Friday, February 12, 2010

Not so much "Presale" as it is a "sale"

The Cubs announced recently that fans will have the "opportunity" to purchase individual game tickets before everyone else during their "pre-sale" starting February 15th at 10am and going through noon on Feb 18th. For the privilege of buying tickets before everyone else, you need only pay 20% above face value. Ok - a couple of things:

1. If everyone can buy tickets during the "pre-sale", it's a SALE. Just call it what it is. There's not unique opportunity here. Everyone is invited. If you want the good seats, you gotta pay the good prices.

2. There's a business model that generates profit by inflating ticket prices of good seats and selling them above face value. It's called "scalping". Once again call it what it is.

Long story short - either fans are getting screwed or fans are getting screwed. Either you pay the inflated prices for the good games. Or you pay the regular prices for the games nobody cares about. Oh wait, they already have that in the tier system. So wait. I'm confused.

Long story short, I've only heard about the Cubs doing this which means they're the only franchise with the balls to try and pull it off. It's sad that withholding my money is the only way to protest which only means I'm depriving myself of the experience while 20,000,000 other lackeys step into my place.

1 comment:

Ace said...

Well said. It also can't be a "pre"-sale when the Cubs are the one who get to choose the "sale" date. Might as well call the "sale" date the "post"-sale.