Challenge: New Stadium Seating Ideas

by oldfoggy on Feb 4, 2012 10:59 AM PST

How would you organize stadium attendance to boost fan bonding while gaining adequate income?

We already have one model: Green Bay. Never an empty seat in a snowstorm. Always a waiting list for the honor of attending a game against an 0 and 15 team. As you probably know, GB’s model of area ownership is now banned by the league of billionaires as hopelessly democratic.

But what’s not banned is a system that rewards long-standing fans from attending a game now and again under a different system. Challenge: Can you design a strategy that allows for a segment of seats – some of them very good seats – that could revolve in such a way that the entire Bay Area could feel that those in the less than 8 percent who make more than $150K per year could attend a game or two per year without scalping?

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Niners Nation's writers or editors.

Tweet Comment 5 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

So...

you’re suggesting sort of a season ticket pool where people pitch in for an SBL and then treat that seat like a timeshare?

Doesn’t sound very economical compared to just buying single-game tickets, unless they manage to sell SBLs for the entire stadium.

We don't need 8 in the box. We have 52 in the box.

by these3words on Feb 4, 2012 3:02 PM PST reply actions

Instead of SBL

perhaps owning a stadium “share” for the rights to bid or enter a lottery perhaps. I’m trying to engage ideas from others – obviously I’ve long considered ideas on this, but before we enlarge the conversation, let’s brainstorm without saying “doesn’t sound very economical” which makes assumptions and carries us into a different direction.
Obviously the team has a certain target for attendance income. In many cases these targets are imaginary. Consider San Diego, near where I live. Each game there are thousands of seats that are pretty much given away in order the televise the game.

by oldfoggy on Feb 4, 2012 3:22 PM PST reply actions

If they are having trouble selling out

then single-game tickets must be dirt cheap as the game approaches, right? Hell, just a few months ago I saw tickets for a Niners game being advertised on this site for $17 a piece. At that price, you don’t need to be making anywhere near $150k to attend one or two games a year. So what’s the problem? Why do we need another solution?

We don't need 8 in the box. We have 52 in the box.

by these3words on Feb 4, 2012 4:23 PM PST up reply actions

What's behind the $17?

Is the team losing money? Is someone who bought the seat for a lot more losing money?
You are right: If there is no problem, there’s no need for a solution.

by oldfoggy on Feb 4, 2012 4:48 PM PST up reply actions

They were just trying to sell out the last few tickets

for a game that wasn’t in high demand. I assume that will continue to happen for at least a couple games a year for the foreseeable future, which is why I don’t see the need for a new seating model.

The average Joe might not be able to attend the hot-ticket games, but it’s not like there are no games they can afford to go to.

We don't need 8 in the box. We have 52 in the box.

by these3words on Feb 4, 2012 6:00 PM PST up reply actions