Cubs Tickets First Chance Pre-Sale

[gbpdc]

The Cubs are having a ticket pre-sale, they are letting fans buy tickets before the regular on sale date for a 20% premium. If you wanted to buy tickets to the home opener at Wrigley tickets would run from $26-$378 instead of $22-$315. It looks to me like an new way for the Cubs to scalp their own tickets. I know I am biased, but they have to be among the greediest pro sports teams out there.

 

I always give a friend of mine a bunch of grief this time of year because he is so optimistic at the beginning of the Cubs seasons. I told him last year the reason the Cubs won't win a championship this year or anytime in the near future is karma, they keep crapping on the fans and karma keeps crapping on them. My friend had no response to that argument, he knew I was probably right.http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/ticketing/first_chance_presale.jsp?affiliateId=panel_chc_mcfirstchancesale021210

 

I am curious, if the Brewers had an offer like this, would anyone here do it? I would maybe think about if for Opening Day, but I think I would rather just put the extra 20% towards a 9 pack.

[berniebrewer4life]

thought i would give it a try, and got in pretty quick. However the prices are crazy high(seriously, a 12% amusement fee, as well as 9% sales tax), so i said forget it.

[TooLiveBrew]

What this amounts to is the Cubs basically raising their ticket prices by 20%. Pretty shady move, and I don't like the precedent it sets.

[CheezWizHed]

Its almost as if they are testing the waters for how high they can raise prices. If they get a bad response, then forget it. If they get a good response: "Well, we must have been selling them too cheap to begin with"

[berniebrewer4life]

Pretty shady move, and I don't like the precedent it sets.

Yep, we could be looking at the next level of Tier pricing.

[owbc]

This will never catch on. The Cubs are basically saying that their high-income fans are more privileged than the average Cubs fan. Not only do wealthy fans get to sit in the more expensive seats, they now have the honor of buying tickets ahead of people who are struggling financially and looking to save money.

 

This is part of the Cubs continued plan to take advantage of an extremely loyal fan base that will love the team no matter what. Maybe it is smart marketing, but I think the better approach would be to raise tickets 20% across the board and then offer discounts to the fans that are willing to make the effort to seek out promotions.

 

Edit: For what it's worth, most of the fans on NSBB aren't taking the bait and are waiting for the normal prices on Friday.

[Funketown]

I don't see anything wrong with this. If fans are willing to pay a premium to buy tickets early, why shouldn't the club take advantage of it? This will basically help them recoup some of the money they've been losing due to scalpers.

[gbpdc]

The Cubs do all they can not to lose money to scalpers, they have done the scalping themselves:

 

Here is what the Cubs did:

The Tribune Company (owner of the Cubs) set up Wrigley Field Premium Ticket Services. Before the season even starts the Cubs take the good seats and sell them to WFPTS for face. WFPTS then can scalp the tickets at street market rate. There is some accounting trickery going on here also, but lets just limit this post to the scalping theme. So basically, the Cubs and their owner, The Tribune Company set up a ticket broker to try to harvest some of the "lost" revenue that other scalpers or season ticket holders were receiving.

http://lifeinthegreatmidwest.blogspot.com/2005/04/legal-ticket-scalping-by-cubs.html

[BadgerFan]

Seriously, the next time someone complains about the price of Brewers tickets (or that they have to pay $50 for an Opening Day ticket) I'm going to be sick. The service charge/taxes/fees of two upper deck tickets at Wrigley costs almost as much as the tickets themselves at Miller Park. Four bleacher seats for Cubs Opening Day (which are currently available) are $300! Heck, I'm selling two of my season tickets in the terrace for $1000!!! That's 2 tickets to all 81 games compared to three games in the bleachers at Wrigley. UNREAL.

 

Just goes to show that the Brewers really are one of the most fan friendly experiences in all of sports.

[Ennder]

The cubs won't win anytime soon because they have given a lot of terrible contracts to aging players who are trending the wrong way. Karma has pretty little to do with it.

[JohnBriggs12]

Here's a tip. The Brewers visited the Cubs for their opening series 2 years ago. Tickets for games 2 and 3 were plentiful and cheap (often under face) via the secondary online market as midweek April afternoon games tend to be.

[Funketown]

Here's a tip. The Brewers visited the Cubs for their opening series 2 years ago. Tickets for games 2 and 3 were plentiful and cheap (often under face) via the secondary online market as midweek April afternoon games tend to be.

Right, that's a good call. Two years ago, on a 55 degree windy April day, I saw an 8-2 Brewers victory that included a Jason Kendall double off the top of the wall and six solid Jeff Suppan innings. I got the tickets just above third base a few rows up in the upper deck for about $25 each. Although the attendance was announced at 35,000 or so, there were no more than 20,000 fans there at any time. You've got to think at least a few of those 15,000 fans who aren't willing to sit through a rainy, cold game are willing to accept just about anything for their tickets.

[bani1717]

This hardly seems much different than charging a marquee price for higher demand games to me.

 

The Cubs are basically saying that their high-income fans are more privileged than the average Cubs fan. Not only do wealthy fans get to sit in the more expensive seats, they now have the honor of buying tickets ahead of people who are struggling financially and looking to save money.

 

Isn't that basically what capitalism is to begin with? Buying tickets early is not about being wealthy - it's about who's willing to invest more in the team (highly correlated, but there is a difference). On top of that, for people buying the cheapest seats, that's an extra $4 per ticket, maybe $5 once you count fees. A family of four would cost roughly probably $125 to take instead of $105. After you factor in other expenses for going to the game (parking/subway, concessions, etc.) you maybe have $175 instead of $155. Not a huge difference. Besides, anyone really looking to go on a tight budget can still buy the SRO tickets on gameday for $15 each without any fees - I once went to a packed Saturday afternoon game on a whim in about the 4th inning and still got SRO tickets, so I doubt those hardly ever sell out (largely because they only sell them on gamedays).