@Niner_National posted about the doubling of prices in Halton, and I think it’s worthy of a thread.
In the magic of what Coach Fearne is doing with the basketball team, the administration has found a way to fuck it up as usual. After twenty years of abysmal, losing basketball, in a mostly empty Halton Arena, would you jack the prices up right when we are on track to have a potential sellout?
It looks quite likely that we now WON’T have a sellout, because to take a family of four to the game in the cheap seats is now around $100. I also don’t think you drive more revenue when you leave a ton of seats open. It would be better to sell those seats at their normal price and have the concessions revenue. The operating costs for the arena are close to fixed.
We aren’t playing a marquee opponent. The magic happening in Halton is organic. It’s the players, the coach, the team as a whole, and the fans. This isn’t some sellout because a top-10 team is coming to town. This is people just trying to support the Niners, and it turns into a money grab - which might not even end up producing much additional revenue.
Is it greed? Stupidity? Intentional sabotage? There is no reason to raise prices when we are in the midst of trying to turn around the program and the public’s perception of it. None.
How about we build a little more momentum and get people on board and actually get the program turned around before we start raising prices to Hornets levels and turning fans away…
The AD has been doing this for big games for years now, as soon as they see demand they start jacking up the prices. The Duke football game is a perfect example, they wanted a few extra bucks which meant the game didn’t sell out.
Dynamic pricing for games has been a thing for awhile now not just here but in the games businesses. I absolutely think it’s the wrong approach though. I mentioned I can understand a slight premium. Add in $5 or something due to demand, but doubling prices is bad and given our past and need to bring people back into the fold a terrible terrible idea.
The Duke game, the Navy games those all were set on anticipated demand before the season. This is because the team is killing it and there’s an organic demand due to the team’s success. I already have my tickets so it doesn’t impact me directly but I feel this is a mistake. Get as many people in the seats as possible, let them have a magical time, and get them to come back for the stretch run.
I have no issues with it when the ticket prices are set at the beginning of the season. We knew before the season that FAU and ECU would be $2 more for the cheap seats than the other games. No big deal. The last minute doubling feels opportunistic and shitty to me.
If demand goes up for tickets next year, by all means raise the price of season tickets. It’s not really the dollar amount that annoys me, it’s just the way this was done.
We need to be rebuilding the fan base. Making it more expensive for people to bring their families just because we finally don’t suck for the first time in a decade is not the way.
Yeah, it’s not a good look . New fans might not know pricing is dynamic. They hear a little buzz, go to see about tickets for the next game and think, " Oh, it’s that much just to see Charlotte?" and never check again.
I hate that we are doing this. Seems like another example of just taking it to our existing fans, the one’s who already pay for everything. Another example is the mandatory scholarship fee attached to season tickets.
Looks like the GA tickets went from $10 to $15 for this game, so still very affordable to get into the building.
clt has season tickets, so no issue but the price should be market driven. if we sell $30 upper level seats the demand was there. if not, we need to drop the price around thursday
gotta have the beer stand fully staffed, this is going to be chaos
NASCAR should be a benchmark for this strategy. This is why they tore down so many seats in Charlotte the last few years and why the fan base dwindled. They have a TV contract that allowed them to do that while the University does not. 100 filled seats at $5 is better than 0 filled seats at $50. 0 filled seats don’t purchase concessions and merchandise either.
Yet they are selling them at the prices they have them set at currently. The misconception in thinking here is that because they raised them they are selling less and more would have been sold at a lower price. That can’t be shown until the day of the game.
I’m counting less than 75 tickets on seatgeek. Looks like quite a few in the corners on the actual website though. Also have to remember that those three sections are closed for the tavern.