TeamExchange

[Patjew]

Honestly, you know what irks me? I STILL haven't received my tix yet. Something about a printing issue that has affected many ticket holders. Same thing happened last year. I mean, how hard can it be?

 

[Rob0729]

As a season ticket holder, I do find some of the ticket policies very rigid and sometimes unfair, but I guess that is just the price you have to pay to have season tickets when there are 50,000 plus people happy to take your season tickets if you don't want them.

I don't think the Pats do this because they don't care about the fans. I think they do it because they do care. Their rules are based on their opinion of the best way to make it fair for everyone and not have people hold onto tickets for years who never go to the game and only sell their tickets.

As for preseason tickets, I don't know why they don't allow people to sell them online on the ticket exchange. Possibly because their system probably isn't easily capable of the number of people who would want to get rid of their preseason tickets (which is a considerable share of the season ticket holders). You paid for the tickets anyway. I don't think there is some devious reason why they wouldn't let you sell preseason tickets on the exchange when you can sell any regular season ticket there. I am guessing their are administrative issues why they don't allow it.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

As a season ticket holder, I do find some of the ticket policies very rigid and sometimes unfair, but I guess that is just the price you have to pay to have season tickets when there are 50,000 plus people happy to take your season tickets if you don't want them.

I don't think the Pats do this because they don't care about the fans. I think they do it because they do care. Their rules are based on their opinion of the best way to make it fair for everyone and not have people hold onto tickets for years who never go to the game and only sell their tickets.

PWP: If so then why do the Krafts make it prohibitively expensive inhibiting a father from passing on STs to his sons & daughters while at the same time allowing corporate pukes to freely hand over the tix to the next management team du joir?

As for preseason tickets, I don't know why they don't allow people to sell them online on the ticket exchange. Possibly because their system probably isn't easily capable of the number of people who would want to get rid of their preseason tickets (which is a considerable share of the season ticket holders). You paid for the tickets anyway. I don't think there is some devious reason why they wouldn't let you sell preseason tickets on the exchange when you can sell any regular season ticket there. I am guessing their are administrative issues why they don't allow it.

On the preseason tix re-sale issue I think the Krafts have dropped the ball. It's only GOOD business to enable ST holders to sell their pre-season tix. Lets more potential customers get a taste of the real product. Bad marketing on their part. A rare failing for this well run org.

 

[patchick]

Limiting the discussion to the original TeamExchange topic, I do think it's strange that they exclude preseason tickets. What's the justification?

But if any of you find yourself burdened by an extra pair of preseason tickets with no trustworthy takers, I can assure you that my 7-year-old daughter and I will not swear loudly or pour beer on the neighbors.

 

[Rob0729]

PWP: If so then why do the Krafts make it prohibitively expensive inhibiting a father from passing on STs to his sons & daughters while at the same time allowing corporate pukes to freely hand over the tix to the next management team du joir?


On the preseason tix re-sale issue I think the Krafts have dropped the ball. It's only GOOD business to enable ST holders to sell their pre-season tix. Lets more potential customers get a taste of the real product. Bad marketing on their part. A rare failing for this well run org.

I thought the Pats amended their policy for passing a long tickets in recent years. I could be wrong here, but I think it is possible now to pass along season tickets to the immediate family if a season ticket holder passes away. I think there is a fee involved, but I think it is possible now.

As for corporations, how can the Patriots monitor something like change in regimes at every corporation that buys season tickets? You are asking a little too much of the Krafts and the Patriots to monitor that.

I agree that there should be a way to sell preseason tickets, but I just don't think it is any malicious intent on the Krafts' or Patriots' part. Hopefully they will correct it in the future. Luckily, there is only going to be one preseason home game for now on after this year. It will at least minimize the loss.

 

[Rob0729]

Limiting the discussion to the original TeamExchange topic, I do think it's strange that they exclude preseason tickets. What's the justification?

But if any of you find yourself burdened by an extra pair of preseason tickets with no trustworthy takers, I can assure you that my 7-year-old daughter and I will not swear loudly or pour beer on the neighbors.

My only guess is that it is either a server, software, or administrative issue. If they allowed to sell preseason tickets to be sold on the exchange, most likely there would be thousands of tickets on there for each game (opposed to the few hundred for each regular season game). It may be that for whatever it takes to run the exchange can't handle the volume they would have for preseason tickets.

 

[Scott37]

It's all well and good for you to make these comments as you live 3000 miles away. I can't pretend that the preseason games are "free" as I fork over $750.

If you want to jump on a plane and fly out here I would happily offer you my tickets for face value.

I am on the waiting list (and have been since 2000). I'd love to purchase the tickets at face value if you'd like to sell them. I'd be taking my 9 year old son and my 11 year old daugher who aren't too rowdy so the chances of something happening to your tickets would be extreamly low.

Let me know if you're interested.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

I thought the Pats amended their policy for passing a long tickets in recent years. I could be wrong here, but I think it is possible now to pass along season tickets to the immediate family if a season ticket holder passes away. I think there is a fee involved, but I think it is possible now.

As for corporations, how can the Patriots monitor something like change in regimes at every corporation that buys season tickets? You are asking a little too much of the Krafts and the Patriots to monitor that.

I agree that there should be a way to sell preseason tickets, but I just don't think it is any malicious intent on the Krafts' or Patriots' part. Hopefully they will correct it in the future. Luckily, there is only going to be one preseason home game for now on after this year. It will at least minimize the loss.

As I had said it IS possible but prohibitively expensive as in for a several thousand dollar fee. It used to be that you could go to the Pats office with appropriate ID (illegal aliens do not apply) and execute documents to hand down your tix to your spawn. Now it's very expensive to do so. In defense of the Krafts, there was no wait list then; there certainly is now.

And why shouldn't corporate puke seats be recycled onto the wait list upon change of ownership if the stated reason the Krafts don't encourage family inheritance is to enable wider distribution of tix? They're inconsistent in their reasoning. It's not like there aren't corporations and individuals waiting and ready to pay.

 

[QuiGon]

What ticks me off is that I can't sell my preseason tickets on TicketExchange. The Pats charge the same $125 per ticket for the these games as they do the regular season games but do not allow me to sell those tickets.

They don't want people underpricing them since they still have unsold inventory of the preseason games. It's just part of the NFL's hypocrisy on preseason games... when it comes to us paying money, they want to treat preseason games with the same costs (but none of the benefits) of regular season games.

BTW: I have 3 season tickets so I pay $750 for the preseason games without a legal way to sell them. I end up giving them away to friends as I can't justify asking them to fork over $125 per ticket.

There's nothing illegal about selling tickets, you just can't legally sell them above face value in the Commonwealth.

 

[QuiGon]

As a season ticket holder, I do find some of the ticket policies very rigid and sometimes unfair, but I guess that is just the price you have to pay to have season tickets when there are 50,000 plus people happy to take your season tickets if you don't want them.

They don't allow fans to sell the tickets because they have too many of their own tickets available that they want to sell. Go to ticketmaster.com anytime between right now and the day of the game, and you will be able to get seats for either of the home preseason games.

 

[godef]

And why shouldn't corporate puke seats be recycled onto the wait list upon change of ownership if the stated reason the Krafts don't encourage family inheritance is to enable wider distribution of tix? They're inconsistent in their reasoning. It's not like there aren't corporations and individuals waiting and ready to pay.

The problem is, the tickets are probably owned by "the company" and not by the company owners.

 

[QuiGon]

It's all well and good for you to make these comments as you live 3000 miles away. I can't pretend that the preseason games are "free" as I fork over $750.

Sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. Nobody's forcing you to buy a NE Patriots season ticket package. You obviously think the tickets (and playoff privileges) are worth the $1,250 per seat. If you don't like it, turn in your tickets because there's 50,000 people eager to take your place. Otherwise look at the preseason games as a surcharge.

 

[Rob0729]

They don't allow fans to sell the tickets because they have too many of their own tickets available that they want to sell. Go to ticketmaster.com anytime between right now and the day of the game, and you will be able to get seats for either of the home preseason games.

Well, that makes sense then. I thought it could be an administrative issue since most season ticket holders I know would dump their preseason tickets if they could (and most do end up giving or selling to friends or family).

I thought that even the preseason was sold out though. If it isn't, my bad. I can see why they do it since they don't want to compete their unsold tickets with better seats of already sold tickets. It sucks for season ticket holders, but I can see the business decision.

 

[patchick]

They don't allow fans to sell the tickets because they have too many of their own tickets available that they want to sell. Go to ticketmaster.com anytime between right now and the day of the game, and you will be able to get seats for either of the home preseason games.

I honestly didn't know this, thanks QuiGon. Makes sense now -- the policy presumably isn't about preseason tix at all, but simply that you can only resell tix for sold out dates.

 

[Rob0729]

As I had said it IS possible but prohibitively expensive as in for a several thousand dollar fee. It used to be that you could go to the Pats office with appropriate ID (illegal aliens do not apply) and execute documents to hand down your tix to your spawn. Now it's very expensive to do so. In defense of the Krafts, there was no wait list then; there certainly is now.

And why shouldn't corporate puke seats be recycled onto the wait list upon change of ownership if the stated reason the Krafts don't encourage family inheritance is to enable wider distribution of tix? They're inconsistent in their reasoning. It's not like there aren't corporations and individuals waiting and ready to pay.

Sorry about that. I didn't realize the fee is several thousand of dollars. I don't have a problem with the Pats charging to pass along the tickets to try discourage family members with only a passing interest in the Patriots or looking to make a profit to keep the tickets. But several thousand may be too much for the average fan to keep in the family.

As for corporations, if the tickets are in a certain person's name and they need to change it or if the corporation is bought out and changes names, I am guessing these corporations run into the same problems and restrictions that an average fan runs into. But if it is just in the corporation's name and that doesn't change, I just don't know how the Pats can regulate something like that. My company could change ownership tomorrow and since it is privately owned, no one outside the company would ever know unless we made it public someway. Even if we made it public and we owned season tickets, I still don't know how the Patriots would find out.

Even with public companies with are required by the Feds to make ownership changes very public, how are the Pats supposed to monitor it unless someone does a name or address change request with them?

I do agree with you that companies shouldn't have special rights over the average season ticket holders for season tickets. I just don't know how the Pats can possibly monitor changes in ownership of corporations that own season tickets especially if the name and address on the tickets do not change.

 

[patchick]

I do agree with you that companies shouldn't have special rights over the average season ticket holders for season tickets. I just don't know how the Pats can possibly monitor changes in ownership of corporations that own season tickets especially if the name and address on the tickets do not change.

Here's something I've wondered about...

Organizations/corporations can buy tickets in the org's name, then let anyone they want use them year after year. Individuals face tougher restrictions. So suppose my friends and I form an organization, a legal entity which obtains rights to a block of season tickets. Can this entity then freely assign its tickets to our heirs, etc.?

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Here's something I've wondered about...

Organizations/corporations can buy tickets in the org's name, then let anyone they want use them year after year. Individuals face tougher restrictions. So suppose my friends and I form an organization, a legal entity which obtains rights to a block of season tickets. Can this entity then freely assign its tickets to our heirs, etc.?

Why not? Just incorporate and the 'corporation' lives forever. Nice dodge. Minor detail is that this new entity goes to the rear of the waiting list, but what the hey.

 

[PatsFaninAZ]

They don't want people underpricing them since they still have unsold inventory of the preseason games.

Yes, of course that's the reason. I just don't see the problem with it.

For the privilege of being able to buy season tickets, the pats make you pay more than market value for two games a year. So does every other team in every other sport. In exchange, you get 8 more games, plus playoff games, for less than market value.

And?

How is the different from personal seat licenses or anything else that teams do for the fans that are lucky enough to get seasons tickets? View it as a mini-personal seat license of $250 that you have to pay every year, in exchange for some tickets that actually do have value.

The fact that fans are afraid to sell the tickets to people who might cause trouble is also not their problem. I mean, I just don't see where this argument is going. If you want season tickets for a baseball team, you have to pay for the Tuesday night games against the Devil Rays to get the Sunday games against the Angels.

Again . . . And?

 

[Sille Skrub]

I never have a problem selling my preseason tickets. I will admit I sell them for less than face value because I feel bad selling them for full price. I look at that lost money as the price for having season tickets.

What some people forget is that many other teams charge their fans money just to own tickets. The Krafts don't charge us that PSL money and frankly, I couldn't be happier with my season ticket holder experience. I am in the group that still hasn't received my tickets, but who really cares? I went to the ST practice Monday night and had no problems getting in. They were just giving tickets away at the gate.

I don't see how anyone could complain about the season ticket holder experience during the Kraft tenure. I've met both Jonathan and Robert an they both are kind, genuine men who I gladly write my check to each season.

Things could be worse, folks. You could be sitting in (fill in your favorite other city here) paying a PSL and watching crappy football.

 

[Patjew]

The problem is, the tickets are probably owned by "the company" and not by the company owners.

That's exactly right. There's nothing mysterious or sinister about it. I mean, if Microsoft owns tickets, they're not in Bill Gates' name. So there really is no situation where employees coming or going would afffect ownership of the tickets by a legal corporate entity.