by buying tickets game to game rather than season tickets?

There's a groupon deal for the sideline bleachers (even the 50 yard line seats) for $30 a pop. I think the season tickets worked out to something like $240/game for those, though that might've been before they lowered prices when no one bought the seats. And since groupon takes half (?) that means Cal really values those seats at $15 for this game despite charging 10-15x that in the season ticket packages.

(yes, I bought season tickets, I just think its ridiculous to charge more for season tickets than for buying singles. Way to screw your loyal customers.)

boredom;560636 said:

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(yes, I bought season tickets, I just think its ridiculous to charge more for season tickets than for buying singles. Way to screw your loyal customers.)

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what do you want them to do? give back money to every season ticket holder or leave seats empty? They mis-calculated demand, yes. they probably should have figured out a way to get donors into better seats and then sell the nose-bleeds in these groupon type deals. but teams are always adjusting ticket prices and having deals when games aren't sold out.

USC isn't going to be available with any deals though. Presby? of course we all knew that wouldn't sell....

I think a lot of people are wondering that now but we are paying for privileges in case some games are tight tickets and if the team is really good.

Ok....you can get that deal for the Presby game. Good luck finding a cheap USC seat.

http://www.stubhub.com/cal-football-tickets/cal-vs-usc-10-13-2011-1026185/

CalBearRJ;560859 said:

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Ok....you can get that deal for the Presby game. Good luck finding a cheap USC seat.

http://www.stubhub.com/cal-football-tickets/cal-vs-usc-10-13-2011-1026185/

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the middle section of the sideline bleachers for which Cal asked $240 per game (I think that was the $1200 for season tickets section) is going for $125 for USC on stubhub at the moment.

I think the $240 might've been repriced down but I don't recall the details of it. Either way, even the one hot ticket of the season is going for below face value.

Even without deals, those same premium sideline tickets against 2nd best opponent on the schedule (Utah) through Cal's ATO can be ordered for $85.

Quote:

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what do you want them to do? give back money to every season ticket holder or leave seats empty? They mis-calculated demand, yes. they probably should have figured out a way to get donors into better seats and then sell the nose-bleeds in these groupon type deals. but teams are always adjusting ticket prices and having deals when games aren't sold out.

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I'm not sure. I'm not asking for money back, I just hope they at least internally acknowledge they screwed up and not do this same crap next year. Other things they could do (just spitballing ideas)... season ticket holder events, giveaways, discounted bowl tickets. But mostly I'm concerned that they're going to continue to make it financially stupid to buy season tickets.

boredom;560884 said:

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I just hope they at least internally acknowledge they screwed up and not do this same crap next year.

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They didn't screw up. The goal is to extract as much money as possible from the general public.

They know there's a loyal group that is going to buy season tickets because they've always bought season tickets and they charge as much as they think they can get from this group. Once that group has committed, then they start discounting tickets to get more sold and bring in additional dollars from people who wouldn't otherwise go to the games.

It's not a good long term strategy because some season ticket holders wise up after years of getting milked and eventually stop buying season tickets. In the meantime, though, athletic department salaries get paid with the money they bring in.

Are season tickets supposed to be a discount vehicle? Isn't the whole point to raise money for the school? If one is donating anyway, what difference does the cost of a stubhub ticket make?

R90;560910 said:

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They didn't screw up. The goal is to extract as much money as possible from the general public....It's not a good long term strategy because some season ticket holders wise up after years of getting milked and eventually stop buying season tickets. In the meantime, though, athletic department salaries get paid with the money they bring in.

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Yup. I do think however that the Athletic Department did overestimate how much the lower seating capacity of AT&T would affect the supply demand relationship.

Question, do you get more Bear Backer points, or whatever the brownie points are, from making an outright donation of $1000, or from buying season tickets at $1000 over their market value?

Cal84;561013 said:

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Question, do you get more Bear Backer points, or whatever the brownie points are, from making an outright donation of $1000, or from buying season tickets at $1000 over their market value?

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You get 1 point for every consecutive year of season tickets, 5 points for every year of consecutive $100 donations to bear backers, 1 point for every $100 of current year giving, and 1 points for every $200 of lifetime giving.

So a season ticket + donation would be slightly better than donation due to the season ticket.

In terms of benefits, football season ticket holders have priority over all but the highest non-ticket holder donors when it comes to bowl tickets and regular season presales. Would expect the same in the future too - and with 63k capacity, I would expect the presales to be far more important for things like getting tix for friends.

If one just wanted to go to games at AT&T, in hindsight, it would have made the most sense to buy the cheap seats in the upper deck and then buy club seats/ bleacher seats for a huge discount for every game. then go with a group. But then what happens next year?

Cal suffers from very imbalanced odd year/even year schedule as of late with Oregon/Stanford/UCLA being home games in even years and only USC of note in the odd years. At least we do get tOSU in 2013. But I'd guess that if we had the CMS remodel in an even year, AT&T would be an extremely hot season ticket.

Being a Bear Backer/Cal Grad/Supporter isn't about bargain shopping and internet 'e-deals' on game tickets. The money goes to a much better cause than helping a bunch of douchey hipsters getting 30% off of their yogurt or burrito.

I'd love to see the sideline bleacher section at AT&T full.
1)because that's where I bought my seats and there is nothing I enjoy more than a sell out college football or basketball game.
2)they are really good seats that would be a shame to have empty, the team deserves Cal fans filling these sections.
I don't care if Cal sells them for less or whatever but there is still time to sell these seats to Cal fans, AD needs to make this happen.
-Maybe make the Pres game free.
-Market the promise of the team this year especially if we beat CU and the programs future with new Memorial and the SAHPC
-Lower the prices to a level that will allow people on a lower budget to buy season tickets.
-Market like crazy (this means real targeted outreach) the fact that if they buy a season ticket to AT&T they will have priority at New Memorial and make sure it's clear and simple.
-If lowering the ticket prices just assure all that have already bought in these sections at a higher price they will be given priority at new memorial when choosing location and there will not be an issue.
Time to get really agressive and creative to fill the small stadium we are in this year. This is their last shot to make a move to get AT&T as full as possible.
They need to go hard after every single person that has ever bought season/single game tickets before and let them know how much they are needed and appreciated. Simple customer service.
If the prices are competitive enough we will also pick up new fans and hopefully retain them in the future.
Our rival has lowered prices to such a low level we need to do the same, even last minute, this year of transition.
AD better do something because what they have been doing so far has not worked, has appeared disconnected and cold.