WOULD RATHER BE IN CLEARWATER
Most years, at least over the past couple decades, you’d sell your soul to get into the Vet or the Linc for an Eagles game. This week people can’t peddle those things fast enough.
On the secondary market, StubHub reports that it has 3,400 tickets posted for sale for the next game, which is drawing the perfect storm of a holiday night against a non-division opponent following two of the most mind-blowing games in the recent history of the franchise. RazorGator said a few minutes ago it has around 1,000 available, prompting a company spokesman to call that unique. “It’s certainly higher than usual for the week of a game,” he said.
And locally, Bryan Abrams at B&B Tickettown in Wilmington undoubtedly echoed what other agencies found this morning: Their phone ringing off the hook.
“Instead of calling for tickets, a lot of people wanted to know if we wanted to buy their tickets for Thursday,” he said this afternoon. “If they hadn’t jumped ship after Cincinnati, the few survivors that were still on the ship jumped [after Sunday]. We had quite a few calls. I think people would just love to get rid of whatever they could.”
RazorGator’s numbers suggest this isn’t necessarily a knee-jerk rush to sell. What amounted before Nov. 1 to $446 in the amount of the average ticket order since has dipped to $320, down 28 percent. The average cost of a sold ticket was $180 before Nov. 1; now it has dropped 25 percent to $135 per ticket.
Now, some of the evidence is a bit contradictory. StubHub says its inventory for Thursday night has dropped around 400 tickets in the past 3 days. And Abrams says they are getting their share of calls from people heading into town for the holidays who are looking for tickets.
“Surprisingly, we we have some people calling this morning asking,” he said. “Mostly students coming home from college.”
Still, while the tickets might eventually sell, the price figures to be picked over like the turkey carcass by Thursday night.
“We may see prices start to sell for much lower as the week goes on,” a StubHub spokesman wrote in an e-mail. “A thrashing at the hands of the Ravens will do that.”
Added Abrams: “I thought it was a bad thing [from the beginning]. Two games Thanksgiving is one thing. Three games is not good. By that night a lot of people are pretty much passed out from it. They don’t want to go out. I thought it was going to be a tough sell at the beginning of the year. Now it’s even more so.”
Paul Vigna still has the seat he wrestled out of the concrete at Connie Mack Stadium parked in the finished basement, a 1980 Phillies championship mirror hanging above it. Now, why he’s kept an autograph of former Flyer Bruce Gamble on a sheet of Hockey Hall of Fame paper is another story. A native of Philly who grew up in Lansdale, he’s an assistant sports editor at the Daily News in charge of special projects who has written two columns related to sports and consumers: View From the Seats and Savvy Consumer.
ABOUT THIS BLOG:
Athletic contests were, for a long time, simply fun and games. Nowadays they’re just a small part of a sports entertainment industry that puts billions of dollars into play and a number of issues into motion. Moneyball indeed. You might be closer to the action than ever before, but that privilege comes at a price - and often it’s beyond what you can afford.
With that as the backdrop we’ll use this blog to dig out stories and swap advice about how the fan experience is changing and what it’s costing you now and in the future. Some of it will educate, some will let you vent. And in a sports panel format, it should allow for a consensus of opinion that can carry some weight.
