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Those of you most interested in the Post's Redskins ticketing exposé have no doubt already read the article and vented your bile, but it's probably worth taking a moment to explain to everyone else just why this is so irritating.
The short version: the team's much-vaunted waiting list for season tickets may be recognized as a sham, but to preserve the illusion, *someone* in the 'Skins sales office entered into quiet arrangements to unload hard-to-sell premium tickets in bundles with more sought-after lower bowl seats, bypassing the long line of fans who'd be happy to buy those seats. The counterparties to these deals? Your friends and mine: the men and women of the secondary ticket market, aka scalpers-with-websites, aka the goddamn scum of the earth.
Of course, there's something to be said for the idea of letting the market set the price for tickets. But that's never been the team's priority: forcing season ticket holders to use approved reselling venues isn't exactly an effort to help the market clear. And the Redskins organization is clearly feeling sheepish about this little scheme: they're tight-lipped with the Post, but refer to the incident as a mistake and say that the relevant parties in the ticket office have been disciplined. This seems to be motivated at least in part by last year's game against Pittsburgh, in which opposing fans were so numerous — and so loud — that the team had to use a silent snap count in its own stadium.
The waiting list may be a farce, but it's emblematic of the social contract between the Skins and this town. Despite the team's perennial crappiness, fans remain dedicated. Tickets are still a relatively scarce commodity, and, once you control for teams that are actually good at football, are among the priciest passes in the NFL. The Redskins have been called the most profitable franchise in sports — surely that ought to be enough to sustain the team, no matter how badly Six Flags is doing.
Instead, it appears that the Skins organization opted to greedily take advantage of the secondary market — seemingly just to preserve their aura of desirability, although who knows if some creep in the ticket office was pocketing kickbacks — and in the process helped to flood home games with opposing fans. I was at the Pittsburgh game, and make no mistake: it was bad. FedEx field was filled with fights, black-jersied mouthbreathers and those stupid f@&#ing towels. Redskins fans felt outnumbered in their own stadium, and now it looks like the team helped make it possible. That's no way to treat your fans customers.
Charles Gray contributed to this post.
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I'm a Steelers fan, I went to that game, I wore my black jersey and waved my stupid f@&#ing towel. I may have been breathing through my mouth, if I had a cold, but I don't remember.
I bought my tickets the same way anyone else would. There was not some secret back channel selling just to Steelers fans.
Any of the dedicated skins fans could have just as easily bought the ticket, but they didn't.
Perhaps the real problem is that dedicated skins fans are not as dedicated as they like to think.
Well, at least now nobody has to detail why Steelers fans are completely worthless as humans go.
Point 1 - We beat Pittsburg 17-13
Point 2 - We should shoot all ticket whores
Point 3 - We beat Pittsburg 17-13
Point 4 - The "h" is missing on purpose
Get back on the team bus Liz.
(Bad Girl)
I thought the Steelers won 23-6? Oh, right, you're referring to a game that didn't count.....
Yeah, that preseason victory sets you up nicely for January football. C'mon -- there are some Redskins fans who still remember watching the Redskins play January football, right?
Comment o' the day right he-ah. And early too!
Tom Lee, are you talking about the time the Steelers filled the stadium during the 2008 season, or the time they filled the stadium for the 2009 preseason game?
E Rich, I'm a die hard Ravens fan, and if I can agree with the Steeler fan, then he must really be speaking the truth. The stadium was filled with Steelers fans, not because of some shady double dealing in the Slurskins front office, although that may have been a minor factor, but because the majority of legitimate season ticket owners sold their tickets online. The best way to keep Steelers nation from filling up your stadium is to be able to compete against them.
This argument is a farce. The Steelers come to town once every blue moon. Who's gonna be more up to see the Steelers...Steelers fans or Redsksins fans? Of course it's Steelers fans. Redskins fans will pay a lot of money to see their NFC east rivals, not these other teams. Not knocking the Steelers, they are a great team. It's just that if Skins fans are going to pay out the ass to see a game it has to be one that "counts"...not just spend hundreds/thousands of dollars to see each home game. Of course, selling out the stadium would not be a problem if scalpers were not involved, b/c the prices would remain the same and people spending x amount of $$ could go to more games.
" The Steelers come to town once every blue moon. Who's gonna be more up to see the Steelers"
You speak as though Steelers fans across the nation spend 4 years counting the days until they will have the opportunity to visit the glory that is FedEx Field.
Apparently, rereading the post, it appears the writer was referencing the regular season game last year. ALL REGULAR SEASON GAMES COUNT. Yes, divisional rivals count more, but there are only 8 regular season home games. Regardless of who you are playing, if you cannot maintain a sizable majority of fans in your own home, your supposed fan base is undermotivated. Especially in light of the fact that going into that game, everybody was still under the false impression that the Slurs were actually good. If my argument is such a farce, and your argument has any validity, why is it Slurs fans don't travel well? When they play non-division teams on the road nearby, they should take up 30-40% of the stands, right? Oh, right, they don't, because there is enough interest in those markets to sell 90-95% of the tickets to the home team fans.
"You speak as though Steelers fans across the nation spend 4 years counting the days until they will have the opportunity to visit the glory that is FedEx Field."
Actually yes, the steelers fans in the vicinity of DC did have the redskins game on their schedule for an extended period of time. The game meant a lot more to them than it did for redskins fans. and since the DC area is essentially a refugee camp from transplanted Pennsylvanians, there were lots of steelers fans (bandwagon or otherwise) who didn't actually have to travel to attend the game.
"The game meant a lot more to them than it did for redskins fans"
At that point in the season is was presumed by everybody that the Steelers had the division locked and that all 3 of their divisional rivals were garbage. The Slurs were in a heated battle for divisional position with 3 other teams. How is it that the game meant more to Steeler fans? Because they were all dying to see the sights in Landover?
All of America is a refuge for 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation western Pennsylvanians, including the Philadelphia area. If the delusional argument you all are telling yourselves had any validity, the Steelers fans would have taken over Lincoln Financial Field too, but they didn't. They traveled well, they always do, but they didn't take over. Also, if travel wasn't much of an issue, why didn't D.C.(AND Maryland, AND Pennsylvanian) Steeler fans take of M&T Bank Stadium? Not the same situation exactly, as divisional rivals will stir a greater interest in a home market, but it's still a valid question.
Face reality. Redskins fans don't care very much. Bad management, bad ownership and incompetent drafting/trading/signing have destroyed a once proud franchise.
McSpanky, maybe you missed my point earlier. We don't care about non-division games. Also, The Ravens stadium is smaller and offers less tickets which are sucked up by locals much faster b/c there's nothing to do in B-More, besides smoke rock. But back to my main point the NFC East is the best division. Even though we may be the worst team in it, it's still the BEST division in the entire NFL...no one can argue against that. If we get bent over spending all our money to the good games at home, we don't have the money/nor do we have the desire to go see the other non-division teams play our boys.
I didn't miss your point. I responded to your point exactly as you presented it.
But now we all know, as per your explanation, Redskins fans only care about 3 home games. Which validates my original point, that Redskins season ticket holders opt to sell their tickets online over actually attending the games, and when they do, the market is driven by away team interest. Something tells me Philadelphia, NY Giants and Dallas fans look at things differently.
How many hours away are we from Pitt? Not many. How worse is the economy in Pitt v. DC? Much. There are huge numbers of transplants from Pitt here in this area. So when the team from your boarded up coal town comes in, the natives take that opportunity to see their team in their new backyard.
Are we undermotivated? Hell yeah we are. Have you seen our team's performance in the last 10 yrs? Add to that our sucky owner charging you out the wazoo for everything he can, including shuttle bus service from distant lots and clamping down on tailgating before games. You may understand why the fans who love their team, no matter how bad they are, just aren't going to come out to see the Pittsburgh Steelers or any other team that's not in the East.
We don't travel to Philly, b/c frankly, Philly fans will straight up beat your ass.
you just made his point. steelers (and giants, eagles and cowboys) fans don't sell their tickets to opposing fans. redskins fans don't give a shit.
washington is a town filled with fans from every team. the wizards, nats and even Georgetown have the same problem; tons of fans from opposing teams filling the empty seats at home games.
the caps have somewhat solved that problem; they win and fill their seats with the rabid reds.
go caps.
exactly my point. i have lived in this town for almost nine years now and can't recall being acquainted with anyone who is a redskins fan . . . except for a handful of people from maryland and virginia.
i don't see how the city paper article demonstrates that the redskins season ticket waiting list is a sham. The city paper did not receive an offer to purchase season tickets, the offer was simply to make a deposit without any guarantee of actually obtaining season tickets.
But the Post article does show it's a sham. Tickets were being sold to brokers by the Redskins (or at least someone at the Redskins against team policy) while fans piled up on the waiting list. If I was someone on the waiting list, I'd be pissed off to find out brokers were getting my tickets first.
i don't see how the post article shows it's a sham. if the redskins weren't allowing brokers to purchase general admission seats, maybe 1000 names on the waiting list would get season tickets. Considering the waiting list is over 100,000 names, 1000 is relatively insignificant.
I was a Steeler fan at that game, and fit none of your idiotic stereotypes. "Mouthbreathers?" are you serious? No gear - Terrible Towels are supposed to be waved in the playoffs, but most of Steeler nation wave them 365 24/7.
I was berated with no provocation by several drunken Redskins fans when entering my section ("You a Steelers fan?" -- uh yeah dude -- so are 1/3 of the people here). I witnessed several incidents instigated by fans on both sides, one Steeler loudmouth talking a lot of smack and two separate heroically drunken Redskins fans who physically escalated beefs.
FedEx could have easily been mistaken for a UMD homegame at Comcast Center.
On the mouthbreather thing, it always comes down to that with Redskins "fans," other football teams are supported by a working class and pedestrian fan base.
WHEN TALKING ABOUT FOOTBALL?! Because you see, a true Redskins fan will enjoy a football game (?!) reclining on vomitorium style couches while they are hand fed grapes, wine and cheese.
I've always felt that way about DC sports in gen'l. More so since the mid-90's. Tickets are usually the priciest and so the "sport" has turned into entertainment. Basically it's like these people go there and have the game on in the background while they converse about business or other bullshit. THat's not what a sports fan does. Ultimately this goes back to our other argument why skins games have large numbers of oposing fans.
About 10 years ago I was at a Caps game in the lower bowl. Big hit - I get up and scream. Some woman behind me said "will you please sit down and stop screaming". I went back to her with "I paid as much for these tickets as you did. If you wanted to talk shop all game you should have stayed home".
That reminds me of an Orioles/Yankees game last year or maybe the year before. It was one of the Wild Bill Hagy birthday games (when O's fans honor the memory of old redneck fan from Dundalk - a huge amount of fun, by the way). Fans throughout the park dressed up like Hagy, stood cheering and doing his old O's cheer. All the Yankees fans (most of which come up from D.C.) complained bitterly that all the Orioles fans were ruining their game experience, AT CAMDEN YARDS! Nobody was starting fights, or getting belligerent or even talking smack. They were rooting for the home team. Unbelievable.
Man, the article in today's Post with the little old lady who is in bankruptcy because of her season tickets? Shameful. All I can say is Go Caps.
Yes, I agree. The little old lady should be very ashamed of herself for reneging on the contract she chose to sign.
Go Wizards too! October is not far off
you all know that the redskins don't even play in washington, dc right? this blog is called dcist, not landoverist. let's skip coverage of this terrible team that abandoned the city and talk about things actual dc residents care about.
They don't? Wow, thanks for the news flash! What would you rather talk about...you know b/c this blog is only about what you're concerned about.
Didn't say that, sir. But how much coverage should DCist give to the LA Dodgers? Or the Toronto Argonauts? Neither of those teams plays here either.
You're being WAY TOO ANAL in your definition of what is relevant to D.C. I'm not saying you shouldn't be annoyed that the team plays in Landover, but comparisons to the Dodgers or the Argonauts? Come on. Nobody takes people who say crap like that seriously.
It isn't like the 49ers moving to San Jose, an hour away from San Fran or anything.
OK, let's recap.
Which team hasn't been able to win more than 10 games in any season since 1991?
The Redskins.
Which team plays in a concrete-and-parking-lot wasteland with terrible amenities and about 20,000 seats that it can't sell because they are too far from the field to have a decent view?
The Redskins.
Which team is NAMED AFTER AN ETHNIC SLUR?
The Redskins.
So you can stuff it with the Pittsburgh insults, DCist.