2017 Season-Long Promotions are Out---- Why Season Tickets?

[rickh150]

The season-long promotions are out..... good deals everywhere you look.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mil/schedule/season-long-promotions/

 

For me, this begs the question of why people get season tickets? With season tickets, each ticket per season is discounted roughly 15 to 25 percent. Yet, many promotions offer half-priced seating (or less if taking a group) to a variety of games. Isn't it wise to simply pay these lower prices for individual games, pick your games, and forgo season tickets? Are the perks for a season ticket holder that great to offset the cost?

[adambr2]

This wasn't something that was heavily advertised most years, if at all, but for years in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars years and after, active military members were offered 2 free Terrace tickets on Sundays if there were availability.

 

For all I know this may not have been offered anymore the last few years but I'm curious as to whether it's still an under the radar thing that they offer.

[KeithStone53151]

Some of those promotions are fantastic, notably the 5 county discount. Aside from that specific discount, if you want seats in a good location to opening day/weekend/cubs/other premium games it will be far more than 15-25% over season ticket prices...if you can even get them. If you are just looking to go to a handful of weekday games and don't mind bleacher/loge outfield/terrace level tickets, these deals are the way to go. That said, I've been a 20 pack holder for almost 10 years and find the perks pretty good. And when the Brewers get back to the postseason I'll have access to tickets to every home game...which is a huge perk when that happens.

[3and2Fastball]

There are so many promotions I couldn't read through it all! Reads like a minor league team list of promotions, honestly.

[jerichoholicninja]

Unless you live in Milwaukee or very close I don't understand why anyone would have season tickets anyway. It's not like football where you only have 8 home dates and you can probably easily sell your tickets for face value if you can't go. Who can make it to 81 home games or even enough to break even after discount except for someone who's retired? I suppose you could sell enough of your unused tickets to make it worthwhile but I can't imagine there's much of a market for an April Brewers/Marlins weeknight game.

[MrTPlush]

Unless you live in Milwaukee or very close I don't understand why anyone would have season tickets anyway. It's not like football where you only have 8 home dates and you can probably easily sell your tickets for face value if you can't go. Who can make it to 81 home games or even enough to break even after discount except for someone who's retired? I suppose you could sell enough of your unused tickets to make it worthwhile but I can't imagine there's much of a market for an April Brewers/Marlins weeknight game.

 

To say you have them and there are some perks for having them. Though not as good as other teams feature.

[FVBrewerFan]

Yes, there's many promotions. But that means trying to buy tickets to all these individual games, with a lot less control over where your seats are. Season tix you get discounts plus your seats are all set.

 

Plus, a lot of people divide season tix with family, friends, coworkers. Bars, companies, etc buy them. So it's not like most people go to 81 games.

[rickh150]

Yes, there's many promotions. But that means trying to buy tickets to all these individual games, with a lot less control over where your seats are. Season tix you get discounts plus your seats are all set.

 

Plus, a lot of people divide season tix with family, friends, coworkers. Bars, companies, etc buy them. So it's not like most people go to 81 games.

 

 

Waaaaaay more expensive, in my humble opinion.

 

Looking at the schedule, you could pick out five Friday games at half price (one in April, one in May, two in June, one on Labor Day weekend) with 5 county seats. Buy $10 Loge Infield or OF Field level group seats on July 4. Buy BP gas and get free seats in the upper level or as a credit to 9 other games.

 

Unless you are hooked on going to Cubs games, Saturday games, getting that bobblehead, or having THE EXACT seat for every game, just buy individual and group seats early and pick up gas cards (among several other ways to save). If they make the playoffs, use the savings to get better playoff tickets on Stubhub.

 

The Brewers should be doing more for the loyal season ticket holder, no doubt. I'd like to be one some day, but it doesn't make cents (or more like several hundred dollars) now.

[FVBrewerFan]

Makes perfect sense. Maybe someone doesn't want to go to all those Friday games, or can't. Or sit in the upper corner with the BP tickets.

 

Season tickets allows you to pick the exact seats you want, and you know you have them without scouring around for tix for all these individual promo games- where tix are hard to come by, by the way.

 

I think some people are looking at it as "does this make sense for me" rather than does this make sense in general for people who want to go to many games, or even all the games.

[JohnBriggs12]

I can't remember the last time I've paid full price for a ticket but I hope people keep buying season tickets and then selling them under face on secondary market.

 

Now that I'll be retired in a month, I can basically go to all the weekday afternoon games for half price and since most of those games if not all will be far from sellouts, I should be able to walk up and buy. Shades of the 70's!!

[Greenleaf1]

I more or less exclusively use StubHub to buy Brewers tickets. I'm usually up in the Terrace Reserved section (which I actually really like) and you can consistently get those tickets for $10, sometimes less.

 

Season tickets are a waste of money, in my opinion.

[homer]

They should have a promotion for guys in their 40's.

[pacopete4]

They should have a promotion for guys in their 40's.

 

 

and 30's.

[hawing]

They should have a promotion for guys in their 40's.

 

and 30's.

I'd settle for a promotion for women entering their age-51 season.

 

Whether season tickets make sense depends on what you value. In our household, we like having the same seats every game. We have two 20-packs, because one 20-pack didn't feel like enough - although admittedly, 40 is a little much for our Madison round-trips. But the tickets we can't or don't want to use are pretty easy to sell or trade in as needed, if we don't find an in-person buyer here in town.

We can order additional tickets without service charges, so we've done that for friends and family before (including some of you here on Brewerfan).

 

We can't always get to Milwaukee in time to take advantage of the early entry days for SSH customers, but twice last year we were able to walk past a long line of cubs fans and enter ahead of them. I appreciated that.

 

Our ticket rep is super responsive and has made some very nice arrangements for us (again, helping out some bf.netters in the process). If we see him at a weeknight game, odds are at least 50-50 he'll offer us a free upgrade to field seats. We are not his top-dollar customer, but he treats us like we are.

 

The "postseason priority" perk is admittedly not the biggest draw in the immediate term, but had the Brewers advanced in 2014, we would have had four seats together in front of the press box, which would have been glorious. I was also happy with our postseason locations in 2011 and 2008.

 

From our distance, the 5-county sale isn't applicable, and our small car has about an 8-gallon tank, so qualifying for the BP seats would require us to run the tank to almost empty over and over. But I know we are an outlier household on those points.

 

Season tickets aren't particularly the answer if your goal is to minimize spending, but they work for different customers in different ways.

[tmwiese55]

If you're being totally frugal, yes season tickets at this time aren't the proper financial route. I still do it, for many of the reasons mentioned by others, but dropped to an 11 pack instead of 20. For me it's about keeping ahead on the priority list the next time they make the playoffs, by sticking through this time while lots of others drop out you'll be much higher on the list when they're good again. Another big reason for me (Madison commute) is that it forces me to go. If I say I'll just buy them as I see fit, I'll inevitably find some excuse not to go. And as David Puddy would say, you gotta support the team.

 

Also, with the crazy Cubs fans it's an easy time to buy Cubs tickets and flip them for a profit to pay for a bunch of the rest of your tickets.

[Patrick425]

I'll kind of echo on what Hawing said in regards to why I continue to purchase season tickets.

 

We really like the seats that we have and we also sit in the loge level family section (where you can not always find seats for some games). Our ticket representative is awesome. Like Hawing stated, he has been very accommodating with certain requests that we have had that we would not have been able to get without being long time season ticket holders. The perks they offer get a little better each year also. Last year we got to go on the field to watch pre-game batting practice. This year, they added take batting practice at Miller Park as one of the options. You are not guaranteed to get your first pick, but that is what we put as our first pick.

 

As silly as it sound given the Brewers current state of affairs, possibly the biggest reason (or right up there with same seat location), is the post-season priority and the longer your tenure the better the seat location for post season that you are given. In 2008, we were about 4 sections away from our current seats. In 2011 we were 2 sections away. In 2014 when they sold post season ticket but did not make the playoffs, we would have basically had our same seats that we sit in all year. We don't want to lose our spot in line.

 

Lastly, and this definitely goes under the everyone has different things that are important to them. Personally, I don't have a lot of patience when it comes to leaving and getting out of the parking lot at sporting events, concerts, etc (and no, I don't want to take a shuttle full of inebriated fans). Because of where we sit and where we park we can normally stay until the last out of the game, get to our car and get home to Waukesha within 20-25 minutes (sometimes even quicker) regardless of crowd size.

 

Edit: Hawing - How bout' a anyone entering their age 51 season (I got about a month to go)?

[rickh150]

On one hand, I have a lot of respect for season ticket holders. They loyally pay the price, stick with the team, and are counted on to be there.

 

On the other hand, I think it would take just a small amount of extra work to sit in roughly the same place to most games for half the cost. I also take unbridge of those fans who buy season tickets so they can sell some of them to Cubs fans. Sorry, I know, I know..... yet your many good reasons to do so do not offset letting the evil empire into the choice seats at Miller Park.

[FVBrewerFan]

You absolutely can not sit in roughly the same seats for half the cost for most games, unless it's upper terrace. Whenever I make plans for a game getting good tickets for a good price is impossible 90% of the time. A Tues night game in April, probably no problem.

[rickh150]

Loge Infield -sections 227 and 210 has good deals throughout the year on StubHub for most games, often less than half of gate price ($21 or less). You might have to wait until the week for of the game to get them, but still...

Old time Ballplayers Association (for $10 membership) gets you half price tickets to a game each month in any seat section of the park. April and May Mon.- Thurs games are half price on day of game.

Almost every weekday game is half priced for seniors and kids.

Five Friday night games are half-priced for 5-county residents.

 

If you want to sit 5 rows behind Brewers dugout for Saturday night games, you are going to pay thru the nose, granted. Yet, it is my experience that you could custom build a 10 seat to ticket package for a mixture of games, promotions, one or two a month, for far less than the supposed "deal" the Brewers offer season ticket holders.

[rickh150]

You absolutely can not sit in roughly the same seats for half the cost for most games, unless it's upper terrace. Whenever I make plans for a game getting good tickets for a good price is impossible 90% of the time. A Tues night game in April, probably no problem.

 

More like possible 90% of the time....

[bensheeps]

I'll echo the reasons mentioned by Hawing and Patrick as why we continue with our 20-game pack.

 

Playoff priority and the help of our ticket rep are big reasons we continue as a season seat holder, but a right there with it is the fact that we enjoy sitting in the same spot each game. Not because of the view, but due to the people that sit around us. We have bonded with 10 other season seat holders and it adds to the game experience. In fact, we meet this weekend at Fridays for our annual "winter get-together".

 

With a 2.5 hour drive to the park, these fellow Brewer fanatics add alot to our game enjoyment.

[Patrick425]

On one hand, I have a lot of respect for season ticket holders. They loyally pay the price, stick with the team, and are counted on to be there.

 

On the other hand, I think it would take just a small amount of extra work to sit in roughly the same place to most games for half the cost. I also take unbridge of those fans who buy season tickets so they can sell some of them to Cubs fans. Sorry, I know, I know..... yet your many good reasons to do so do not offset letting the evil empire into the choice seats at Miller Park.

 

[sarcasm]Yes, you are right, for Cubs games that I can not go to, I should just give away or sell my tickets at face value to a Brewer fan rather than sell them at 3 or 4 times their face value on StubHub. That would be the smart thing to do[/sarcasm]

 

So, on one hand, you can't understand why season ticket holders would pay so much for their tickets, but on the other hand you are going to chastise them for trying to recoup some of the cost of the season tickets because of who they sell them to? When I put tickets on StubHub, anyone can buy them. If Brewer fans are not willing to buy them for the price I posted, that's not my problem.

 

Last year I had to sell 6 games (out of 20) that we could not attend. Two of them were Cub games. With the season ticket discount I already get (25%) and the proceeds from those ticket sales, I ended up paying 67% of the face value for the remaining 14 games that we went to. If I add to that $50 in food vouchers I received for paying for my tickets early and certain ssh days when concessions are 25% off for season ticket holders, it brings it down to about 60%. With that pricing along with all the other perks mentioned in this topic, I don't think I'm really paying that big of a premium for being a season ticket holder. Oh..I'm also not including the free game they throw in there every year (so...less than 60% of face value).

[Outlander]

Yes, it is kind of silly to say season tickets are not worth it and then indicate the holders shouldn't sell them. If there were no season ticket holders then these prime seats would just be available right away to Cubs fans from the Brewers directly.

[RightFieldCoder]

I had season seats for years because I liked sitting in the first row of the field bleachers every game. I also liked getting the tickets to the games all at once without needing to look for the best deal.

 

There are also other perks provided to SSH. I've taken batting practice at MP 4 times (just fans, not the real BP). The first time we were allowed on the infield and I was able to field some balls at 3rd. The other times I shagged balls in the outfield. I also have memorabilia that was signed in front of me.

 

I've also been to every playoff game in Milwaukee in the last 35 years and an all-star exhibition that was all guaranteed because of the tickets. I only stopped because I no longer live 30 minutes from the ballpark.

[Mass Haas]

Just saying that even from my New England distance, I'm really enjoying the insights provided by the season ticket holders within this thread.