 2 days before the game. You could have sat ON THE ICE for $35 to $40, as most of our Twitter and Facebook learned since they heard us constantly telling people PRICE WILL GO UP hurry up and buy! So what happened? Well 24 hours before the event the $7 Balcony seats jumped to $25 and the $35 Loges went to $60. 4 hours before the game on Saturday night it was $50 for the SAME balcony seats you could have purchased for $7 for over 3 months!! And those $35 Loge seats on the Ice? Forget about it they were NON existent since people all of a sudden realized "Hey this is Tyler Seguin's 1st game in Boston"
Another great example is whats happening right now in New York. NY Yankees fans LOVE to wait until last minute for every game since a large portion of them believe they aren't the types to EVER let anyone take them for anything. Well the Yankees are in the ALDS playing against the Twins, and seats to get in the door which for 2 MONTHS have been selling for $55-$65 are now upwards of $120 and climbing with inventory on the secondary market at 25% of what it used to be in the past week. Everyone who graduated high school, and even some folks that didn't can comprehend supply and demand. There are only so many seats at an arena, people seem to forget that sometimes. Once real fans purchase the seats from brokers guess what, they are no longer EVER available for sale because those fans are actually going to the game!! So I am writing this to give fans, especially the ones in Boston right now that think the Boston Celtics fiasco of Opening Day vs Lebron & the New Big 3 of the Heat will fall down to a $50 ticket, a wake up call. People love hype, radio stations and tv stations ratings are based on that exact hype.
What do you think every sports media outlet in the world will be talking about come 3rd week of October? Lebron and the Big 3 LIVE IN BOSTON! Keep that in mind as you wait for the Celtics vs Heat Opening Day Tickets to drop to the price of a movie ticket. Just do me a favor and start calling your friends now to see who's house you'll be watching the game at.
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