Chris Jaffe of THT: "Brewers...treat their fans with respect."

[Brily0204]

Jaffe, a proclaimed Cubs fan, recently wrote an article about what teams charged for buying tickets in advance of games. He generally found that most teams are taking advantage of fans, especially because in many cases, fans have little choice but to order their tickets in advance.

 

http://www.hardballtimes..../main/article/gouge-away/

 

In a final section, headed "God bless the Brewers, devil take the Mariners," he singles out the teams that treat their fans most and least fairly. He writes, "If there's one team I've learned to respect from looking at these prices the last two years, it's the Milwaukee Brewers. They do something very rare in pro sports; they treat their fans with respect. They'd rather grow a fan base than gouge one. Not only are they the only team to not have a processing charge, but also they have the lowest convenience fee in MLB."http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/gouge-away/

[MillerParkSouth]

i'll second this. Everytime I feel like going and getting cheap seats to check out a random White Sox game i'm shocked to find that the "cheap" seats end up being over $30 all said and done. Thank god for the Brewers and their legitimately cheap seats and reasonable fees.

[Roderick]

Is there a reason in regards to keeping other paws out of the revenue that clubs charge the high convenience fee and processing charge? In other words, does the team gets 100% of that revenue, but if it is built into the ticket price, they have to share with the road team, the players, the league, etc?

[edod]

I don't believe this article is accurate, or at least it isn't anymore. I recalled buying a ticket about a month back and paying a convenience fee and a delivery fee. I just double checked and it's 3.25 convenience fee per ticket and 2.00 to print my own ticket. Perhaps they raised the prices since, the team started selling out. Oh well, I guess they got to pay that 90mil payroll some how.

[rluzinski]

The Brewers raised their ticket prices last year but gave season ticket holders (even the 20 gamers) the 2007 prices, on top of the season ticket discount. Stuff like that cultivates loyalty.

[owbc]

I just double checked and it's 3.25 convenience fee per ticket and 2.00 to print my own ticket.

You may think that is expensive, but these days $10/ticket in fees isn't uncommon. We just aren't used to it.

 

Unfortunately, the Brewers will be jacking their prices up quite significantly this offseason. I wouldn't be surprised to see $5-10/ticket for the more expensive seats and $3-5 for the terrace/bleachers. It will go relatively unnoticed if the Brewers make a playoff run.

[joepepsi]

In June I bought 4 tickets for a Saturday game 20 rows up from the 1st base dugout. There was nothing but standing room only tickets available, so I used the Stubhub link on the Brewers site. On Stubhub the tickets I selected were face value. When I finished entering my credit card payment the link to print out the tickets took me back to brewers.com. I printed the tickets and was not charged for any convenience printing fee. I believe if I had purchased them directly from brewers.com there would have been additional fees charged.

 

At any rate, I think the Brewers are very fair to their fans.

[jeffy]

The Brewers raised their ticket prices last year but gave season ticket holders (even the 20 gamers) the 2007 prices, on top of the season ticket discount. Stuff like that cultivates loyalty.

I watch almost all games but do not attend often. I've always bought tickets at the ball park, but was converted to buying from season ticket holders this year. Got better seats at lower prices due to the discounts. I got front row club level and front row field level for less than face value and then re-sold the metavate passes for $5 each on top of that.

 

The thing that annoys me about the fees is that it has to cost the team more to staff the ticket windows, where there are no fees, than it does for me to buy on line and print my own tickets or even if they mail the tickets.

[rluzinski]

Stubhub charges the buyer 10-15%, some of which I'm sure is kicked back to the Brewers.

[jeffy]

I bought on craigslist. No fees but not necessarily convenient, though in both cases for me it ended up more convenient than going to the ballpark to buy tickets.

 

I tried to check the brewers fees, I got a $4 per ticket fee for highest priced and $2 for lowest. Then it was an addition $2 to print or $3 for mail/will call...these fees only showed up after an additional step beyond the point where convenience fees were revealed.

[fondybrewfan]

How do parking prices at Miller Park vary from other venues? It may be comparing apples and oranges since many stadiums are in dense areas where parking is at a premium. It seems to me that no other MLB team can offer the game day package that the Brewers can (relatively cheap tickets, no tailgating restrictions, a good team)