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San Diego playoff ticket policy


Heitz

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Did anyone else see the story about the Chargers cancelling any ticket sales to anyone outside of Southern California (i.e. New England) to get "the best home-field advantage possible"? I guess the Bears did it too.

 

Seems a little extreme to me - what right do they have to "discriminate" against Pats fans (not that I don't want to see the Pats lose)? I mean it was only 1,000 tickets, but still, just doesn't seem right. Plus it just seems so pu**y to not let opposing fans in! Come on, it's a playoff football game!!

 

Here's a link: http://www.boston.com/business/globe/artic..._out_pats_fans/

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I understand where you're coming from completely but I think that season ticket holders getting first dips is enough, football is football and it doesn't matter where you're from you should be able to attend games anywhere if you get your hands on some tickets.

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Ah I disagree with this it should be first come first serve, if people from other cities are able to get their hands on some tickets then why stop them? Anyone should be able to go to a football game no matter where you live.

Exactly what right does the team and Ticketmaster have to restrict ticket sales? Hell, I usually enjoy having a beer or two and a jeer or two with other teams fans!

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I don't think it is that unusual. A couple of us here in GA tried to get tickets to the Bills/Panthers preseason game and when we got to the pay part on ticketmaster, it wouldn't let us complete the order since neither the shipping nor the billing address were in NC. Ended up having to go through razorgator or something like that...

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Suppose the Bills end up hosting a playoff game one of these years. I'd have no problem with them excluding the other team's fans, if there are enough willing Buffalo fans to buy all the seats.

How can you know from a person's address what team he or she is a fan of? If the Bills were in San Diego, Bob Lamb could get a ticket, but a die hard SD fan outside SD couldn't, defeating their intentions. The whole policy is ridiculous.

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How can you know from a person's address what team he or she is a fan of? If the Bills were in San Diego, Bob Lamb could get a ticket, but a die hard SD fan outside SD couldn't, defeating their intentions. The whole policy is ridiculous.

I'll grant you that it's an imperfect system. That said, I can see why teams would want to do something. A few weeks ago I watched a good part of a game between the St. Louis Rams and the visiting Chicago Bears. A lot of Bears fans had driven into St. Louis from Chicago; enough that it was hard to tell which team was at home and which team was the visitor. That had to be problematic for the Rams. If the owner of the Chargers doesn't want the same thing happening to his team . . . well more power to him.

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Did anyone else see the story about the Chargers cancelling any ticket sales to anyone outside of Southern California (i.e. New England) to get "the best home-field advantage possible"? I guess the Bears did it too.

 

Seems a little extreme to me - what right do they have to "discriminate" against Pats fans (not that I don't want to see the Pats lose)? I mean it was only 1,000 tickets, but still, just doesn't seem right. Plus it just seems so pu**y to not let opposing fans in! Come on, it's a playoff football game!!

 

Here's a link: http://www.boston.com/business/globe/artic..._out_pats_fans/

This has been done a ton of times. Ted Leonsis (Owner of the Washington Capitals) was the first owner to ever do this. Through the 90's up to about 2000, the Capitals seemed to play the Penguins every year in the playoffs. Penguins fans, no lie, would have about 8,000-10,000 fans in DC every game. The Pens kept beating their ass and Leonsis would stay pissed about the crowds.

 

After one game Jim Schoenfeld said that he was hoping the Caps would score first to take the crowd out of the game......well.......he was playing AT HOME. It was draped across the Pittsburgh papers. It was awesome.

 

So, Leonsis, who is some internet guru, made it so that all Pennsylvania and West Virginia zip codes were forbidden to purchase tickets to any Capitals playoff games. The screen said that no orders would go through, and that if you ordered tickets your order would be void. Pittsburgh radio stations were calling live and ordering over the net and stuff. It was fun.

 

Turns out, all of the orders had all of the warnings and stuff, but in the end, they were never blocked. Fans just became scared to order so they stopped about half way through an order.

 

Pretty good trick on Leonsis' part. I'm pretty sure he was the first owner to do this.

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Suppose the Bills end up hosting a playoff game one of these years. I'd have no problem with them excluding the other team's fans, if there are enough willing Buffalo fans to buy all the seats.

 

I dont think the ralph would sell out a playoff game if we relied on just buffalo fans to do it.

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It's legal because "people who don't live in SoCal" are not a federally protected group. Now, say, if there was a case of the team not selling tickets to anyone with a billing zip code in a generally black neighborhood, and you could prove that intent, that would be illegal. And selling only to Jews would be illegal too, since it's religious discrimination.

 

As best I understand the law, anyway.

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