Cincy, Indy & Now Denver Joins In The Lameness

IggyWH · #1 01-17-2006, 11:40 PM

If this was common procedure, I wouldn't care. This is far from normal though. For each week, 15,000 tickets went on sale to the general public for the playoff games.

Cincy's ticket office would hang up on anyone that called with a 412 or 724 area code (Pittsburgh & surrounding area). There were pleas to ticket holders to not sell tickets to Steeler fans from the media.

Indy's ticket office wouldn't take any calls from Pittsburgh area codes and the organization even issued a plea to people to not sell tickets to Steeler fans.

Now, Denver has joined in the lameness. Their ticket office also was not accepting calls from Pittsburgh area codes.

LAME.

The NFL needs to do something about this. The home team already has the advantage on ticket sales since it is through their ticket office. They are publicly released so anyone can buy them. Things like this can only lead to the league future allocating so many tickets directly to the opposing team. I'm sure no one want that.

DMBFan23 · #2 01-18-2006, 12:00 AM

I think its awesome

(I'm a tampa fan, I like bettis, I hate brady, I like manning. those are all my possible biases.)

$DEADSEXE$ · #3 01-18-2006, 12:05 AM

if you really were that concerned with this..then maybe your team should won home field advantage instead of squeaking into the playoffs

IggyWH · #4 01-18-2006, 12:09 AM

[ QUOTE ]
if you really were that concerned with this..then maybe your team should won home field advantage instead of squeaking into the playoffs

[/ QUOTE ]

This isn't really a "my team" "your team" thing. It's easy to say that because of the situation.

As I said, things like this can only lead to other teams following along. With enough complaints, the league could look into allocating tickets directly to the opposing team. That is not good for football and no one want that.

Be sure that the Steelers will bitch come league meetings about this. With the Steelers having one of the loudest voices when it comes to the NFL, it won't take much support from other teams for things to change.

Case Closed · #5 01-18-2006, 12:14 AM

Very lame.

Six_of_One · #6 01-18-2006, 12:09 AM

Shouldn't the home team have the advantage in ticket sales? Seems only logical to me.

IggyWH · #7 01-18-2006, 12:12 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Shouldn't the home team have the advantage in ticket sales? Seems only logical to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, they should. This is why the home team sells the tickets and no tickets are allocated to the opposing team.

It's a completely different thing to refuse ticket sales to a specific group though. This is why these tickets are made available to the public, so anyone can buy them. These teams are changing the norm.

IndyGuy · #8 01-18-2006, 04:50 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This is why the home team sells the tickets and no tickets are allocated to the opposing team.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is completely false. I do not know exactly how many tickets are allocated, but I know that some are. After the Indy vs. Denver wildcard game two years ago sold out, I was able to get 3 seats in about the 30th row, 20 yard line, when Denver was unable to find any takers for the tickets. There were several hundred available this way (not counting the ones Denver fans actually bought).

The tickets were returned to the Colts to be resold the Thursday before the game, which was like 2 weeks after the game sold out initially.

IggyWH · #9 01-18-2006, 04:54 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This is why the home team sells the tickets and no tickets are allocated to the opposing team.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is completely false. I do not know exactly how many tickets are allocated, but I know that some are. After the Indy vs. Denver wildcard game two years ago sold out, I was able to get 3 seats in about the 30th row, 20 yard line, when Denver was unable to find any takers for the tickets. There were several hundred available this way (not counting the ones Denver fans actually bought).

The tickets were returned to the Colts to be resold the Thursday before the game, which was like 2 weeks after the game sold out initially.

[/ QUOTE ]

UGH, I swear some people just don't read! I'm talking about public tickets here, PUBLIC!

Yes, the away team is allocated a small amount. These tickets are given to players and then opened up to season ticket holders, whether by lottery or whatever means they decide to distribute them. If they're not all sold, they are then made public.

BTW, this is a small amount of tickets. If your team has to return tickets, then your fan base is quite lame.

IndyGuy · #10 01-18-2006, 07:12 PM

[ QUOTE ]

UGH, I swear some people just don't read! I'm talking about public tickets here, PUBLIC!

Yes, the away team is allocated a small amount. These tickets are given to players and then opened up to season ticket holders, whether by lottery or whatever means they decide to distribute them. If they're not all sold, they are then made public.

BTW, this is a small amount of tickets. If your team has to return tickets, then your fan base is quite lame.

[/ QUOTE ]

I read just fine. The tickets I bought were certainly available to Broncos fans first. Whether they were originially intended for players or not, I don't know. They were behind the Colts bench, so I'd assume not.

Speaking of the specific portions of your post:

[ QUOTE ]
Indy's ticket office wouldn't take any calls from Pittsburgh area codes and the organization even issued a plea to people to not sell tickets to Steeler fans.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure where you got this information. Did you try calling? How do you know they didn't take your call because it was a Pittsburgh area code?

I live in Indianapolis, and I know better than to try and get playoff tickets over the phone. Unless you're a season ticket holder and got tickets by mail, you need to go stand in line at the RCA dome (or other specific Ticketmaster locations) the morning they go on sale. At a specified time, they hand out numbers and have a drawing to see who gets to buy first. They then proceed from there. That way, there's not a benefit for those who have the time/energy/insanity to stand in line for days.

I'd like to hear where you got the impression that purchasing by phone was a good idea.

And regarding the "plea," Bill Polian was answering a couple of questions on his radio show about that. You can read the transcript on the Colts' website. When you read it, you'll see that there wasn't any plan to not sell to Seelers' fans, just that Polian was sympathetic to fans who get upset that scalping companies buy large blocks of tickets and sell to the highest bidders who are often from the visiting team. Since scalping tickets is legal in Indiana, there's not much he or the Colts can do about that other than to express frustration and urge fans not to sell tickets to visiting fans.