Season Ticket Holder Discussion Thread: Pt 3

[Husker Du]

I don't disagree, but they devalued season ticket prices when they started selling per game seats lower than what season ticket holders pay. They need to bring that in line.

This, to me, is one of the worst things you can do to sth’s. It shows that the organization takes us for granted and that “loyalty” is very much a one way street. Instead of trying to win back trust, the organization will raise ticket and concession prices like they always do.

 

[Drivesaitl]

It was Stu McDonald. He has been running tickets for the Oilers for 20 plus years. He made a rookie mistake as a long time marketing veteran. Don’t feel bad for him, he’s tight with the obc so his job is tenured.

Yep, that's the guy. Not sure how I couldn't remember his name but alas that is memory on the wrong side of 50..

How is it even possible a guy doing the job for so many years, and in contact with buyers and STH can be so out of the loop, in his mind, that he trotted out the cyber Monday sale. Like I said when you do that you alienate all the other people that buy at regular pricepoints, especially STH who are all in on their investment and put the money up front well in advance. Next, putting your product on sale creates an altered perception of what seats are actually worth. Once you go "groupon" or on sale, in any industry, you've altered the perception of what your product is actually worth. Its going to be hard to get people to unsee the Cyber Monday pricing.

 

[Husker Du]

Yep, that's the guy. Not sure how I couldn't remember his name but alas that is memory on the wrong side of 50..

How is it even possible a guy doing the job for so many years, and in contact with buyers and STH can be so out of the loop, in his mind, that he trotted out the cyber Monday sale. Like I said when you do that you alienate all the other people that buy at regular pricepoints, especially STH who are all in on their investment and put the money up front well in advance. Next, putting your product on sale creates an altered perception of what seats are actually worth. Once you go "groupon" or on sale, in any industry, you've altered the perception of what your product is actually worth. Its going to be hard to get people to unsee the Cyber Monday pricing.

I agree 100%, but I think the issue goes even further than the worth of tickets. By selling tickets in a “cyber Monday” type sale you have not only changed the monetary value of of the ticket, you have changed what the ticket represents. Season ticket holders are buying tickets to an event, an experience that is (hopefully) exciting and worth the price of admission. We all know that some games will be worth the ticket price and some games won’t, but if the team is performing at a satisfactory level overall this will work out fine.

When you cheapen tickets through cyber Monday sales you have turned the ticket into a commodity and it is no long about experience. Commodities can be substituted and thus are subject to pricing pressure (the race to the lowest common price denominator, e.g, Amazon). People will no longer see the ticket as an experience. Experiences can be premium priced because an experience is much more difficult to replace, commodities cannot be premium priced. You can see this effect on these very boards. Non season ticket holders often ask why sth’s don’t give up their tickets when the team is poor and tickets expensive. Ultimately sth’s have decided that the experience is still more valuable than the cost. But by changing the perception of tickets, the Oilers risk losing fans at a much faster rate.

 

[Stoneman89]

Yep, that's the guy. Not sure how I couldn't remember his name but alas that is memory on the wrong side of 50..

How is it even possible a guy doing the job for so many years, and in contact with buyers and STH can be so out of the loop, in his mind, that he trotted out the cyber Monday sale. Like I said when you do that you alienate all the other people that buy at regular pricepoints, especially STH who are all in on their investment and put the money up front well in advance. Next, putting your product on sale creates an altered perception of what seats are actually worth. Once you go "groupon" or on sale, in any industry, you've altered the perception of what your product is actually worth. Its going to be hard to get people to unsee the Cyber Monday pricing.

Stu McDonald is one more guy that has a job for life that takes customers for granted, it would appear. This fan base is passionate and crazy about this team, that having a full house hasn't been a problem for a decade at least.

Just as an aside, a buddy of mine went down to Palm Springs and through another friend that lives there, they went over for dinner to an Edmonton ex car-dealership owner, who recently retired from that and spends most of his time down there. He is a big player and has had MacT, Lowe and even the big fella, Darryl Katz over for dinner. Well, you know the inevitible question arose about how Katz is taking all of this bumbling and stumbling. At least outwardly, not as badly as you would think. He has a lot of other irons in the fire right now, and the Oilers bottom line has been humming along nicely for some time, missing playoff revenue not withstanding. I'm sure that grates on him, not for the citizens that pay for his palace, but for the lost revenue he doesn't get. The guy is about to get a reality check when those season ticket packages come up for renewal.

 

[Stoneman89]

I agree 100%, but I think the issue goes even further than the worth of tickets. By selling tickets in a “cyber Monday” type sale you have not only changed the monetary value of of the ticket, you have changed what the ticket represents. Season ticket holders are buying tickets to an event, an experience that is (hopefully) exciting and worth the price of admission. We all know that some games will be worth the ticket price and some games won’t, but if the team is performing at a satisfactory level overall this will work out fine.

When you cheapen tickets through cyber Monday sales you have turned the ticket into a commodity and it is no long about experience. Commodities can be substituted and thus are subject to pricing pressure (the race to the lowest common price denominator, e.g, Amazon). People will no longer see the ticket as an experience. Experiences can be premium priced because an experience is much more difficult to replace, commodities cannot be premium priced. You can see this effect on these very boards. Non season ticket holders often ask why sth’s don’t give up their tickets when the team is poor and tickets expensive. Ultimately sth’s have decided that the experience is still more valuable than the cost. But by changing the perception of tickets, the Oilers risk losing fans at a much faster rate.

The "experience", if you wish to call it that, is a dwindling entity for this team, IMO. When McDavid was given to us, and then when the new arena was opened, the novelty of the experience was incredible and the potential enormous. After 4 years of McDavid on a lousy team with endless strings of terrible and then meaningless games, and the big bang effects of the arena district wearing off, perhaps it really isn't the end all for a lot of people anymore and the list of other options may be growing.

 

[Husker Du]

The "experience", if you wish to call it that, is a dwindling entity for this team, IMO. When McDavid was given to us, and then when the new arena was opened, the novelty of the experience was incredible and the potential enormous. After 4 years of McDavid on a lousy team with endless strings of terrible and then meaningless games, and the big bang effects of the arena district wearing off, perhaps it really isn't the end all for a lot of people anymore and the list of other options may be growing.

It will be interesting to see if there is a significant increase in sth’s walking away. If these boards are representative of the broader base of ticket holders then it appears this will be the case.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

I turned down free tickets for last night's game and boy did I make the right choice...it's just not wasting 3 hours of my life and at least 50 bucks to watch a meaningless game at the end of the year

 

[madmutter]

Another thing to consider is the season tickets as a status symbol. Up until very recently conversations with non season ticket holders were about how long the wait list was, how lucky a person was to have tickets and the overall experience. Now those same conversations are about whether you are renewing, defending the decision if you are and how expensive and poor value it is. It's no longer perceived as something exclusive that you are proud to be a part of and that's not only because the team is poor. I think a lot of people renewed in years past because letting your tickets go meant years on the wait list if you wanted back in. These two factors could snowball big time.

 

[McJadeddog]

I turned down free tickets for last night's game and boy did I make the right choice...it's just not wasting 3 hours of my life and at least 50 bucks to watch a meaningless game at the end of the year

Yeah, for years and years I have made the trek to Edmonton to watch an Oilers game every year. There has been the odd year where it didn't work out for some reason (work, family, etc), but it was never because I didn't want to go. This is the first year in my adult life (so 20+ years now) where I didn't even look into going to a game, I never even considered it an option worth investigating this year. If I lived in Edmonton, the only way I would go to a game is if the tickets were free, AND I had nothing else to do that night.

 

[Stoneman89]

I wonder if there is a stat out there, as to how many people that cancel their tickets ever come back at a later time? I would think it would be a very small percentage. I know in Chicago they ran into serious problems under old man Wirtz, and it took years under his son to win people back, but I suspect they would be new season ticket holders, not the old ones.

 

[ibis284]

All these idiots have to do, and i stress idiots, is put a minimum allowable value on the resale site and the problem is solved. The flames do this, and I have told my rep this since last year. For instance I can’t put a resale price for my flames tickets for less than I paid for them as a STH. As a STH for both the flames and the oilers I can easily say &$@“ the oilers.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

It will be interesting to see if there is a significant increase in sth’s walking away. If these boards are representative of the broader base of ticket holders then it appears this will be the case.

I do not know a single company or person renewing unless they change their minds when push comes to shove.

 

[McJadeddog]

I do not know a single company or person renewing unless they change their minds when push comes to shove.

In my perfect world, the Oilers get ZERO season ticket purchases next season. Katz is beyond stupid, so the only way of possibly affecting him, is something drastic like that. I'm not even sure that such an event would force him to fire the OBC though to be honest, he would likely just find somebody/something else to blame. I truly believe Katz is simply "beyond help", and there is no way to influence him. He just doesn't need the team to make money, and them losing lots of money doesn't really affect him. When you combine that with his complete and utter disinterest in the team winning, well, it's not a good combination.

 

[Husker Du]

I do not know a single company or person renewing unless they change their minds when push comes to shove.

I wish there was a way for fans to track season ticket renewals. I’m really curious if people and companies will follow through on threatening to stop renewing. I suspect this will be the year where it snowballs on the Oilers.

 

[Cam98]

All companies I know who have premium seating are all saying they won't renew or considering not renewing, but with there overall business not getting hit drastically, they will maintain the business expense and renew.

 

[rboomercat90]

I wonder if there is a stat out there, as to how many people that cancel their tickets ever come back at a later time? I would think it would be a very small percentage. I know in Chicago they ran into serious problems under old man Wirtz, and it took years under his son to win people back, but I suspect they would be new season ticket holders, not the old ones.

I suspect the people returning at some point would be very low. Once you start making other commitments for your time and money those things become priority.

I suspect the Oilers will need to capture another generation of fans. They were able to do that in the nineties in the shift from the Pocklington ownership to EIG but I think it will be much tougher this time. Those teams were never so bad for so long. The memories of the dynasty years were still real for most fans. They were never the joke they’ve become under Katz ownership. I think the Oilers have lost a generation of fans under this mismanagement. Doesn’t help either that there are so many more distractions now than there were twenty years ago or that the ticket prices are out of reach for most people either when they were much more reasonable back then. Could be a long road back to recapturing what they had.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

I wish there was a way for fans to track season ticket renewals. I’m really curious if people and companies will follow through on threatening to stop renewing. I suspect this will be the year where it snowballs on the Oilers.

I think it is. Actually I know one company whose got a Loge table that’s downgrading to Club. Otherwise a clean sweep of non renewals.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Ideally if Katz' pocket takes a hit he'll actually try to do something to fix this mess. That said, look at how much Melnyk has done to sewer his teams brand. Katz is probably petty enough to dive salary to offset the losses out of spite like the whole Seattle trip BS.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

In my perfect world, the Oilers get ZERO season ticket purchases next season. Katz is beyond stupid, so the only way of possibly affecting him, is something drastic like that. I'm not even sure that such an event would force him to fire the OBC though to be honest, he would likely just find somebody/something else to blame. I truly believe Katz is simply "beyond help", and there is no way to influence him. He just doesn't need the team to make money, and them losing lots of money doesn't really affect him. When you combine that with his complete and utter disinterest in the team winning, well, it's not a good combination.

Many premium seats were sold on 7 year deals as well as 3 year deals. I hope they play better next year once they get a new management team in place!

 

[CanmoreMike]

The one responsible owned it. The name escapes me at the moment. It wasn't Nicholson it was one of the marketing guys. He acknowledged the mistake, said it was stupid to do, and owned it in that many words.

I called it out when I saw the Cyber Monday sale on tickets. I said the team can't do that without rumbles from season ticket holders. The tickets were reduced 40%.

How come an average monkey online gets this, that it would anger the STH base, and the big pay wigs in Oilers org didn't get it.

post # 131 ftr.

I should be in the media calling this **** out in realtime.

Were you at the Thursday morning breakfast when BN dropped Tobias Rieder's name out there?

I ask because I was the one who asked about Cyber Monday sale and it was Stu McDonald who took responsibility for it.

 

[Husker Du]

Ideally if Katz' pocket takes a hit he'll actually try to do something to fix this mess. That said, look at how much Melnyk has done to sewer his teams brand. Katz is probably petty enough to dive salary to offset the losses out of spite like the whole Seattle trip BS.

This is my fear as well. We complain about Katz being a bad owner, and he is, but he’s nowhere near as bad as Melnyk. Things can still get worse.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Were you at the Thursday morning breakfast when BN dropped Tobias Rieder's name out there?

I ask because I was the one who asked about Cyber Monday sale and it was Stu McDonald who took responsibility for it.

No I’m out of country for almost 4 weeks. Not back till April 5 so I missed all that. Good you asked about that. Sounds like he owned up to it at least.

 

[Killer Z]

I've been a STH since 2002, and am not renewing. My decision has nothing to do with trying to drive home a point to Katz and the Oilers, but simply that it does not make economic sense to commit to 41 home games and a few preseason games at a set price, when that set price is no longer less than the market value of the tickets. There is no incentive as there used to be.

I can now pick and choose the games I want to go to (i.e. the Friday and Saturday night games that I am around for), and pick and choose what seats I want to sit in. Even if I have to slightly pay a bit more for a couple of the games, I will surely come out ahead.

Easy decision. The only way I lose is if some how, some way, the market value of tickets rises above the STH price once again. Unlikely to happen even if the team becomes a playoff team, because the STH prices are already priced for perfection, and the Oilers will not cut their prices (but rather continue to raise them).

 

[Stoneman89]

No I’m out of country for almost 4 weeks. Not back till April 5 so I missed all that. Good you asked about that. Sounds like he owned up to it at least.

Giving him credit for owning up to it is all well and good, but this isn't some guy that just started the job yesterday. This moved sounds like it was made out of a point of desperation given the times and timing. A very poorly thought out plan that should really be responded to with a firing and nothing less.

 

[I am the Liquor]

Ideally if Katz' pocket takes a hit he'll actually try to do something to fix this mess. That said, look at how much Melnyk has done to sewer his teams brand. Katz is probably petty enough to dive salary to offset the losses out of spite like the whole Seattle trip BS.

The only way out of this circus is for him to sell. He has proven he isn’t interested in getting rid of the OBC.