Friday, June 19, 2009

Yanks fan relations gets one right

Sure was nice to see this sort of thing done yesterday at Yankee Stadium, following a 5+ hour rain delay:

The New York Yankees announced that they are rewarding all fans with tickets for today's game vs. the Washington Nationals for their patience and support with a free ticket offer. Please note that the Yankees will only accept tickets with valid barcodes for the June 18, 2009, game.

Fans may redeem their valid June 18, 2009, ticket -- regardless of whether it was used to attend the game or not -- for a free Bleachers, Grandstand or Terrace ticket at Yankee Stadium to a non-Premium game this season or a non-Premium game in the 2010 season.
I also heard that they invited all fans in the upper levels to come and sit in the lower level --nooo, not in the moat-- but lower level, since there were only about 10,000 fans at gametime.

That's getting it right.

I'd like to see the team randomly pulling families from the upper to the lower when there are seats available during every game. Might be tough logistically (to say the least), but it'd be a huge PR win, something the Yanks haven't had a lot of this season so far.

In unrelated news, the fine USGA folks at Bethpage State Park gave the middle finger to fans yesterday.
The rain that washed out play at Bethpage Black on Thursday left more than a few people scrambling for Plan B, including the 42,500 fans who had tickets for the day’s action.

Late Thursday, United States Golf Association officials decided to stick with their policy of not refunding or exchanging tickets that were designated for days when rain washed out play. On the event’s
Web site, a small notice was posted saying, “Thursday tickets will not be refunded or exchanged.
Because rain halted the event so early Thursday, and because more rain is expected, association officials met to consider whether to allow people with Thursday tickets to attend another day of the tournament, not unlike what baseball teams do when some games are rained out.
And because there is more rain scheduled, it seems that plus the stupid no-refund policy is having a negative impact on ticket resales for Sunday:
According to FanSnap.com, a Web site that monitors nearly five dozen ticket resellers, the average price of a ticket being offered for sale to Sunday’s play, which for now is the final round, had fallen by 40 percent.

Of the roughly 400 Sunday tickets for sale online Thursday, the average price had fallen to $128.15. Prices have fallen steadily since early April, when the average price hit a high of $220.
Click here to see the NY Times slideshow from the Open. Picture #7 is pretty telling how bad the conditions were for all. Screw the fans, though.

UPDATE: Thanks to Jay at FackYouk for forwarding this update:
The U.S. Golf Association was obviously concerned that ticket-holders Thursday believed they had been left high and dry, and announced this morning that anyone with a Thursday ticket will be allowed to watch whatever golf will be played on Monday.

There is a strong possibility that regulation play will not be finished as scheduled on Sunday because of the delays caused by Thursday's suspension and the likelihood of rain again on Saturday. So the Thursday ticket holders could get to see the finish of the Open. If there is a playoff Monday, they also would be allowed to use Thursday tickets to attend that.

3 comments:

Mark said...

Awesome all the die-hards from last night could get free tickets to another game as a reward, but come on -- a 5.5 hour rain delay? Those fans should get to sit in the dugout as a reward.

My buddy here at work thinks it sucks the Sox fans last night only got to see half a game, but at least they got to bed on time.

Jason @ IIATMS said...

Mark:

The game was supposed to start at 1:05. At that point, it was teeming. Had I had tix, I would have waited to head to the park for a while. You knew they were going to try to get the game in later, when the weather report predicted it would clear a bit later in the afternoon.

And the game ended at 9:20, so everyone got to bed on time. In fact, I thought it was close to 11, by habit.

Bonus!!!!

Mark said...

Ahh...I figured it was a night game. Haha, I was wondering how they could start a game at like 1am or something!