Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Yankees Season Ticket Holders Relocation Program

Much has been said of the Yankees season ticket holder relocation program. At this point, most of it being negative, meaning season ticket license holders are not happy with their new seats. I believe most are happy, but clearly there are many who are not. We all knew, including myself who is a ticket license holder, that demand would greatly outweigh supply. The first important fact is that we knew there would be less seats in the new stadium than the old stadium. The old stadium held 56,886 and the new stadium will hold 52,325 which includes standing room. Just some simple math concludes that there are at least 4,561 less seats. We also knew about the VERY expensive seats that jumped from $150 or so to $2500! Though there are not many of those seats, the "regular" fan who used to be able afford these expensive seats is now going to move back and take cheaper seats and let the corporations and the very rich buy the top-tier seats. Thus these people push back the next group of season ticket holders and so on, creating a domino affect. Many of those fans that had upper deck seats were pushed into the bleachers and those in the bleachers, which includes me, section 55 Row H last year, are probably going to be moved out completely. Unless of course, we can come up with $350 per seat, per game f0r the full season package. Folks, this is simple "supply and demand" and the demand is overwhelming. Also what did not help is the number of fans who "forgot" to fill out the relocation questionaire or for those who did, rejected their original seat assignment, hoping to get better seats. (Reminder that the Yankees clearly recommended NOT to reject the seat assignment.) Most were greatly disappointed. Today is March 10, and I have still NOT been contacted by the Yankees. In fact, I just placed another call today to the ticket office, my third call, and they said my plan, plan D, the Sunday plan, should be taken care of by the end of this week, or early next week. The ticket representative did say they cannot guarantee me anything, but that I would be placed on a waiting list if I was not assigned any seats and that I would get the same rights as any other license holder, short of having seats assigned to me, access to pre-sale tickets, etc. Time will tell and we will see. I am keeping my fingers crossed at this point. The fans I side with are the ones who have been season ticket holders for 20 to 30 years or more and got moved to horrible seats. I do not think this is the norm, but happened to "some" fans. I have listened to many who called into local radio stations in New York and say they had loge seats last year and were "dumped" out into the grandstand seats or the bleachers and were outraged. For those fans, I do feel sorry for and can understand their frustration. I do hope the Yankees can do something for those loyal fans and treat them right. I do think most fans have to understand though this was going to happen. With all the fanfare of a new stadium and the incredible signings, demand was going to be overwhelming and it would be impossible to accommodate everyone. I hope in the end all fans are taken care of the Yankees try to do the right thing. We have to remember that it is the $2,500 seats that subsidize the cheaper seats. Without the sale of those seats, I guarantee you my bleacher seats would be $25 a ticket and not $12. I was shocked when I heard my bleacher seats were staying at $12, which is all I can afford. I live over an hour from the stadium and with tickets, parking, etc. it is a very expensive day. At this point, I look forward to hearing from the Yankees and getting assigned a seat, any seats! I already bought tickets on my own for April 17 against the Indians. The seats are upstairs, but I do not care, I am in the building and will enjoy the game. I will keep you posted on what goes on with my tickets and hope for the best. Good luck to all season ticket holders...I hope you get the seats you want....and deserve.

PS - I did hear that when Lon Trost was on a local radio show in NY, he actually took down the names and numbers of fans that called in to complain and said he would personally try to "fix" the problems they were having with the relocation process. It sounded like a very nice gesture and I hope he followed through on it.

PSS - I also did hear that the Yankees goal is to keep 6,000-7,000 seats available for the general public to buy. This is something I DISAGREE with completely. Until all season ticket holders are taken care of, no tickets should be made available to the general public. They can buy them through 3rd party tickets agencies like the rest of us and take their chances. The tickets license holders deserve first shot and there should be no exceptions.

Brad

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