Guest Post: Musings of a Season Ticket Holder – The Yankees are Coming!

Nobody’s perfect – nobody. With that in mind, I took the NYY series Saturday partial season ticket debacle with one eye open, and the other in an “are you sure you want to do that?” slant.

Not everyone received the musical chairs fiasco, and my boss who has a full season was more upset then I that I didn’t get my original ticket for the Saturday NYY game. We have tickets for Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday games. That has been our plan since we started in 2003. I knew in early March that there was an issue about the Saturday NYY game. I posted a message on March 5th, about a spreadsheet I received from my rep that shows all of my 40 game pack “Plan B”. The first thing I saw was that the Saturday NYY game had Sunday August 4th at 1:00pm. I emailed my rep, and said this was a mistake. He wrote back and said, “in order to be fair to all the different partial season plans, each partial plan either has the Friday or Sunday Yankee game included in their package. Then everyone has the opportunity to purchase up to six additional tickets to all 3 NYY games at the discounted member rate (as well as Opening Day and all other games). Otherwise some plans would have had two NYY games, some one game, and some not getting any.” I spoke with him and said, “I already have ONE game, and that was Saturday, why would you change it? I paid for the Saturday game… one game, why was it changed? If people didn’t get at least one game, give them Sunday. Problem solved. I thought maybe I missed the “memo”, and he stated there was nothing sent out officially other then what I received via email.

Then the Season Tickets went out. Talk of people not renewing their seats, being long time fans, the last straw, radio, TV, blogs, FB, Twitter. I definitely was one of those people. Rightfully so I believe. WE help the Padres reach their quotas, support fan base, loyalty to the team, etc. You purchase your tickets IN ADVANCE, to get the tickets you want and agreed upon. It’s just disrespectful in my eyes to not say anything about it. People complain daily… its just who we are. Poor communication, yes. Did we get slighted? Yes. Did they mess up? Yes. Were they reactive instead of proactive? Yes. Are they sorry, Yes.

I was plenty upset in early March, before we received the tickets. I was NOT happy about going to a Sunday game in the hot August sun, in the middle of the day. I was not offered Friday night which if they looked at my membership status, I was a “social” member not a family member… so Friday would have been a better option for me, in my own seats of course.

Someone asked why we are so upset since the games are 4 months away. Well, because we are not going to the game we paid for, that’s why. Because I paid for Saturday games, and it was changed to a Sunday game without my knowledge. Because today, I know that they are going to sell my Saturday game instead of letting me sit there. Because in good faith, I gave them money for my season tickets in September of last year, as I always do expecting the seats I paid for.

Honestly, I don’t have time to manage my Padres season ticket account. I paid for it, I should get the tickets I paid for, and enjoy the games with my family and friends. I don’t buy the tickets assuming the team is going to win. I buy them because I love the game enough to secure a spot. Yes the Padres front office is in a sour position to start off the season as far as I’m concerned. I want to be excited about baseball, not start on the wrong foot right out the gate. My suggestion is if you are NOT happy, do something about it for your own piece of mind as it happens, not when its game time in August and you have ANY chance of getting what you want.

I don’t need a fancy membership card, or a membership level. I am a Season Ticket holder, I want to be treated as a special member when I am AT the ballpark. Period.

It’s exhausting to be negative and honestly, I “worked it out” with my rep, and when the day comes to play the Yankees, I hope we give them a good run for OUR money.

– Sandy

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