Priority Ticketing, 2008 USOT

[James Fields]

University of Oregon has mailed an interesting track ticket package offer: "By committing to purchase Oregon Track and Field Season tickets for 2006, 07, 08 you will become eligible to purchase all session Olympic Trials Tickets before they go on sale to the general public. Seats for this event will be allocated using the Duck Athletic Fund's priority point system."

The 2006 "Full Season Reserved" ticketing costs $24; the "Season Ticket Commitment 2007 & 2008" costs $48. For each year there is also a $5 processing fee. So it appears that for $87 one can establish a priority position for purchasing a ticket for the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Of course, if you live far from Oregon, you might not use tickets for those three seasons but some might consider it a worthwhile expenditure to get priority in ticketing.

[mojo]

I got that notice as well.
Are OT tickets hard to get when they do go on sale to the general public?

[gh]

GOOD tickets are certainly going to be hard to find.

[bad hammy]

If the past two are any guide, tickets are easy to come by. Sitting on the finish line? Not so easy.

[mojo]

If the past two are any guide, tickets are easy to come by. Sitting on the finish line? Not so easy.

hammy-I put you in charge of buying mine.

One less thing on my 'to do" list.

[gh]

If the past two are any guide, tickets are easy to come by. Sitting on the finish line? Not so easy.

I suspect it's safe to say that unless you're "somebody" you're not going to get a sniff of the finish line.

[bad hammy]

May have told this story before, but . . .

1984 the OT was in the cavernous LA Coliseum. Got tickets way early, right on the finish line. They were running morning and evening sessions. Got to the first morning session, found our seats and settled in. Turns out that seeming 80% of the folks had seats in the same section, and it was packed. The rest of the place was practically empty. We never sat in those seats again the rest of the meet. Had a great time moving around to view differing events, almost always had a personal space of about 25 yards. It was great!

The last couple of OTs in Sacramento bought tickets on the back straight. The only day it was at all crowded was the last day. Otherwise, lots of space to spread out.

[gh]

The '88 Olympics were wonderful in that they had scramble seating. And the Koreans didn't seem particularly track savvy (for example, the scramble for seats to watch the 100 final was in the end zone, watching them come head-on), so it was very easy to move all over the stadium, watch most all the field events up close and personal if you liked.

[KevinM]

Perhaps this type of thing is not uncommon, but moves like this lead me to believe that the UO community is far more concerned with making sure that US Track and Field serves Oregon than the other way around.

[tafnut]

I'm seriously considering making the trek from Florida (you know how persistent gh can be in his begging!), so is it worth the $87 to have a 'priority' or will I not sniff a good seat (ewww) either way?

[gh]

Perhaps this type of thing is not uncommon, but moves like this lead me to believe that the UO community is far more concerned with making sure that US Track and Field serves Oregon than the other way around.

You perhaps don't understand the economics of the thing. This is a rudimentary sketch of how it works (or how I understand it works; I may be unclear on a few details).

•The OT is a piece of "real property" that USATF sells off (big source of USATF's income) to the winner of the Trials bid.

•That price is not small. It's large not only in terms of outright cash that the "winner" has to give to USATF to get the bid, but also in terms of advertising rights that the host also has to yield to USATF. In other words, if USATF has Ferrari as its car sponsor, it can put Ferrari signs all over the venue (well, within the constraints of the USOC, which I believe also has its fingers in the pie in some fashion) but they keep all the Ferrari money. And since there's a car sponsor in the arena, the LOC (local organizing committee) can't sign up Maserati or anyone else. I believe there are also restrictions on size/amount/placement of LOC signage, disadvantageous compared to USATF's, so harder to sell.

•The LOC--not USATF--is also responsible for most of the infrastructure. Arranging housing, transportation, officials, meals, timing & announcing crews. If you're lucky you find a sponsor who trades some of this out in kind. Otherwise, it's more cash for you to come up with.

•The LOC thus has a monstrous nut to crack. The main way to do it is through ticket sales. So if you're going to maximize your revenue stream, you tweak the tickets for all they're worth.

•Whatever your normal seating capacity is, you lose a significant number of that too. The press section overflows and takes up many rows customers would normally be in. Sponsor set-asides wipe out whole sections. In most arenas, the seat-kills you get from TV positions that aren't normally there can be significant.

So remember that Sacto averaged over 20,000 people a session in '00 and still LOST something like a million dollars. I begrudge any OT host not a penny of what they can scrape out.

This isn't a "who's serving whom" issue; it's the economic reality of putting on a big-time sporting event.

[KevinM]

GH,

I understand the economics of it, and I admit I was being overly harsh towards UO. That said, I still don't have to like the fact that America's premier track and field event is now basically set up to be a Duck/Nike love fest.

[bad hammy]

That said, I still don't have to like the fact that America's premier track and field event is now basically set up to be a Duck/Nike love fest.

My guess is that it is going to be a lot more fan-friendly that the last two in Sacramento. Of many options I can think of, Eugene is really about as good as it gets.