Adam Howitt's Blog

Apr 26
2006

Cubs tickets

At : 12:16 PM | Link | Sport | Comments (4) | Send | 569 Views |

Last night I was mortified to see that behind home plate at Wrigley Field, there were plenty of empty seats where season ticket holders elected to stay at home to keep warm.  I think this is absolutely ridiculous. 

A season ticket holder at the office, who was actually there despite the cold last night, told me that it is his prerogative to choose whether or not to turn up.  "It doesn't harm anyone if I don't turn up".  I disagree.  It is the season ticket holders who stay at home and the scalpers who can't sell their tickets who leave ball games empty.

I suggest that sports clubs around the world should begin instituting a 30 minute cutoff to allow real fans to see the games they want from good seats.  After 30 minutes, if the turnstile has not registered a seat as being taken by the ticket holder, the seat is immediately put back into circulation for the club to resell.  No refund for the ticket holder who missed the 30 minute cut off.  The club makes extra revenue and the best seats in the house are never left empty.  This would reduce scalping if people without tickets knew that there was a standby line to get in 30 mins after the game begins.

Please share this post with any sports franchise you are affiliated with and lets try to put the hardcore fans back in the seats.

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  1. No disrepect, but your premise seems flawed since the situation you describe sounds exactly like it was only the hardcore fans that were in the seats. Your issue really seems to be that there are not as many fans that meet your definition of hardcore.

    Posted By Brian Rinaldi : Posted At 4/26/06 11:27 AM
  2. There were hardcore fans in the seats and empty seats which were sold for the game to either season ticket holders or general public long in advance of the day. I have no argument with the people who were in the seats, it's the people who weren't there who had tickets. These are the people preventing others from getting good seats. I'm not saying surrender your season ticket, just let someone else use your seat if you won't be there.

    Posted By Adam Howitt : Posted At 4/26/06 11:42 AM
  3. I went to Cardinals game (I know we're rivals) last night to find the same thing and my 6-year old son was asking why we can't sit in the empty seats that were lower. I really didn't what to say to my boy who thought the game was sold-out.

    Although I don't entirely agree with your solution mainly because I think it would lead to other problems, but I think putting together a solution to solve this problem would certainly make watching a game more exciting for everyone.

    Posted By Rick Smith : Posted At 4/26/06 12:54 PM
  4. Isn't this the reason for places like StubHub.com ?

    There already are good outlets for getting those tickets back into circulation... And I'd be really wary of giving teams the power to resell seats at their whim, it just seems too easy for them to abuse.

    Posted By Barry : Posted At 4/27/06 10:45 AM
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