Tigers stop selling full-season ticket packages

Tigers stop selling full-season ticket packages

January 28, 2008

By JON PAUL MOROSI

FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

The Tigers have temporarily halted the sale of full-season ticket plans, in the latest sign of soaring demand ahead of the team’s highly anticipated 2008 season.

Bob Raymond, the team’s vice president for marketing and ticket sales, said via e-mail Monday morning that the team stopped selling 81-game packages on Friday. The club has sold just over 4,000 new full season plans, Raymond said.

There are still “plenty” of 41- and 27-game packages available, Raymond said.

Raymond said the decision was linked to the limited number of tickets available for Opening Day and possible postseason games, which are guaranteed in the 81-game plans.

“We talked about it a lot,” Detroit club president/general manager Dave Dombrowski said. “We greatly appreciate the fan support. This is a good news-bad news situation for us: There’s that much interest that you’ve got to halt the sales a little bit.”

The Tigers could resume sales if enough 81-game season ticket holders decide not to renew before the mid-February deadline. Raymond said that a waiting list has been established for that purpose.

In the event of a 100% renewal, the Tigers would sell more than 25,600 full-season equivalents for the 41,001-seat Comerica Park. Other teams have capped season ticket sales in times of high demand, generally between 60% and 70% of capacity.

“We have to find out how many people actually renew,” Dombrowski said. “We’re constantly reassessing.”

Monday, January 28, 2008
Tigers close sales on full season tickets; partials available
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

The serious stampede is expected to begin March 1, when Tigers single-game tickets go on sale for the 2008 season.

In the interim, a Comerica Park season-ticket crush has broken all previous records spanning 106 years of big-league baseball in Detroit.

The Tigers said Monday they have only 41- and 27-game season-ticket packages remaining for 2008. Opening Day is not included in the partial ticket plans still available.

Although capacity at Comerica Park is 41,070, season tickets (full and partial packages that amount to full occupancy of a particular seat) must be cut off at a point just past 25,000, a number the Tigers are expecting to reach. The need to reserve 15,000 seats each game for purchase by groups that have traditionally been loyal customers (clubs, schools, church-related organizations, etc.) is a key reason for the set-aside tickets.

The deadline for season-ticket renewals by 2007 customers is Feb. 18. Rob Matwick, Tigers vice president for communications, said Monday that any non-renewals, if they eventuate, would be offered to people who have already expressed a desire for 81-game packages.

The Tigers last year sold full and partial season-ticket packages totaling 19,030 seats. According to Bob Raymond, vice president for marketing and ticket sales, there have been 6,600 new full-season equivalencies sold, pushing the number past 25,000 if the renewals are re-issued, as one way or another, the Tigers expect.

Of that 6,600 number, more than 4,000 of the new season packages are full 81-game orders. The remaining 2,600 are combinations of partial season tickets that equate to fully occupied seats for the entire home schedule.

In addition to Opening Day being unavailable in the 27- and 41-game packages remaining, Matwick said Monday that there likewise can be no guarantee of reservations for postseason games, should the Tigers reach the 2008 playoffs.

"It just didn't seem right to sell full-season tickets and not be able to offer Opening Day or the playoffs," Matwick said, explaining why the Tigers would, for example, not offer 80-game packages, minus Opening Day. "It's a good situation to be in, but we need to be careful about selling and at the same time not disappointing anyone."

Prime, lower-deck seating should be available for some early-season games when single-game sales begin March 1, Matwick said. It is likely, however, that choice seats for most series later in the year will be scarce as the Tigers approach the possibility of a season sellout at Comerica Park. The team set an all-time attendance record last year with 3,047,124 tickets sold. It was the first time in club history the team drew 3 million or more fans.

Sell out the Park

Pack the COPA

Toughest Ticket in town

Nothing energizes players like a packed stadium of happy fans! We should see some electric play this year!

Go get em Tigers, show em what a hungry team can do!!!

YEAH!

They say there is a chance of selling out the entire season...That would be so cool!!!!!!!

holy crap...can some poor Minnie Mouse like me at least see ONE game this season in person?

Me too. I'm coming north in July and want 2 tix to just one stinnkin game!!

Anyone??

I just want one seat to all the playoff games....

Well then, I want World Series tickets!!

OK...you go to the ws. I was bad luck in 06. My trip to St. Louis made me a very bitter man for quite awhile.

I knew it!! So its all on YOU.....lol

My dad is a damn cardinal fan so I took him with me to the ws. At least he enjoyed it. So yes it was my fault, but I was also at all the home games in the ALDS and ALCS so I guess I wasn't all bad!!

My goal was to go to one home game per month....um, might have to change my sights.

VegasTigersFan wrote:

My dad is a damn cardinal fan so I took him with me to the ws. At least he enjoyed it. So yes it was my fault, but I was also at all the home games in the ALDS and ALCS so I guess I wasn't all bad!!

You made it to a lot more post season games than i (zero) so I give you tons of credit!!

Thanks. It was fun and I want more this year!!!!

stupid cardinals!

Tell me about it...man did they get lucky. But I will say their fans are very nice.

we coulda shoulda KILLED 'em!

It was really a hard series to watch. In person or on tv.

I just hadn't turned onto the Tigs yet. I vaguely remember watching Maggs do his big home run...but didn't see any of the series at all. How special that A's game must've been!

That and the Yanks series was incredible. The stadium went nuts beyond belief when he hit it !!!!!!

what a birthday present for his son!

It would be hard to give a better present than that...

If I were his wife, I would've leaped over the guard rail and jumped him!

Does he really have to hit a home run for you to feel that way?

Nah!