jglicksm

Every team does it differently. Some say you need to use (between you and your designated season ticket partners) at least 50% of your games. Some say 30%. Some markets have no rule. Currently there is no rule about this in the contract with the Jays, but expect it to come. It exists in Cleveland and, I could stand corrected but, I believe it was instituted when Shapiro was running the show. That being said it must be really hard to enforce. I give a lot of my games away as PDFs to my friends and family. How can they distinguish that from PDFs I use or for that matter those sold on the corner outside the Rogers Centre? You have to think that the people seeking to "abuse the system" will always be a step or two ahead of the team- it probably isn't worth the cost of proper enforcement.

I think the low price on the secondary market has less to do with brokers and more to do with the average Joe who bought 81 games and figured they could flip 60-70 of them and use the other 10 either because they wanted better seats, season ticket perks (what a joke as alluded to), access to playoff tickets (I am still foolishly hopeful)or the "prestige" of having season tickets. That will take care of itself for all these reasons and those outlined earlier. Remember that every city has brokers. I've travelled to cities where teams have poor attendance and had to pay more than in Toronto tickets are going for this year because they are less desperate people on the secondary market. I know the Jays are tracking Stubhub, but the brokers try to avoid stubhub as much as possible since it eats away so much of their skim. The Jays have other methods to track patterns suggestive of being a broker- credit cards, IP addressses, use of VPN's, ridiculous numbers of seats registered to one person and other account irregularities. I don't think the Stubhub partnership will be what let's them weed out brokers (if they even want to), but rather they will use that data to do a better job pricing their tickets.

Ya, I got the survey too. Surveys like that are tough to read. People that feel strongly are more likely to fill them out. Also, since not anonymous (you had to put your season ticket member ID in) it is hard to know if responses would be biased by that, but your point is taken that they are making an effort. My counter is that you don't really know what you have in any transaction until cash changes hands or a card is swiped. I still think they don't know what's coming, or that they would expect it to be bad enough to lower prices. I know some of my friends that also have seasons would stick around if they lowered them. The truth is that the prices where I sit are up over 65% for me and 80% if I was a non-renewal account vs. when I signed up for my tickets only 2 years ago. My seats are fantastic (row 1, 500 level, right above the broadcast booth), but even for me it's getting to the point where I'm thinking twice about renewing... I have no trouble getting rid of my seats since I have a few people I share with, but at some point they'll wonder if it is worth it-- they pay $14 a ticket on a Wednesday against a meh opponent (which isn't terrible at all), but can get seats 2-3 rows back for $2 on tickpick and not have to plan around games they committed to 4 months prior. They may be better off overpaying for the few "hot" games on the secondary market and then making up for it on the cheap ones, plus have the flexibility to choose games up to a few hours before they start. Furthermore, now I can't share my season ticket privileges like I used to be able to-- the perks are locked to my card and can't go to a season ticket partner. Last year they loved getting my perks. The Jays are making other big mistakes too. I am baffled that they are restricting numbers of STH's that can go to events that used to be open to everyone. If you have seasons in Boston, for example EVERYONE gets to take batting practice on the field. It isn't published in a brochure, but it is offered every single year. They also have cocktail nights with management, again open to EVERYONE, among other things they do for account holders. The Jays on the other hand keep cutting back, saying they have too many STH's to accommodate everyone (even though the Red Sox have a much larger base of season ticket holders and accommodate EVERYONE for more and better events). If you don't give reliable perks to your season ticket holders why pay more for more games?

I bet there are teams out there that at some point reduced ticket prices between seasons, but nothing that I can think of or that I could find with google. Usually prices either stay the same or go up. It would take a huge drop in attendance to get them to lower prices, and at least this year the attendance has stayed reasonably high (top in AL for that matter) notwithstanding poor on-field performance. Even when you consider that people will probably think twice about renewing, management won't know the drop is coming for sure until the renewal period opens, and by then the prices are set

Think prices will go up 40% again this year?

So you are selling the games you can't use? Or you bought a 20 game flex pack and are selling every single game from it? Let's just be honest with ourselves here...

The Red Sox have their own system called Red Sox Replay. They don't have an agreement with StubHub

I'm planning to be at that series too. Fenway is awesome. I lived in Boston for a year and my wife is from there. If you need any recommendations let me know!

Ya you can check in at any stadium.

Do you live in Boston?

I doubt they're holding much back. In the lower deck there's very little left on the season ticket map. Similar for anything worthwhile in the 500-level. Some of that will eventually be released and I think that will go in the single game and game pack pool, but it will be very hard to "time the market," since they won't announce when they will be released.

I have row 1 (524) if you're ever looking. A friend of mine is a few sections over in row 5 and they are fantastic. I wouldn't go above row 10 unless you have to- there's a good reason the price drops after row 10.

I suspect the weekend package will be most popular. The other one that people may like is the Home Opener package since people are obsessed with the Opener and it ends up being about $11 per ticket for the other games (the home opener is $24 in a flex pack). *prices based on 500 level

Definitely no guaranteed access to post-season. They say that explicitly. With that in mind, the price per game is almost identical to a 20-game pack (within 10%), so it's still a pretty good deal if you are OK with a set of 6 games they are offering.

What you've said is correct. Part of it, however, is also lifted verbatim from a TSN broadcast I just watched.

The content of what I am about to post disappoints me and surely won't be popular, but here it goes anyway: It looks like EE is about to sign in Houston. Multiple sources are reporting this now on Twitter. While they aren't the "big name" sources like Ken Rosenthall, Jon Heyman, Shi Davidi (he's big in Blue Jay circles at least), etc..., many of these sources are followed by these very people (among 1000's of others), which makes me think that this is more than just a casual rumor. Furthermore, big names have suggested that the Astros are looking to load up on offence. Given that they lost out on Cespedes, EE really seems like the next logical move: Ken Rosenthall tweets yesterday: "One rival exec theorizes #Astros trying to load up on offense so they can trade a young hitter (Springer? Bregman?) for an elite starter." "Source confirms: #Astros made big run at Cespedes, as @Buster_ESPN said. Encarnacion as 1B/DH also would fit. Gurriel could be 1B/DH/LF." I think most of us expected to have to move on from EE, but given recent (yesterday!!!) reports that the Blue Jays were showing Edwin "the most love," this feels like a big let down. I hope I am wrong on this one, but if not, at least he isn't going elsewhere in the AL East.

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I agree it makes sense. A friend of mine suggested it to Brookes on Twitter before he resigned and he was dismissive saying there is more of a bump (do to people arriving early and buying concessions) on Sunday's than there would be during the week (that would be a benefit mostly from ticket sales because people don't drink as much during the week/ spend as much on concessions). While I agree it makes sense, I think people that bought flex packs expecting the usual Sunday-heavy promotion schedule will feel let down if this happens in 2017, even though they Jays made no promises that the trend would continue.

I got an email survey from the Blue Jays today asking all sorts of questions about promotions. In particular they asked about whether I would be more likely to go to a mid-week game (Monday to Thursday) if there were promotions like bobbleheads. Interestingly, other teams (e.g. Red Sox) do a lot of promotions mid-week in order to increase attendance those days. Furthermore, the Jays explicitly said promotion days are to be announced at a future date when flex packs (sorry, game packs) went on sale. I wonder if they intentionally are holding back on the promotion schedule. I suspect a lot of people arranged their flex packs under the assumption that promo's would be on Sunday's. They could be pretty disappointed. Anyone else get this email? Did you have the same impression?

I think that this was as good a year as it gets to have season tickets, but that doesn't mean it will always be that way. They've made season tickets more restrictive too for next year. If you miss a game or the ticket is otherwise unused you can't trade in next year. They've tiered off games and restricted trade ins based on tier. Whereas in 2015 midweek uppers often sold for multiples of face, this year midweek games in September were cheap on stubhub. The fan base has proven they will come and watch success, but they won't pay to watch the team struggle. If the team doesn't have a strong year the bandwagon will roll away and so too will the profits of people with season tickets that are reselling.

Offering you the actual bobbleheads, not ticket to those games. That is to say they'd come in a box in two shipments (August and October/November). That means no waiting in line at those games. PM me and let's connect offline.

Hey Stubbinhubb-- I see you just joined and welcome to the forum! I think you are mistaking both the name and definition of the term you are trying to use. Negative OPTION billing is the phrase you are trying to reference. It refers to when a company makes you take a service unless you say no. For example, if you had a package with Rogers without HBO and then they decided that they wanted you to take it, then sent you notice in the mail saying "if you don't reply by X date we will give you HBO and add Y dollars to your bill." They actually did something like that in the 1990's. It was deemed illegal and they had to pay a lot of people back, and that was around the time they started to get a bad name in the public eye (and haven't really recovered in image, albeit their bottom line is still great). I echo the comments of the other posters. They are simply catching up with the times and saying- why should we let the scalpers get all the money? I think you're mistaken about scalpers getting season tickets. They actually mainly get flex packs, for the exact reasons you've specified (it used to be a really cheap way to snag up all the weekend games that can be sold for big money). I will also point out that playoff tickets were way easier to get this year than last year. A friend of mine without a flex pack managed to log in to ticketmaster an hour after seats went on sale and got the games he wanted (wild card, ALDS and World Series 1 + 7). Last year every time playoff tickets opened up they sold out within 10 minutes. As a season ticket holder, I can tell you that it is a blessing and a curse. I love having access to any game in AMAZING seats in the 500 level, but hate getting stuck with a random Tuesday or Wednesday in April. I think I can solve both our problems, though. Private message me if you'd like. I can sell you some of the games you seem to like going to at cost. You can buy as many or as few games as you'd like. Also, I have the ability to buy (well already bought) two promo packs, so you can get all those bobbleheads you want, if you you take at least 10 games. That offer is good for anyone on this forum, but I am directing it to you since it completely fixes all the problems you are complaining about (assuming you're not complaining because you can't make money off flex packs and use the profits to attend the games you go to for free.

Not much has gone right this week. With that in mind, we can always count on Tim and Syd to lift us up. Let's reminisce about the "good old days" before the current rock bottom, on a night where both the Red Sox and Orioles, who we trail, are losing! http://www.sportsnet.ca/shows/tim-and-sid-show/tim-sid-showcase-rock-bottom-really-jays-fans/

I hope you get lucky and let us know if you do. Based on season ticket availability/ sales I don't think that's left though...

If anyone doesn't like the seats they get (particularly in 500-level), feel free to get in touch. Looking for people to split my seasons with.