The Mets Police

David posted a link to his blog (which linked several times here, thank you) on the comments yesterday about tickets, and I thought I'd grab a paragraph or two.  To quickly catch you up, we're swapping stories of folks who want to buy upgrades but the Mets are making them wait.

(yesterday's tickets discussion on MP) describes exactly my experience with the Mets, and it's bizarre, although it's not new. I've been a season or partial plan ticket holder with the Mets for ten years, and I know that that's not as long as many other ticket holders, but the Mets have never been good at the relationship they have with the fans, so we shouldn't be surprised. Last year I had a ticket rep who I thought was excellent, and we actually met in person a few times, but she's apparently been promoted and no longer deals with my seats. In past years, the customer experience couldn't have been worse when trying to purchase tickets. So this is not new, despite the recent attention Mets Police has brought to the issue. And believe me, I know how difficult customer service is. I have more thoughts on the matter, of course...

...

Another concern I have is that few sports teams (much less the Mets) are considering the full impact of StubHub on the fans experience. Having full season tickets the last couple years, I have loved making it easier to get money back on games I can't attend, but I don't like going to games and being surrounded by Phillies fans, Yankees fans, or whoever. The majority of season ticket-holders, to my eye, are no-shows for the whole season.

Check out the full thing here.

Down in Philly, I'm one of the partial "season ticket holders."  I've talked about it on here before.  I'm a capitalist.  Bought my 15 game plan, sold 'em all, then I sold the NLDS, then I sold the NLCS and then I sold the World Series.  I made some nice coin, and I renewed my seats for 2010.

However, I think we'll see a different supply and demand in Flushing.  Knuckleheads like me didn't renew.  In Queens I actually used my tickets, but there were times when I couldn't go/didn't want to go (like those non-Saturday Saturdays for which the Mets have atoned).  Since I couldn't unload my seats much last year I didn't want to commit to 15 games (actually 30) so I committed to zero.  I'll buy them from the box office at face the 8 times I want to go, and stubhub Opening Day and Game 7 of the Mets-Mariners World Series if I have to.

I don't think we'll see the "below face" tickets that we saw last year on Stubhub because capitalists like me haven't invested.   The Mets "drew" 3.1 million fans last year, many of them disguised as empty seats in August.   I doubt they'll hit that number again unless Good Ollie brings Good Maine with him.

All this is a long way of saying that if someone is calling the Mets and looking to spend money with them....going out of their way to say "Hello, Mets?  Can I give you more money?" there's probably a better way to do it than making them wait 6 days.  Y'all ain't that sold out in every section.  Take the cash Metsies.

Main Mets Police page
Subscribe to The Mets Police by Email
Get Mets Police via reader/RSS
Follow us on twitter @metspolice
Facebook page
Contact: shannon at metspolice.com (Guest posts welcome!)
Share Photos: pictures at metspolice.com