This is "pulling out all the stops to get butts in the seats"? It sounds more to me like something a football team would mention on their social media, etc. that would be of slight interest to their fans. Oh yeah, that's all it's supposed to be. Let's move on.
They're selling the Spirit of Edmonton's famous sluice juice in the stadium for the first time too! How dare the Eskimos try something different (for them) that could actually be kinda fun if the weather's decent. Don't worry cynics, it probably won't be so you'll be able to write this all off as another fail. Good thing you didn't see that they're bringing back the dogs at half time so you can bleat about how desperate they are when in fact it's actually really nice-to-hear news to those of us who still go to the games. They have to do something at half-time, geniuses! Finally, imagine how much howling you'd be doing if they were't announcing anything to help hype a match-up that actually sort of of sells itself if you think about it.
ZING! Wow, you really got 'em with that one, DP. All I can say is that I still get to see 10 live pro football games this year for just under $300 when I renew my season seats. At <$30 a game myself and my 5 fellow seat holders don't feel we're being ripped off despite the myriad of things to complain about (including the all-too crucial performance of the team itself on the field at times) while spending time outside watching the highest level of live pro football available to us here in Edmonton. I get complaining about Oilers' ticket prices based on results alone (I dropped my mini-pack 2 seasons ago) but the Esks for the most part have been comparatively successful since the disastrous 4W 14L 2013 season in which they won just once at home. The Eskimos are a highly imperfect community-owned business who are in a mostly self-induced downward cycle re. fan support right now. The truth is that lots of people have already voted against them with their feet. I believe it's very unfair and just plain dumb to piss on their early efforts to try to win back ticket-buying fans. Based on cost alone, I find DP's little comment to be way more suitable for the Oilers than the Eskimos. Of course that's just me being a green & gold Kool-Aid drinking die-hard, right guys?
Myself I don't mind the promotions so far this season. Tom Cochrane is solid.
But with the STH pricing how do you get just under 300bucks when everybody else see's 332bucks. You don't mean knothole do you? Those are hard to sell tickets being in the corners, behind the endzone, and very difficult to watch a game from. Very poor quality seats. Next, the Esks keep quoting 11 games which is misleading. 1 game is Exhibition, another is Junior Football. So only 9 games that are meaningful. Although fans have no option on a price discount just to see the 9 games. So to me that works out more like 36.6bucks per game. Of course the Oilers are more experience. In the NHL you're seeing the best players in the world, and more of the world plays Hockey. In the CFL you're seeing players almost exclusively not good enough for the NFL and when they are they don't stay here long. Additionally as a fan you're seeing another league with joke officiating, and often times bad management and coaching. Any given weekend you'll see a product where you wonder what the coaches do with the players all preseason and all week every week.
When you see a guy like Robinson run the ball out of the Endzone to the half yard line, and then get stuffed back to the endzone. You wonder if one coach mentioned to him or the team, to NEVER do this in that situation. Plays like that leave me cold. To me it makes it look like I'm seeing an amateur run product.
Been following the league for 50yrs and its losing me as a fan. Not just the Eskimos. The whole league. The chronic Toronto, Vancouver indifference. The Montreal gongshow. The aborted Atlantic Canada expansion.
In anycase a lot of people don't buy STH. So the bottom for pricing is around 45bucks/ticket unless one goes with the corner discounted promotions, which are continually less of a discount to bother.
Lets see. 31 bucks for a bad seat to what has become a pretty bad product. Most people pass. The product has deteriorated vastly because the CFL has immense difficulty retaining quality players it gets. They throw the bank roll at QB's in desperate attempts to retain but not much left. The Caps are not competitive.
