Cubs tier their fanclub
Well it worked for ticket sales several years ago. Now the Cubs are tiering their fan club to different levels. Ed Sherman from his blog on Crain’s Chicago Business explains:
For a fee of $249, the Cubs Club Marquee level gives the member a chance to purchase up to 12 tickets in a special Marquee level pre-sale.
For $129, the Cubs Club Ivy Membership levels allow fans to purchase up to four seats in a special Ivy pre-sale.
Do you think there might be a few fans who will sign up for the first crack at tickets for the White Sox and St. Louis games? It sure beats freezing your tail off or paying premium prices for a ticket broker.
The Cubs easily could sell out their entire season with an unlimited Cubs Club membership, but they are going to set limits to ensure tickets still are available to the general public. Matthew Wszolek, Cubs director for sales and promotions, said the cap would be from 4,000 to 5,000 members at the Ivy and Marquee levels.
“We’re not talking about just games in April,” Mr. Wszolek said. “You can get a Cubs-Sox ticket through Cubs Club. The value on that alone is considerable.”
Yes, it is. It isn’t difficult to imagine a number of Cubs Club members will be ticket brokers and/or fans looking to sell tickets to premium games to those brokers and make a quick profit.
“We’re aware that possibility exists, but we truly feel this is something that Cubs fans desire, and it’s an opportunity we want to provide,” Mr. Wszolek said.
There is a cheaper option to join the club if buying tickets isn’t a priority. For $19.95, you could receive the standard membership that includes the e-mails and other stuff.
At $129, in addition to being able to buy tickets in advance, Ivy members will have a special gate entrance at Wrigley Field.
If you go for the whole enchilada at $249, you’ll get all the goodies plus a special non-game, on-field event for all Marquee members.
At some point this goose will stop laying golden eggs. I wonder when that will be. Cubs management continues to come up with new cash generating ideas.
just another way for brokers to opt into the best games, as the cash layout for them is a recoverable investment. sign up every employee at broker-r-us, land a few hundred primo tix, and add $20 to each ticket at resale. easy peasy — until the brokers realize that the buyers of their “product” are harder to find than they were last year.
meanwhile, joe sixpack — the guy for whom $130 is real money — goes to april day games (as he works second shift) if at all.
the cubs are going to have to adjust to a different reality as the depression goes on — one which includes ticket price reductions, not increases. i think we’re going to be a bit surprised by the softness of ticket demand in 2009 and 2010.
gaius marius
December 22, 2008 at 12:07 pm
[blockquote]the cubs are going to have to adjust to a different reality as the depression goes on — one which includes ticket price reductions, not increases. i think we’re going to be a bit surprised by the softness of ticket demand in 2009 and 2010.[/blockquote]
I think they will see a surprising softness in sales come February gm. But I have said that before and been wrong.
One of the things about the Cubs model that is really different from other teams is the number of affluent young unmarried fans who have a lot of disposable cash. When you’re in your twenties, paying little for rent and food with no other mouths to feed, it’s not that difficult to find the cashola. Remember those days gm? LOL.
wpbc
December 22, 2008 at 12:42 pm
foggily, my man, only foggily. doesn’t seem possible to subsist on hot dogs, beer and baseball anymore, does it?
gaius marius
December 22, 2008 at 1:57 pm
sometimes when you really get tight on cash, you just skip the dogs.
wpbc
December 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm
fwiw — not an econ blog, i know, but this sort of thing should be an indicator of how profoundly things have changed — some really unbelievably bad data is coming in from around the world. look at this, for example — shipments from japan to the united states declined 34% YoY in november. think about that for a minute. shipments from japan to asia, representing trade within the supposedly most resilient geographical sector, are off 27%. meanwhile, imports to japan are off 14%.
with figures like this, the return of the word ‘depression’ to the lexicon is not hyperbole.
gaius marius
December 22, 2008 at 2:27 pm
People are afraid to use the ‘d’ word gm. What can you say? If the shoe fits…
wpbc
December 22, 2008 at 3:09 pm
what’s worse, ccd, is the civil unrest it is unleashing in many corners of the world. greece, thailand, china, russia are all seeing disorder on a widespread scale related to if not directly caused by the economic collapse.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, is worried enough to ditch a half-century of IMF orthodoxy, calling for a fiscal boost worth 2pc of world GDP to “prevent global depression”.
“If we are not able to do that, then social unrest may happen in many countries, including advanced economies. We are facing an unprecedented decline in output. All around the planet, the people have reacted with feelings going from surprise to anger, and from anger to fear,” he said.
gaius marius
December 22, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Bear down…and I wish I was just talking about the Bears game tonite.
wpbc
December 22, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Loose money and social engineering has crippled most of the advanced European economies and this nonsensical model for economic disaster is now afoot in the largest consumer driven economy in the world, the USA.
What the fuck ever happened to incentivizing production? No production, no jobs. No jobs, no consumers. They banks can drop interest rates to minus 10% id they want, if no one has a legitimate ability to pay it back, banks won’t lend it.
Slash corporate tax rates to zero, and eliminate tax on capital gains, interest and dividends. Then and only then, will businesses expand and hire. When people are back to work, they’ll have the ability to buy the products employers produce.
When US business has lower production costs, they also compete on the global market more effectively, further creating more employment opportunities at home.
Klute
December 23, 2008 at 12:03 am
Wow.
oog
December 23, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Jesus Christ, I officially disagree with Klute on everything from economic policy to the sacrifice bunt to fake breasts. What are the odds?
uncle dave
December 25, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The populist liberal rant that pits entrepreneurs vs. the working man certainly expects an uniformed electorate to buy this drivel that corporate taxes are actually paid by corporations. The fact is the working man actually pays those corporate taxes as a businessman treats those taxes as just another production cost that has to be factored in before he sets his price to the consumer. Actually the consumer ends up being double taxed. The consumer’s purchasing power first takes a kick in the ass by paying for most goods and services with after-tax dollars, and then is taxed again on the product or service purchased.
Unless a company is in an industry that has no competition, foreign competitors that have lower production costs make it more difficult for American employers to compete. If a business cannot make a profit, they close their doors and the worker is out of work or worse yet, ask for a bailout, yikes!
Out of work consumers don’t spend and don’t pay income tax which is where the government derives most of its revenue. This increases government spending and gives politicians the cover to either fund their largess with deficit spending or raising taxes to fund the increased cost of unemployment and welfare benefits.
I am in agreement with uncle dave with respects to the sac bunt and fake breasts however.
Klute
December 26, 2008 at 9:31 am
Well, I think most everyone these days is on the same page with respect to putting folks back to work. I think the disagreement here is on taxation — if a company makes a profit because they can clear the market at price x and produce their product at price x-minus-whatever, they won’t have any incentive to slow production due to being taxed on the profits if those taxes are less than their overall profit margin, right? And the government can then turn around and use the proceeds to stimulate demand for other products that aren’t clearing the market at their production price, allowing more jobs to either be created or remain in place. Isn’t that supposedly what we’re about to see happen?
And at any rate, aren’t corporate taxes only applied to profitable companies?
Anyway, for the more important axe to grind: do you really think Lollygaggers Girl Kerry has real breasts? I don’t. I think we disagree on that one, too, unfortunately.
uncle dave
December 26, 2008 at 11:17 am
The point with corporate taxation is that it inflates the price of the product that consumers purchase. That negatively affects consumer spending power.
As far as the government using tax revenue from profitable companies to help unprofitable ones, did you ever think that some of those unprofitable companies might be profitable if they didn’t have to pass on those taxes in the form of a higher unit cost to the consumer?
I’m not saying corporate taxes are the only reason companies go under, but since it’s the consumer that indirectly pays those taxes, the consumer ends up footing the bill for this government engineering.
If you eliminate corporate taxes, you negate one of the most corrupting influences to our political system, lobbyists.
Lobbyists can and do influence politicians to such an extent that quite often a company unable to produce a viable product for a profit and therefore go out of business as a result, can actually make money as a result of their lobbying efforts. That’s insane and unfair.
Anyway, back to your suspicions of Lollygagger Girl Kerry…you can ask her out for a date and find out for yourself if they are for real by calling her private number, soft-2-touch.
Klute
December 26, 2008 at 5:53 pm
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