If they're worried about not pissing off the current season ticket holder base, maybe they should work on building back that eroding trust instead of of trying to jack up the price three to five percent every year, year over year. The NHL is premium entertainment, but it can't be so premium as to not allow people the ability to afford it. Ticketmaster has section 100 seats at $200 a seat. That's insane for one night. I will happily sit in the 300s with the rest of the poors.
I'll still maintain the biggest issue for TNSE is how they treat currently STH. Someone alluded to it above, but it is bloody irritating talking to someone in the seat beside you that paid $45 less and got a beer and hot dog. Yes, it's Bud and the hotdog may kill you, that's not the point.
It probably doesn't help that the season ticket holder rep position is an entry level job either. Occasionally you get a good one, most are transient. Noting it is a thankless job. And there are only three of them for the regular seats.
Regardless TNSE did this to themselves over the years through arrogance. Justified (but unwarranted) perhaps in the first couple of years, but you had to be pretty short sighted to not see how the excitement would dwindle. Treating people like crap for ten or so years and then slowly waking up to reality isn't a particularly sound approach to retaining paying clients. They got rid of the profiteers fairly early on through natural attrition but never recognized many just wanted to be treated reasonably.
While it's true the corporate aspect needs to step up, TNSE successfully chased away a lot of corporate seat holders on the smaller scale by removing the ability to hand someone a physical ticket (formally printed or printed at home). Yes, the security aspect is real, but it doesn't help when a restaurant or similar business wants to hand tickets to someone spur of the moment as a reward, instead having to ask for emails. Do you give your email to random businesses willingly and not expect an ongoing chain of junk mail? Is it worth a pair of tickets? The logistics just don't work. I know of multiple restaurants that dropped sets of four P1 tickets on account of this. I approached my ticket rep about getting printed tickets AND paying for the printing as an additional cost to me, in the same fashion that the Vancouver Canucks do/did (can't say for this year, but my brother in law's law firm had tickets they paid to print and distribute to clients). Response was crickets.
Season tickets are not currently a good value proposition in that you can generally find most games aside from original six and a few others for less than STH are paying at STH prices. You're not paying (in my case) $260 for a pair of September pre-season games is one simple added benefit. That may well be offset to an extent if the Jets go far in the playoffs, as they may this year. But that benefit of reduced rates and first right of refusal for playoffs has had pretty darn limited benefit since 2011 so it's something of a hard sell. It will also get very, very interesting if the Jets make the finals. I'm not certain but I believe in P3 a single ticket for a single seat for a single game is over $500. Last year round one was $200 vs $125 regular season. Gets steep real quick. And yes, it's likely many would step up at the high prices, but many probably can't even consider it.
Try being responsive and flexible, without screwing over your current STH base. Still haven't figured that out even this year.
This will be my last year as a STH due to my group crumbling and I'm tired of recruiting. It will feel like breaking up with an abusive girlfriend I expect.
