Leading off, I'll give the Toronto Blue Jays some credit here.
They've been studying and listening and, to borrow a hockey term, changing on the fly quite a bit already since the gates to Sahlen Field swung open to fans on June 1 for the first time in 21 months.
"This corner has a simple message to the Toronto Blue Jays as we look ahead to the rest of the summer in Sahlen Field: Price point, price point, price point," writes Mike Harrington.
There have been missteps for sure. But in this crazy, never-to-be-repeated set of circumstances, things simply can't be perfect.
The Jays have taken a lot of heat in recent days, both from Buffalo fans and media, about their ticket price structure here and about changing prices of concessions. A headline in the Toronto Sun said they were "looking to sucker Buffalo fans with over-priced tickets" for the 10-game homestand that opened Thursday against Baltimore.
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The stadium capacity has slowly crept up thus far, and the Jays sold the roughly 5,300 seats they had for the first five home games against Miami and Houston, and the 7,000-plus for last week's three games against the Yankees.
But they ran afoul of fans for the current homestand. Some games had ticket ranges of $69-$125, but it's a delicate balance. Make them too expensive, fans get offended and don't buy. Make them too cheap and brokers will join fans in scooping them up and then reselling them on secondary markets for far more.
"Ultimately, our goal in Buffalo is to get as many people out to the games as possible," said Anuk Karunaratne, the Jays' executive vice president of business operations. "The pricing at the onset of the most recent group of games was driven by what we saw on the market, which was the only objective information we had about the Buffalo market for Major League Baseball."
Fair enough. This isn't the NFL or NHL, where we know what people will pay and what they won't. For MLB, we're all guessing. I think my range of $40-$80 was more reasonable, but we didn't really know until tickets for these games simply didn't sell.
So the Jays pivoted. They've started a "Flash" sale that runs through Friday night (enter Flash as the code at Bluejays.com/tickets). You can get seats in the last three sections in left field or right field for just $29. For some games, the top seats are only $68 and only for the Friday nights do they hit $85.
That's a lot more like it. And it sure looked like folks took advantage of that as Thursday's crowd of 6,264 was far more than what sales showed earlier in the week.
"We're going to keep studying and adjusting the prices. Our goal is to get as many people in as possible," Karunaratne said. "And if price is a barrier for some, we don't want to leave them out. We're committed to that. The goal is not to try to just simply maximize revenue here. I think us being in Buffalo and being grateful for the hospitality we've had not just this year, but last year as well, we want to make sure people can get out to a game."
But what about people who already bought tickets for these games? Those $29 seats were originally priced at $69. Is that really fair? Under the dynamic price model the team is using, prices don't always go up. Sometimes they go down, based on a variety of supply-demand factors.
If your ticket goes up, the team doesn't ask you to pay more. If it goes down, well, that happens sometimes with a hotel room or airline ticket. That said, the Jays are working with fans who contact them about price concerns, and several reached out to me Thursday with positive feedback on their experience.
If you paid a high price for a ticket that's quite a bit cheaper now, I'd give them a ring at 1-888-654-6529.
A couple other points from my chat with Karunaratne:
A longtime supporter of the Bisons and the downtown ballpark, Brown was among many top local leaders who worked with the club as they have helped the Blue Jays turn Sahlen into a big-league park the last two years.
Ticketing fees: They're standard in the industry and driven by the agreements teams have with providers. Sahlen Field uses Tickets.com and Rogers Centre uses Ticketmaster. Not much you can do about them.
Promotions: The Jays are hoping to do more of them now that Covid-19 protocols are relaxed and there can be handouts. The Jays want to see how feedback will be for Friday night's Vladimir Guerrero bobblehead to the first 7,000 fans (My guess is they don't have enough bobbleheads for the demand that they will have).
Concessions: The Jays jacked up prices on food and beverage items by $2 apiece for the final two Yankees games and it caused all kinds of consternation from fans – and apologies from the workers behind the stands. Sounds like they learned their lesson. Prices were rolled back Thursday.
"We did test out some different pricing for those Yankee games. We don't have any plans to dynamically price concessions,"Â Karunaratne said. "That should not be an expectation. And people will not see that."
How long will they stay?: We're a week or two away from a decision on the July 30-Aug. 8 homestand (Kansas City, Cleveland, Boston). It seems inevitable the Jays will be here for that one. Team president Mark Shapiro reiterated Thursday on Toronto sports radio giant The Fan 590 that border issues remain difficult to overcome at this time. I think they'll be hard-pressed to be home for the Detroit-Chicago stand that starts Aug. 20. Maybe they get there for the Aug. 30 stand against Baltimore.
Gripe if you want and many complaints are totally legit. But the Jays are leaving a legacy here with all the improvements made to the park that will remain after they leave.
"I don't think we could be in a better situation in a better place if we're not in Toronto," Karunaratne said. "And beyond this year, what's also exciting to us is that it's probably among the best player facilities now in Triple-A baseball. So for the Bisons, that's going to be a long term benefit we're really excited about as well."
