PromoTheRobot Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I made this post weeks ago. I even wrote Allan Wilson of the BN to get his take. Now the BN is reporting that 11,000 tickets for the Bills Toronto series are left unsold. That's with only weeks to go before the Pittsburgh game. Obviously Mr. Rogers overestimated Toronto fans stomach for prices that are several times the NFL average. How is it going to look on TV with the sidelines seats empty? (The way overpriced "premium seats" are the ones not selling.) What is the NFL going to make of this? This story says the games are expected to sell out. Based on what? Are people suddenly going to rush out and pay $500 a seat when they haven't done so until now? Or is Rogers going to forced to cut his prices? And if he does, will he give the fans who bought expensive seats the chance to upgrade? They are soft-peddling it but I think this has the potential of being a real cluster---k. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordio Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I made this post weeks ago. I even wrote Allan Wilson of the BN to get his take. Now the BN is reporting that 11,000 tickets for the Bills Toronto series are left unsold. That's with only weeks to go before the Pittsburgh game. Obviously Mr. Rogers overestimated Toronto fans stomach for prices that are several times the NFL average. How is it going to look on TV with the sidelines seats empty? (The way overpriced "premium seats" are the ones not selling.) What is the NFL going to make of this? This story says the games are expected to sell out. Based on what? Are people suddenly going to rush out and pay $500 a seat when they haven't done so until now? Or is Rogers going to forced to cut his prices? And if he does, will he give the fans who bought expensive seats the chance to upgrade? They are soft-peddling it but I think this has the potential of being a real cluster---k. PTR My guess is Rogers has some corporations lined up to buy the remaining seats if worse comes to worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lets_go_bills Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Everyone knows pre-season is bs. You can't give away your pre-season tix, and yet they expect people to shell out tons of cash for a pre-season game? Yeah it's the Steelers, but your only gonna see Big Ben for one series, and that's all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerball Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I made this post weeks ago. I even wrote Allan Wilson of the BN to get his take. Now the BN is reporting that 11,000 tickets for the Bills Toronto series are left unsold. That's with only weeks to go before the Pittsburgh game.PTR What did Wilson have to say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElMarko Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 The key point on this is that the Miami regular season game is also not sold out yet. If that game were in Orchard Park - it would be completely sold out RIGHT NOW - with all that money in the Bills bank account earning interest. I realize that the team is making more money from the lump sum payment they are getting from Rogers, but as a long time season ticket holder - watching this happen truly suks... especially when I had a beer with an old friend (who moved to Washington 5 years ago) last night, and had to tolerate the "Toronto Bills" nonsense for at least an hour. Oh yeah, viability. I have to remember... it's all about "viability." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corp000085 Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 well, can we now cross toronto off the list of potential doomsday scenarios when ralph dies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biglukes Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Good that the Bills are raking in $78 million for this thing... Even better that Toronto is already looking like it would be a joke of an NFL market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted July 21, 2008 Author Share Posted July 21, 2008 What did Wilson have to say? Allen basically said "don't worry, it will sell out." I think everyone assumed it will, but I'm not convinced without a price reduction. This is a double-edged sword. Even with L.A. and Toronto out of the picture, it doesn't mean the Bills won't be a relocation target. I felt we needed Toronto to be reasonable successful to keep the team in Buffalo, at least most of the time. If Rogers weren't so friggin' greedy and kept tix around $100-$200 he'd have sold them out in a day. Obviously Mr. Rogers has never heard the expression "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taterhill Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I find it funny that there are $255 upper bowl seats for the preseason game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flbillsfan#1 Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 Allen basically said "don't worry, it will sell out." I think everyone assumed it will, but I'm not convinced without a price reduction. This is a double-edged sword. Even with L.A. and Toronto out of the picture, it doesn't mean the Bills won't be a relocation target. I felt we needed Toronto to be reasonable successful to keep the team in Buffalo, at least most of the time. If Rogers weren't so friggin' greedy and kept tix around $100-$200 he'd have sold them out in a day. Obviously Mr. Rogers has never heard the expression "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." PTR The Bills need the Toronto Corporations to accept the Bills as a team they want to invest in, they don't need the Toronto fan to keep the Bills in Buffalo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billygoats Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 The Bills need the Toronto Corporations to accept the Bills as a team they want to invest in, they don't need the Toronto fan to keep the Bills in Buffalo. BINGO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrite Gal Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Allen basically said "don't worry, it will sell out." I think everyone assumed it will, but I'm not convinced without a price reduction. This is a double-edged sword. Even with L.A. and Toronto out of the picture, it doesn't mean the Bills won't be a relocation target. I felt we needed Toronto to be reasonable successful to keep the team in Buffalo, at least most of the time. If Rogers weren't so friggin' greedy and kept tix around $100-$200 he'd have sold them out in a day. Obviously Mr. Rogers has never heard the expression "Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." PTR My sense is that it is way more complicated than just seeing whether it is a sellout in assessing what impact this has on whether the Bills move to Toronto or not. It would be simple if both games sold out at the exhorbitant prices they are asking. I think this result actually would likely mean the Bills stay in Buffalo as this would indicate Toronto is so NFL hungry and rich that they would buy anything. In this case given a choice between Toronto money and Buffalo money the NFL past performance is clear. They would choose both and keep the Bills in Buffalo raking in the 52,000+ season tickets and related cash while also bellying up to the huge Toronto market which would have demonstrated that they will pay any amount of money for any stupid NFL product including pre-season exhibition games. However, the market indicates that there is a ceiling (though a pretty low one as 4/5 of the tickets to a meaningless game at dilly prices have sold). More interesting and potentially more troubling is that the Miami game is not a sellout right off the bat. Is this because the ticket prices are exhorbitant, because its packaged with a meaningless game, because Miami sucks as a team, or what. Who knows for sure and my guess is the NFL will test future markets by lowering the price and seeing what happens. As far as this game, my guess is that Rogers has the bucks to guarantee its a sellout. It probably bodes well that the short area in sales seems to be corporate rather than the market as a whole as an effort like Buffalo's Business Backs the Bills effort which succeeded in selling enough club seats to cinch the current deal can be mounted to reach a sellout. Its only 11,000 tickets and not for a real season ticket package so this effort can be made without the massive publicity indicating this is a tough sale. I think Wilson is right that it is a virtual certainty that the current unsold tickets sell out. Ultimately the answer is likely going to be more market research before a definitive answer is reached. The current answer is that yes Virginia there is a ceiling, but how high (low) it is and the nature of the cause of that ceiling (price, the NFL really is not that popular, the uncertain economy, something else) will need to be figured out. I know us impatient Americans want an answer yesterday but the real world does not work that way and more market research needs to be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLflutie7 Posted July 24, 2008 Share Posted July 24, 2008 I made this post weeks ago. I even wrote Allan Wilson of the BN to get his take. Now the BN is reporting that 11,000 tickets for the Bills Toronto series are left unsold. That's with only weeks to go before the Pittsburgh game. Obviously Mr. Rogers overestimated Toronto fans stomach for prices that are several times the NFL average. How is it going to look on TV with the sidelines seats empty? (The way overpriced "premium seats" are the ones not selling.) What is the NFL going to make of this? This story says the games are expected to sell out. Based on what? Are people suddenly going to rush out and pay $500 a seat when they haven't done so until now? Or is Rogers going to forced to cut his prices? And if he does, will he give the fans who bought expensive seats the chance to upgrade? They are soft-peddling it but I think this has the potential of being a real cluster---k. PTR You can't expect Toronto to get behind an American product. It's not their team. When Calgary played Baltimore in the CFL Grey Cup, the whole crowd was rooting for Calgary. I think the game was in Calgary, but still tons of Canadian Flags. It was a bias against the US. Baltimore won, however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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