BerkeleyBear;842370979 said:

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It is my understanding is that the 49ers control the all of the seating at Levi's Stadium and they reserved the premium tickets for the Cal-Oregon game for their season ticket holders to purchase, and after those tickets were reserved the 49ers allocated certain blocks of the remaining tickets to Cal.

Given the blocks of seats that Cal was allocated by the 49ers, Cal attempted to assign those seats to Cal season ticket holders so that the Cal season ticket holders would have seats that would provide a similar experience to the seats that they have in California Memorial Stadium, which, of course, is not going to be a perfect or ideal one to one match in many or most cases.

The unsold seats that were reserved for the 49er season ticket holders were then put on sale by the 49ers to the general public. Those unsold seats were not offered by the 49ers to Cal.

Essentially, the 49ers did not allocate enough good seats to Cal to accommodate all of Cal's season ticket holders properly. The 49ers kept most of the best seats for themselves. One can argue that Cal did not negotiate a good enough deal with the 49ers, and that may be the case, but I'm not sure that Cal was in a position to negotiate a much better deal.

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Like Cal has so many premium season ticket holders .... :p

Cal obviously had no "bottom line" beyond which they would tell the 49ers to shove it ... that is NOT negotiation.
That's begging for crumbs.

A very bright spot for this season is that whatsherface is at PedoU.

But this isn't a bowl game. It's supposed to be a home game.

BerkeleyBear;842370979 said:

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One can argue that Cal did not negotiate a good enough deal with the 49ers, and that may be the case, but I'm not sure that Cal was in a position to negotiate a much better deal.

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How do you figure? There was a much better deal on the table, at least for season ticket holders. It is called Memorial Stadium. If the 49ers would not guarantee Cal's season ticket holders would get similar seating, Cal always had the option to say no to the deal. Cal made a concious choice to take the possibility of extra money over guaranteed seating, since the latter was always available at Memorial.

Those ticket holders who are asked to make large donations to get their season tickets have a right to be upset. If you want to sit in a certain section, you are essentially promised that for every home game for a fee. Unless of course they decide to sell the home game to the 49ers or some one else in order to get out of that commitment. This is not a bowl game. It is a home game. Cal always had a choice. IMO, it is worse than selling to the highest bidder. They sold to the highest bidder (collectively, the donors), and then with the cash in their pockets sold the same rights to the next highest bidder.

I think it is extremely poor policy, both from an ethical perspective and from an overall strategy perspective. It is no better than selling the season ticket package with the donation and then coming and saying - you know what, sorry, but if you want to sit in the same seat for the Oregon game, you'll just have to pay us $100 more for that. I imagine they will lose some discretionary donations over this, and frankly I think they should to send the message that you don't get to take the donation and then sell the rights to individual games at the donor's expense. If I were that level of donor, I would seriously consider reducing my discretionary donation by a pro rata share of the the mandatory donation for football that would be allocated to the Oregon game had it been played at home, and be sure to tell them what I was doing.

OaktownBear;842370999 said:

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How do you figure? There was a much better deal on the table, at least for season ticket holders. It is called Memorial Stadium. If the 49ers would not guarantee Cal's season ticket holders would get similar seating, Cal always had the option to say no to the deal. Cal made a concious choice to take the possibility of extra money over guaranteed seating, since the latter was always available at Memorial.

Those ticket holders who are asked to make large donations to get their season tickets have a right to be upset. If you want to sit in a certain section, you are essentially promised that for every home game for a fee. Unless of course they decide to sell the home game to the 49ers or some one else in order to get out of that commitment. This is not a bowl game. It is a home game. Cal always had a choice. IMO, it is worse than selling to the highest bidder. They sold to the highest bidder (collectively, the donors), and then with the cash in their pockets sold the same rights to the next highest bidder.

I think it is extremely poor policy, both from an ethical perspective and from an overall strategy perspective. It is no better than selling the season ticket package with the donation and then coming and saying - you know what, sorry, but if you want to sit in the same seat for the Oregon game, you'll just have to pay us $100 more for that. I imagine they will lose some discretionary donations over this, and frankly I think they should to send the message that you don't get to take the donation and then sell the rights to individual games at the donor's expense. If I were that level of donor, I would seriously consider reducing my discretionary donation by a pro rata share of the the mandatory donation for football that would be allocated to the Oregon game had it been played at home, and be sure to tell them what I was doing.

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Whatsherface cut a deal to make a few bucks to try to cover her big butt and was probably shopping her name around at the same time.
49ers cut a deal for their 'customers', even though it's a college game. Whatsherface didn't give a rip for her 'customers'.
Whatsherface is gone and it would have been nice if she had departed long ago.

Interim AD has a huge resume and is a Cal grad (and was an athlete). Huge difference from Whatsherface.

SonOfCalVa;842371007 said:

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49ers cut a deal for their 'customers', even though it's a college game. Whatsherface didn't give a rip for her 'customers'.

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Actually no deal for their customers was cut by 49ers. It's part of the Stadium Builder's License agreement for 49er Season Ticket Holders. As part of the deal, they get priority access to other events at Levi's.

SonOfCalVa;842371007 said:

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Whatsherface cut a deal to make a few bucks to try to cover her big butt and was probably shopping her name around at the same time.
49ers cut a deal for their 'customers', even though it's a college game. Whatsherface didn't give a rip for her 'customers'.
Whatsherface is gone and it would have been nice if she had departed long ago.

Interim AD has a huge resume and is a Cal grad (and was an athlete). Huge difference from Whatsherface.

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I agree this was an inherited mess. Hopefully Williams does some damage control with the donors and makes sure this kind of deal doesn't happen on his watch.

Yea, they get priority access. So why not wait until they pass on the tickets and then assign the good ones that were passed on (there are prob billions of them) and give them to the ESP?

Honestly, to give up our home field advantage this year to Oregon is unforgivable. But she is fired, so I guess that's that.

We have ESP seats. Our Oregon tickets are section C240. Looks like the 30-yard line under the luxury boxes. Seems fine.

But then I did give the tickets to an old Cal friend (undergrad roommate). I live in the north bay and did not want to make the drive to San Jose on a work day. I would have made the trip to Memorial. First 'home' game I have missed in decades.

Davidson;842371028 said:

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Yea, they get priority access. So why not wait until they pass on the tickets and then assign the good ones that were passed on (there are prob billions of them) and give them to the ESP?

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I agree. There are almost billions of them. Even today, there is a ton of tickets closer to midfield, where the Cal ATO could have placed ESP folks, instead of on the 20 yard line.

But something prevented them from placing ESP donors closer to mid-field. More money for Cal Athletic Department? More money for 49ers?

Cal Geek;842371035 said:

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More money for Cal Athletic Department? More money for 49ers?

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Both eminently plausible answers...but don't completely write off choice c: rank incompetence.

Well I'm low man on the totem pole, ESP wise....I'm in the Field Club FF - 30 yard line( and down low - Row 3), Even though my seats are on the 20 I received section C213 which is an improvement sight line wise.

I'm guessing they just randomly allocated seats within the designated sections...which is bound to **** off some people.

IMO at $85(face) a pop for the cheapest seats there will be a lot of empty seats in that stadium, I just think that the 49ers people don't realize that the demand for this game isn't quite the same as a 49ers game.

AUOso;842371087 said:

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... I just think that the 49ers people don't realize that the demand for this game isn't quite the same as a 49ers game.

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I doubt if they care. They're clerks, just doing their job. We're just bodies filling an open date.
There is NO significance to this game to the 49ers.

SonOfCalVa;842371108 said:

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I doubt if they care. They're clerks, just doing their job. We're just bodies filling an open date.
There is NO significance to this game to the 49ers.

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The revenue is the only thing of significance to them, so lets call them greedy clerks that have overestimated the willingness of College football fans to pay for a game.

I'm eagerly awaiting the financial results from this game in the week or two after it takes place. I have yet to see any sensible numbers comparing the revenue/cost between the two venues. I don't believe for a minute the "Up to a million more dollars!" statements. Don't forget, $1 more would qualify as a success, according to this metric! Talk about a lame escape clause!

Who thinks the Cal AD will get the results out to the media ASAP after the game? I highly doubt well EVER hear the actual results, unless there happens to be a really big payout. It would really suck for Cal Athletics to end up losing money on the deal (a very good possibility in my opinion) after alienating a bunch of long-time season ticket holders, donors, and especially ESP members. "Cal Football, what a fiasco!" will be the call.

Well, I and my family shelled out $100 each for nosebleed seats, so maybe Cal Athletics WILL make more money with this game, since they were able to sucker this former season ticket holder. Hell, I'm pretty sure I could have bought tickets for every home game at Memorial for $100 (or less)! Yup, I'm a sucker!

TandemBear;842371139 said:

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I'm eagerly awaiting the financial results from this game in the week or two after it takes place. I have yet to see any sensible numbers comparing the revenue/cost between the two venues. I don't believe for a minute the "Up to a million more dollars!" statements. Don't forget, $1 more would qualify as a success, according to this metric! Talk about a lame escape clause!

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I always took the "up to a million dollars" statement to mean, in the very best case. Like selling the upper limit of tickets sales, etc. I would guess they will likely make less than the very best case.

OaktownBear;842370999 said:

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How do you figure? There was a much better deal on the table, at least for season ticket holders. It is called Memorial Stadium. If the 49ers would not guarantee Cal's season ticket holders would get similar seating, Cal always had the option to say no to the deal. Cal made a concious choice to take the possibility of extra money over guaranteed seating, since the latter was always available at Memorial.

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Let me add a few words that I thought were implicit in my previous statement, "I'm not sure that Cal was in a position to negotiate a much better deal for a game played at Levi's Stadium."

It's a separate discussion as to whether Cal should have decided to play a weekday home game at Levi's Stadium instead of at Memorial (which has its own set of issues for a weekday game that have been discussed at length) in the first place.

Also, it's debatable as to what the tickets in each stadium are worth relative to each other. One can make the distinction simply based on face value and required donation, but since the seats aren't exactly identical between the two stadiums, the seats values will likely have a subjective component as well.

Maybe because the general public would be more interested in a 50 yard line seat than corner end zone. Makes sense to me. Screw over the ones that have already paid and keep the more desirable tickets available to the open public. Why give the best seats away to CAL season ticket holders when they have already paid?

All the more reason why I wasn't sold on this Levy idea in the first place.

Seems like a lot of the consternation from fans, and especially Bear Backers, would have been avoided if the AD did not choose a marquee game (well, at the time at least it was against a marquee opponent) to play at Levi's. The Sac/Portland State games would have been better choices.

This^! That's why I am not going.

68great;842370629 said:

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:headbang

Thank you, Sandy.
The gift that just keeps giving.
A "home" game 50 miles from home.
Cal fans will be outnumbered by Oregon fans.
Students won't be attending in any great numbers (good for the rooting section, right? :sarc
We have to pay extra for this home game.
We have to pay extra for the parking for this home game.
Assuming that we can even find a parking spot.
The seats we get for the "home" game are worse than our usual "home" game seats.
We have to drive into the worst Bay Area traffic, in the worst direction and at the worst time of the day on the worst day of the week.
I will assume all the amenities will cost more than at Memorial.

But we are told not to worry, we are lucky that we can visit a brand new stadium up close.
(even though i thougt Cal has an almost new stadium in its own backyard).
:headbang:rant

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Cal Geek;842371035 said:

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But something prevented them from placing ESP donors closer to mid-field. More money for Cal Athletic Department? More money for 49ers?

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The 49ers. The 49ers reserved the seats closer to mid-field for their own season tickets holders. Those seats were not offered to Cal.

BerkeleyBear;842371288 said:

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The 49ers. The 49ers reserved the seats closer to mid-field for their own season tickets holders. Those seats were not offered to Cal.

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The point made 100x now is that those season ticket holders didn't want those seats. they are empty and sold on the open market (ticketmaster). 49ers season ticket holders had the rights to the seats eventually assigned to Cal too. the fact that no one tried to assign better seats to Cal after the 49ers season tickets holders passed says the 49ers and Cal just didn't negotiate for those better seats, and obviously they know it's easier to sell better seats to the public.

ColoradoBear1;842371295 said:

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The point made 100x now is that those season ticket holders didn't want those seats. they are empty and sold on the open market (ticketmaster). 49ers season ticket holders had the rights to the seats eventually assigned to Cal too. the fact that no one tried to assign better seats to Cal after the 49ers season tickets holders passed says the 49ers and Cal just didn't negotiate for those better seats, and obviously they know it's easier to sell better seats to the public.

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Whether the 49ers season ticket holders wanted the seats or not is immaterial. The 49ers reserved those seats and Cal was not going to get them regardless of whether 49er season ticket holders purchased them or not. The 49ers wanted the revenue for those seats, if any, whether from their season ticket holders or the general public, for themselves. The cost for Cal to "negotiate" for those seats would likely not be worth the amount Cal would have had to pay to obtain them.

Of course, another issue is the logistics of assigning seats. Cal was given blocks of seats by the 49ers as is standard procedure when assigning seats to a third party. If after the 49ers season ticket holders passed on the seats, then the 49ers would have needed to allocate to Cal the unsold seats within the blocks that were reserved for 49er season ticket holders and those unsold seats are not going to be contiguous blocks at that point and will be scattered among sections. Managing tickets in that way is more difficult from both parties' perspective and from what I understand is general not done. When tickets are allocated to third parties they are generally allocated in blocks and not in a scattered fashion simply to make the accounting and tracking of the tickets less complicated.

Again, one can argue whether or not Cal should have decided to have a weekday "home" game at Levi's Stadium in the first place, but that discussion is a separate discussion from one regarding Cal's negotiation, or lack thereof, for better seats at Levi's Stadium once the decision to play the game there has been made.

One can argue that without obtaining better seats Cal should have declined to play at Levi's Stadium, but again that's a separate discussion.

BerkeleyBear;842371307 said:

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One can argue that without obtaining better seats Cal should have declined to play at Levi's Stadium, but again that's a separate discussion.

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While that is separate from the mechanics of how seating is done by the 49ers and what seats are withheld, it is of core importance to whether we should play off site games at levi's again, or should have in the first place. The narrative is simple though - Cal did not negotiate the best seats from the 49ers, the 49ers kept them in hopes of selling them for a bigger profit. Since the 49ers are paying us to play there (exact revenue sharing agreement is unclear though), this is all up for negotiation, and yes it might have cost Cal more out of the revenue share to get the better seats.

Then consider this (mostly boring levis SBL rules document):
http://levisstadium.strmarketplace.com/Images/library/Levis-Stadium/Terms_and_Conditions_Levis_Stadium_SBLs.pdf

Almost all seats (not just club) at levi's are SBL's, but it seems they are actually not guaranteed their exact seats for outside events (just 'comparable'), and they are not even guaranteed a ticket because an event holder can offer up fewer tickets than total SBL's at Levis (which I think right now is every seat). So SBL holders essentially just have the right to buy before the general public.

ColoradoBear1;842371358 said:

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While that is separate from the mechanics of how seating is done by the 49ers and what seats are withheld, it is of core importance to whether we should play off site games at levi's again, or should have in the first place. The narrative is simple though - Cal did not negotiate the best seats from the 49ers, the 49ers kept them in hopes of selling them for a bigger profit. Since the 49ers are paying us to play there (exact revenue sharing agreement is unclear though), this is all up for negotiation, and yes it might have cost Cal more out of the revenue share to get the better seats.

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I don't believe that the numbers would have made financial sense for Cal to obtain the best seats from the 49ers. Therefore, I think that those who are complaining about the Cal seats at Levi's Stadium are in effect arguing that Cal should not have elected to play the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium, and that is certainly a legitimate position to take.

I don't thing it makes sense to argue that Cal should play the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium and that Cal should have negotiated for the best seats because I believe that getting the best seats would have made the game financially unattractive for Cal.

I rather go to a game in Boulder!
I think I would get home from Denver, faster than Santa Clara, that night.

BerkeleyBear;842371445 said:

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I don't thing it makes sense to argue that Cal should play the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium and that Cal should have negotiated for the best seats because I believe that getting the best seats would have made the game financially unattractive for Cal.

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That's a fair statement, and I think it's very different than saying the 49er withheld seats so then Cal couldn't get those seats. The other variable is what algorithm does the ATO or people at Levis use to figure out what is a comparable seat - there are 9000 club seats at Levis and 2500 ESP seats sold. There are club sections on BOTH sides of Levis too. Would it have been possible to sit people higher up (2nd deck club) instead of down the lines by the 20 right off the field? That I cannot answer. Should the ATO take request on preference, like higher up, aisle required, etc? We do have computers these days, so it can't be that hard?

For this particular game, I doubt the club seats sell at $250 a pop. That means no one is happy in the end. But what if we played USC when both teams were ranked at Levis? I can see demand being higher by a lot.

Now just for fun, what could the 49ers even make from these extra sections. Well, no more than face value of each seat. Looking at the ticketmaster map, it would only take holding back an additional 2-3 sections to make everyone happy and truly have equivalent seats. So the most it would be is 3x400x$250 = $300k. That's the MOST the 49ers would get from the sections they held for themselves (because that's face value). And that number is a MAXIMUM because an interested party can still buy seats off the 50. And there is some kind of rev sharing with Cal too. Would a 50/50 rev share be all that out of whack? Too favorable for the 9ers even?

If a weeknight game is still deemed untenable at CMS, I'd think that giving up $300k (or less by 50%) in revenue to keep ESP seat holders happy would be a good trade off actually. Especially given that their total pro rated cost for a game is over $2 million.

BerkeleyBear;842370979 said:

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Essentially, the 49ers did not allocate enough good seats to Cal to accommodate all of Cal's season ticket holders properly.

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We're not talking about all of Cal's season ticket holders, just the ESP seat holders. You would think that in a stadium with a capacity of some 68,000 that 2,000 Cal ESP seatholders could be accommodated. But that's clearly not the case. Sandy sold us out.

SonOfCalVa;842371007 said:

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Whatsherface is gone and it would have been nice if she had departed long ago.

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You got that right!

Golden One;842371460 said:

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We're not talking about all of Cal's season ticket holders, just the ESP seat holders. You would think that in a stadium with a capacity of some 68,000 that 2,000 Cal ESP seatholders could be accommodated. But that's clearly not the case. Sandy sold us out.

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Are there ESP ticket holders that were given poor seats for the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium?

We're in Section C240 which is roughly equivalent to our seat location at Memorial.

BerkeleyBear;842371445 said:

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I don't believe that the numbers would have made financial sense for Cal to obtain the best seats from the 49ers. Therefore, I think that those who are complaining about the Cal seats at Levi's Stadium are in effect arguing that Cal should not have elected to play the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium, and that is certainly a legitimate position to take.

I don't thing it makes sense to argue that Cal should play the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium and that Cal should have negotiated for the best seats because I believe that getting the best seats would have made the game financially unattractive for Cal.

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Actually getting the best seats would not have cost Cal all that much. I figure the average Field Club donor pays $500 or more per game.

I see five sections closer to mid-field than where my seats are. Two of those five are priced at the VERY SAME PRICE as my seats, yet I'm on the 20 yard line. And the rest of the three seats are priced less than 10% higher than the seats folks got on the 20 yard line. So it would have cost $0 or $25 to place the $500+ per game donors closer to mid field. There is a similar, although not identical situation on the opposite side of the field.

And all this is looking at the available seats, long after the public has been able to purchase tickets. There would have been a lot more tickets available for ESP donors earlier, before the public started purchasing them.

BerkeleyBear;842371468 said:

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Are there ESP ticket holders that were given poor seats for the Oregon game at Levi's Stadium?

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There are quite a few. They may be all or mostly Field Club. But I (and others) have ESP tickets, all of them in the midfield Field A. And we were placed on the 20 yard line, some of us down LOW on row 7.

And yet after months of this, there are still many, many tickets available (to the public, think Oregon fans) in the sections closer to midfield.

Cal Geek;842371469 said:

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Actually getting the best seats would not have cost Cal all that much. I figure the average Field Club donor pays $500 or more per game.

I see five sections closer to mid-field than where my seats are. Two of those five are priced at the VERY SAME PRICE as my seats, yet I'm on the 20 yard line. And the rest of the three seats are priced less than 10% higher than the seats folks got on the 20 yard line. So it would have cost $0 or $25 to place the $500+ per game donors closer to mid field. There is a similar, although not identical situation on the opposite side of the field.

And all this is looking at the available seats, long after the public has been able to purchase tickets. There would have been a lot more tickets available for ESP donors earlier, before the public started purchasing them.

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We don't know what those seats in the sections closer to mid-field would have cost Cal. The cost may have been considerable higher than the cost of the seats Cal was allocated on the 20 yard line. We simply don't have the costs to Cal to be able to run the numbers (retail cost may not directly correlate to cost to Cal).

However, I think that Cal should have obtained roughly equivalent seats for all ESP ticket holders or Cal should have simply played the game at Memorial.

Cal Geek;842371472 said:

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There are quite a few. They may be all or mostly Field Club. But I (and others) have ESP tickets, all of them in the midfield Field A. And we were placed on the 20 yard line, some of us down LOW on row 7.

And yet after months of this, there are still many, many tickets available (to the public, think Oregon fans) in the sections closer to midfield.

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i am boycotting this game. its tv for me. you can put all the spin you want to on playing at the new levi stadium but a home game against oregon should not be played on a neutral field. it should be played at cms. sandy knows nothing about football.

Cal Geek;842371472 said:

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There are quite a few. They may be all or mostly Field Club. But I (and others) have ESP tickets, all of them in the midfield Field A. And we were placed on the 20 yard line, some of us down LOW on row 7.

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Cal should not have allowed that to happen.

Have you provided appropriate feedback to the Cal Athletic Department?