Ticats’ game with Als a tough ticket
If you want to attend the Hamilton Ticats’ exhibition game against the Grey Cup champions, you’d better make friends with a season-ticket holder.
The Tiger-Cats announced Tuesday their only home pre-season game, against the Montreal Alouettes on June 22, will be an exclusive event for subscribers and “their friends.?
There will be no public sale, with the season’s ticket holders deciding who else gets into the game. Each subscriber is eligible to obtain 10 free tickets he or she can distribute to whomever they choose.
“There are two reasons for doing this,? says Jim Edmands, the Ticats’ vice-president of sales and marketing. “One is that we’re always looking for unique ways to give our season ticket holders value-added benefits over what the public gets and what any other ticket buyers in southern Ontario get. And the value added is that the season ticket holders themselves determine who gets to go.
“The second was to provide a fantastic atmosphere for the teams. Traditionally, pre-season games don’t sell as well as regular-season games. We’re proud of the strides Bob O’Billovich and the coaching staff have made with this team and there has already been a lot of excitement about them.? The Cats are vague about their subscriber base and the number of tickets they represent, but it’s believed about 14,000 seats at each game are spoken for by season ticket holders.
“There aren’t enough seats to accommodate 10 for every season ticket holder,? Edmands said, “so it’s first-come, first-served.?
Edmands says his marketing team hasn’t heard of any other professional sports franchise that has distributed tickets this way.
“The closest was probably when the (Toronto Maple) Leafs added an extra exhibition game and then got a partner (Coca-Cola) and distributed all the tickets through the partner,? he said.
If there are any tickets left over — which Edmands doesn’t think there will be — they’ll be available for purchase by the general public just five days before the game.
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Interesting, but I don't think it's a good idea on several levels. Are you really 'incentivizing' consumers? Sure, you're exposing more people to your product, but alarm bells go off anytime I hear the word FREE and football tickets together. Yes, it's preseason, but aren't you devaluing your brand by handing out roughly 14,000 freebies, and training people to wait for discounts?
Won't this be a cluster for getting people seated? You in Section X may only use 5 of the 10 seats, while another season ticket holder in Section Y needs all 10, but finds out his friends can't sit with him because of other season ticket holders around him. Do they go to Section X to sit? Ticket Reps are going to have migraines.
Lots of teams give free tickets to the pre-season game. In Winnipeg season ticket holders have been getting a buddy ticket voucher for years. I think they have those in Saskatchewan too. I agree that 10 free tickets for each season ticket holder is a lot but considering Hamilton has had under 20,000 fans each of the last 3 pre-season games why not just try to fill the stands and have some fun.
Having a full stadium for a pre season game is a WIN - WIN, the atmosphere will be great and the concession sales will double, not to mention merchandise !! :thup:
I think it's a great marketing idea.
If the place is full, then next year, but wait no IW in 11, could have been another angle instead of 10 freebies, go down to 5 or try another innovative scheme.
The TiCats are doing a season preview conference call right now. According to Scott Mitchell (via twitter feeds of TiCats and some sports reporters), there’s been a 12% growth in ticket sales, a 90% season ticket renewal rate and more than 1000 new season tickets sold. There’s also been a 19% growth rate overall and the team passed the $1,000,000.00 mark in merch sales for the first time.
Sounds like both Hamilton and Toronto are seeing some improvements in ticket sales this season. This is good news for the CFL as these 2 markets have been the weakest in the league.
It's looking good for the CFL attendance wise.
I'll be very interested to see how it goes in Toronto this season as far as crowds. Definitely better than last year.
According to Scott Mitchell, we have a 90% renewal rate and 1000 more season ticket holders, so that sounds pretty good. I yearn for the day the Ti-Cats say that they broke even.
Great news for both the Riders and Ticats. :thup: Riders selling out their season ticket allotment is becoming a routine occurrence, but the Ticats moving over $1 million in merchandise is somewhat surprising but very impressive
One million before the season starts? That's wild. Good for them. I wonder who the fav jersey is. Stamps season tickets are up just a little from last year, virtually the Same. Still down from 09. Could be an awsome season.
Lions President Dennis Skulsky earlier said the club was hoping to get 20,000 season ticket holders. In a recent interview though, he phrased it as the club is trending "10% above last year" which IMO, isn't anything to brag about in a Grey Cup hosting year and moving into a fully refurbished stadium in September. My guess is 20,000 might be overly optimistic.
Simply put, the Lions are getting wiped out by the Canucks' Tsunami. The club will soon be heading to training camp where they usually enjoy front page coverage and lead the TV sports news. With the Stanley Cup Finals here however, they're going to be relegated to the back pages. Football? Here?? Now??? Really????
Worse, local sports fans - already taxed to death and paying the most outrageous real estate prices in the land - are forking out left and right for their beloved hockey team. Hats, jerseys, car flags, tickets, more car flags, beer, nachos....burning gas showing off their car flags, road trips to Nashville and San Jose, scalped tickets....there just seems to be no end to their devotion; I can see a lot of people being "tapped out" for football tickets once the hangover ends and it comes time to pay the Visa bills.
I think that part of the problem could be that the Lions are trying to sell season tickets involving 2 different stadiums. If you look on the BC Lions ticket site you can see how all of the sideline seats are sold out at Empire Field leaving only corner and endzone seats. For an example you could pay $450 for Coaches Sideline tickets which means you sit in the corners at Empire Field for 6 games but only get 4 games of great seats at BC Place. I’m sure if all the games were to be played at the newly renovated BC Place Stadium you would see an easy 20,000 season tickets sold and perhaps 25,000 for this Grey Cup year.