Ticket Rage
I'm in a state of rage. RAGE I tell you. I've been getting tickets for a number of baseball games this summer. I've bought tickets from the Red Sox, As, Giants, and Nationals. My most recent purchase was Giants tickets for my cousin and her husband when they come to visit in a few weeks (I purchased tickets for myself previously).
Not only do you have to pay high ticket prices for National League baseball games that feature two terrible teams in what will be a half empty stadium (and in general a "product" seriously diluted from what it was just 10 years ago). (Incidentally the SF papers were touting this year's team as a contender for the World Series. I literally laughed when I read that. Let's get this straight, a team with two hitters and a couple mediocre pitchers is going to challenge for the NL and WS title? I'm all for boosting your home town, but how can those journalists claim any sort of integrity here. At least in Boston they will trash the team if it's bad and boost it if it's good, but they certainly don't boost it when it's bad -though they might trash it when it's good. Anyway, the point is, what a joke.)
So, not only do you pay high ticket prices for the worst seats in a half empty stadium for a team that just won't challenge for anything other than a .500 record this year, but you get slammed with all sorts of other fees. Here we go:
Convenience fee: $4.50 per ticket. PER TICKET. So, not only do I pay the ticket price, but I pay for the "convenience" of buying a ticket? How do they get away with this? YOU DON'T SELL OUT YOUR STADIUM, YOU SHOULD BE GIVING ME MONEY BACK TO BUY TICKETS! As if that isn't bad enough (did I mention PER TICKET - completely ridiculous), there is an additional PROCESSING FEE of $3.50. Processing what? Think your done with fees? Not so fast. To get your tickets, you still have to pay. You can choose from a variety of options, all of which have a charge from $2 to $14. The "recommended" way to get your tickets is to print them out yourself. Of course this costs an additional $2.50, but hey, they recommend it! No kidding they recommend it. They do nothing except collect $2.50, and you press the print button on your web browser. Gee, for all the work they are doing getting THEIR product to me, these fees sound like a deal!
Let's say I wanted to go to a game by myself and I wanted to get the cheapest seats in the house. Standing room seats to the Giants are $12.00, which would normally be a good deal except that you can't see anything from the standing room section and the ushers are fairly diligent out here about verifying that you are going to your seat. Add the convenience fee, $16.50, add the processing fee, $20.00. Want to actually get your tickets before the game? Let's slap you with a $6 delivery charge. Grand total for my 1 - cheapest, worst, ticket in the stadium: $26.00. Well, it doesn't take a former algebra teacher telling you to see that the fees are MORE THAN 100% of the ticket price. ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS AND TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!
I don't understand how we as consumers allow this. If you went to Burger King and they had the value meal for $5.50, then added $2.00 charges per item for the convenience of you getting your food, with an additional processing fee to ring it up at the register, and another fee for them to actually hand you the food, would you ever go back? Would they stay in business? It's ridiculous. Wanna buy some clothes? No problem, just take the item up and let them ring up an additional $15 in required convenience and handling fees.
I think the root of the problem is that we just accept this and let them get away with it because of the demand for the tickets. In places like Boston where the whole season almost sold out before opening day, they can get away with stuff like this (though they aren't as bad). The demand is there so they milk every penny out of us to pay overpriced, whining, steriod using, superstars, who mail it in as soon as they get the big contract. Of course that is part of what is fundamentally wrong with baseball and not for this discussion. But, something needs to be done about that. I don't mind paying high ticket prices as much if that's all I'm paying. But to pay high ticket prices and dress up about $15 in extra charges is ridiculous. The systems they have in place for ticketing likely run with little maintenance, and if there is maintenance, THEY should be the ones picking up the charge for the cost of them to distribute their product. Not me as the consumer. THEY should be covering the handling charges for them to do whatever they need to do, THEY should be covering the processing fees.
I have no conclusions to make here, this is just a rant; I am enraged by this behavior. The Giants were the worst of the bunch, but the others all had some type of additional fees. It's a sad state of affairs and I wish I didn't tolerate it. But here I am buying tickets all over the country paying these fees. In fact, I am a big part of the problem...
Not only do you have to pay high ticket prices for National League baseball games that feature two terrible teams in what will be a half empty stadium (and in general a "product" seriously diluted from what it was just 10 years ago). (Incidentally the SF papers were touting this year's team as a contender for the World Series. I literally laughed when I read that. Let's get this straight, a team with two hitters and a couple mediocre pitchers is going to challenge for the NL and WS title? I'm all for boosting your home town, but how can those journalists claim any sort of integrity here. At least in Boston they will trash the team if it's bad and boost it if it's good, but they certainly don't boost it when it's bad -though they might trash it when it's good. Anyway, the point is, what a joke.)
So, not only do you pay high ticket prices for the worst seats in a half empty stadium for a team that just won't challenge for anything other than a .500 record this year, but you get slammed with all sorts of other fees. Here we go:
Convenience fee: $4.50 per ticket. PER TICKET. So, not only do I pay the ticket price, but I pay for the "convenience" of buying a ticket? How do they get away with this? YOU DON'T SELL OUT YOUR STADIUM, YOU SHOULD BE GIVING ME MONEY BACK TO BUY TICKETS! As if that isn't bad enough (did I mention PER TICKET - completely ridiculous), there is an additional PROCESSING FEE of $3.50. Processing what? Think your done with fees? Not so fast. To get your tickets, you still have to pay. You can choose from a variety of options, all of which have a charge from $2 to $14. The "recommended" way to get your tickets is to print them out yourself. Of course this costs an additional $2.50, but hey, they recommend it! No kidding they recommend it. They do nothing except collect $2.50, and you press the print button on your web browser. Gee, for all the work they are doing getting THEIR product to me, these fees sound like a deal!
Let's say I wanted to go to a game by myself and I wanted to get the cheapest seats in the house. Standing room seats to the Giants are $12.00, which would normally be a good deal except that you can't see anything from the standing room section and the ushers are fairly diligent out here about verifying that you are going to your seat. Add the convenience fee, $16.50, add the processing fee, $20.00. Want to actually get your tickets before the game? Let's slap you with a $6 delivery charge. Grand total for my 1 - cheapest, worst, ticket in the stadium: $26.00. Well, it doesn't take a former algebra teacher telling you to see that the fees are MORE THAN 100% of the ticket price. ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS AND TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!
I don't understand how we as consumers allow this. If you went to Burger King and they had the value meal for $5.50, then added $2.00 charges per item for the convenience of you getting your food, with an additional processing fee to ring it up at the register, and another fee for them to actually hand you the food, would you ever go back? Would they stay in business? It's ridiculous. Wanna buy some clothes? No problem, just take the item up and let them ring up an additional $15 in required convenience and handling fees.
I think the root of the problem is that we just accept this and let them get away with it because of the demand for the tickets. In places like Boston where the whole season almost sold out before opening day, they can get away with stuff like this (though they aren't as bad). The demand is there so they milk every penny out of us to pay overpriced, whining, steriod using, superstars, who mail it in as soon as they get the big contract. Of course that is part of what is fundamentally wrong with baseball and not for this discussion. But, something needs to be done about that. I don't mind paying high ticket prices as much if that's all I'm paying. But to pay high ticket prices and dress up about $15 in extra charges is ridiculous. The systems they have in place for ticketing likely run with little maintenance, and if there is maintenance, THEY should be the ones picking up the charge for the cost of them to distribute their product. Not me as the consumer. THEY should be covering the handling charges for them to do whatever they need to do, THEY should be covering the processing fees.
I have no conclusions to make here, this is just a rant; I am enraged by this behavior. The Giants were the worst of the bunch, but the others all had some type of additional fees. It's a sad state of affairs and I wish I didn't tolerate it. But here I am buying tickets all over the country paying these fees. In fact, I am a big part of the problem...
posted by Andy at 8:58 AM
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