10 May 2011

Baseball Pulls ASG Ticket Strips Off Market

In what may signify historically soft demand, MLB has finally removed lagging All Star Weekend ticket strips from public sale. The strips, which include admission to the Home Run Derby, All Star Game and other events, went on sale March 1st, however after more than two months, Chase Field had still not sold out baseball's midsummer classic.

MLB is now abandoning traditional strips in favor of less expensive, unbundled event sales, beginning May 16th. Diamondhacks believes this concession may be unprecedented in modern All Star Game history, however that has yet to be confirmed.

Developing.....

3 comments:

Diamondhacks said...

You cant dissuade me with empty assertions, only facts, and as usual you have none of those. All you have is emotional injury, sabotaging any position you're trying to convey.

I just looked up Anaheim's capacity, on the Angels webstite and it's below the 2010 ASG attendance listed on wiki.

So, they did sell out, you're wrong and frankly, an asshole, for pretending you know something you dont, for spreading false information and trying to ridicule someone who, unlike you, actually made the effort to ferret out the truth.

The other issue, about strips vs unbundled sales, is an open question. As clearly stated, I really dont know the answer to that, although I have suspicions and am reseraching it. What's clear at this point is you have utterly no idea either.

I dont really mind you being an asshole. I'm unusually generous that way. The problem is you're an ignorant asshole armed with nothing but vague hostility.

I asked you a while back to select an identifying handle when you comment, and you havent even done the webmaster that basic courtesy. Just defensive, 'anonymous' anger.

Listen up, kiddo. You're not nearly as anonymous as you think. I'll be exposing you shortly on this page. Be sure to stick around for that. I also wont be accepting any more anonymous comments from you. You've forfeited that privilege.

Go D-backs said...

Great response!

Sorry, didn't realize it was so easy to create a name.

Here's a couple articles about ticket availability from last year.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/allstar-257265-anaheim-game.html

Also, if you google you'll find from just days before the game:

All-Star Game Events Kick Off with Fan Convention | Orange...

Orange County Business Journal - Jul 9, 2010
FanFest, which runs through Tuesday at the Anaheim Convention Center, ... Tickets for the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby also still are available. ...

Diamondhacks said...

Three comments disappeared as a result of blogger's crash. I dont know if they're coming back, so I'll try to summarize.

1. Anon claimed I was "an idiot" because the Anaheim game didnt sell out and these ticketing procedures I'm fussing about are, more or less, MLB business as usual.

2. I provided evidence via a couple links that the 2010 ASG did sell out and called him an ignorant asshole.

3. 'GoDbacks' responded with uncharacteristic tact (and links!) indicating the 2010 HR Derby didnt sell out and that MLB made some discounted Derby tix available a few days before that event. That's what I recall and that's where I think we left it.

What are the implications of these two AS events drawing different attendance at the same venue? One possibility is that strips didnt initially sell out, so Anaheim unbundled sales and the ASG simply outsold the Derby head to head. Sounds reasonable,and I assume that's what GoDbacks aims to imply.

Another explanation is that MLB commandeers more seats, upfront, for the ASG flagship game than to subsidiary events, which would explain a vacancy gap even if subsequent public sales for the two events were identical (ie strips).

Which is it? Here's a clue:

The Arizona Diamondbacks and Major League Baseball have sold more than 40,000 tickets thus far for the '11 MLB All-Star Game, and more than 34,000 each for the Home Run Derby and Futures Game that precede the July 12 event.

The current 6K gap informs the mystery because Phoenix has employed nothing but strip sales to date. We know that. They havent unbundled anything yet to the public or to season ticket holders or to lottery winners. It's all been strips. They're making a big deal about finally unbundling sales this Monday, May 16th. Yet there's this inherent, structural gap of six thousand seats.

At this point, it appears Anaheim reached ASG capacity via traditional strip sales, after which subsidiary events were unbundled and still fell a bit short of sellouts. There's certainly been no evidence to indicate Anaheim ever needed to sell individual ASG tix like Phoenix has opted to do.

The same link from Phx Business Journal (2011):

The club and MLB....began selling tickets to the general public March 1, roughly seven weeks ahead of normal scheduling, in part to address softer demand for tickets seen last year in Anaheim and more generally the still-battered Arizona economy.

This confirms my original suspicion. Anaheim may've suffered soft demand, relative to previous hosts, but they didnt even start their public sale til May 5th, actually nine weeks later than the Dbacks did (March 1). I'm not saying early sales are a bad strategy to sell tix to an unpopular event, any more than the lower prices this year are a bad thing, but all these factors suggest this summer's ASG ticket demand is considerably lower than last.