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Season Ticket Renewals


Taro T

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Just got the STH renewal package. This year instead of having a single sheet outlining the benefits of youth, there is an entire booklet. <_<

 

Notable: Letter from Ted Black and Brian Gionta included in booklet. Nothing from Tim Murray; but Barry Melrose and Craig Button's thoughts are included. :rolleyes:

 

Sabres players listed (besides Gionta):

Bogosian

Ennis

Foligno

Girgensons

Grigorenko

Kane

Larsson

Ristolainen

Zadorov

 

Notable exceptions: Gorges, Moulson, & Desaulariers (no surprise on others, including McCormick and Kaleta). Hodgson mentioned on last page as being a former 1st rounder but no Barry / Craig scouting report.

 

Sabres prospects:

Bailey

Baptiste

Carrier

Compher

Fasching

Malone

McCabe

Petersen

Pysyk

Reinhart

 

Notable exceptions: no goalies. [Edit: nevermind. :doh:]

 

Haven't checked to see how much the price went up. Have to buy 3 preseason games this year. :angry:

 

Read into it what you may.

Edited by Taro T
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Notable exceptions: Gorges, Moulson, & Desaulariers

 

That is interesting.

 

My take, the Sabres PR department is less than stellar and  they just forgot to include them.

 

or

 

 

We are trading them and our number 2 overall pick to Edmonton for their 1st overall.

I think the Sabres PR department sucks major... pucks.

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Call me naïve but I am surprised by the increase. The booklets nice though lol

They increase 'em pretty much every year. My seats "only" went up 4.4% this year vs 5.1% the previous year; which corresponds pretty well to the 3.8% increase in the standings. <_<

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If season ticket holders are willing to pay it, why shouldn't they?

Well, there is that. Terry said early on he didn't want to come into town as this multibillionaire and raise ticket prices. I think the business side won that argument for the reason you cite. The bean counters saw that demand was high and that tickets were relatively underpriced. Terry might have said what he said about drilling a new well if he wanted to make money, but others were always going to run it like a business on his behalf. The Blacks and Sawyers of the world don't do it any other way.

 

Some people like X. will say the Sabres have an obligation to the industry and to the players to grow revenue. It's unwritten; it's certainly not in the CBA. And it's fair to say of course revenues have to go up. Everything goes up, everywhere, all the time.

 

Others will say the Sabres are forced to raise prices in order to qualify for revenue sharing. That's not true. You qualify for revenue sharing based on a formula. Once you receive revenue sharing, if you don't reach 75% of the average league gate revenue, certain things kick in. They're not as punishing as in the old CBA. For example, you have to submit a three-year plan for increasing your revenue to the Revenue Sharing Oversight Committee. But the idea is for the team to be helped, not be punished. Teams can even get grants from the Industry Growth Fund. So it's not end of times if a team falls short of that 75% target. You don't lose your revenue sharing.

 

Bottom line for me — and, again, it's based on a layman's reading of the CBA; if I'm wrong please tell me how I'm wrong and please cite the CBA — is that Sabres didn't have to raise ticket prices again after such a historically bad season. They didn't have to, but they did. Like you said, why wouldn't they? The right thing to do, the one-time symbolic gesture, is the last thing on these people's minds. Ham-handed as usual.

Edited by @fakegorbyportwinestain
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Well, there is that. Terry said early on he didn't want to come into town as this multibillionaire and raise ticket prices. I think the business side won that argument for the reason you cite. The bean counters saw that demand was high and that tickets were relatively underpriced. Terry might have said what he said about drilling a new well if he wanted to make money, but others were always going to run it like a business on his behalf. The Blacks and Sawyers of the world don't do it any other way.

 

Some people like X. will say the Sabres have an obligation to the industry and to the players to grow revenue. It's unwritten; it's certainly not in the CBA. And it's fair to say of course revenues have to go up. Everything goes up, everywhere, all the time.

 

Others will say the Sabres are forced to raise prices in order to qualify for revenue sharing. That's not true. You qualify for revenue sharing based on a formula. Once you receive revenue sharing, if you don't reach 75% of the average league gate revenue, certain things kick in. They're not as punishing as in the old CBA. For example, you have to submit a three-year plan for increasing your revenue to the Revenue Sharing Oversight Committee. But the idea is for the team to be helped, not be punished. Teams can even get grants from the Industry Growth Fund. So it's not end of times if a team falls short of that 75% target. You don't lose your revenue sharing.

 

Bottom line for me — and, again, it's based on a layman's reading of the CBA; if I'm wrong please tell me how I'm wrong and please cite the CBA — is that Sabres didn't have to raise ticket prices again after such a historically bad season. They didn't have to, but they did. Like you said, why wouldn't they? The right thing to do, the one-time symbolic gesture, is the last thing on these people's minds. Ham-handed as usual.

Buffalo is just behind the times. With it's revitalized downtown, you now get to witness first hand the division of wealth that all the other major US cities have enjoyed for years.

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"It's a terrible, terrible period for performance for the team," said Hopkinson [chief commercial officer for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment]. "And we need to be make sure we're hugging our customer right now."

 

The franchise has not raised ticket prices for next season.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/toronto-maple-leafs-fans-need-hug-says-mlse-exec-1.3047449

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What's missing from both the ace TBN reporting and PA/Gorby's posts is any sense of context.  How much have the Sabres' prices risen around the NHL during the 5-year period they cite?  Where do the Sabres' ticket prices rank after this increase relative to the rest of the NHL (including the Leafs, which PA/Gorby seems to think is some kind of magnanimous community-minded organzation)?  What about expenses?  How much have payroll and other costs increased during that period? 

 

Of course, if you can't get past fear and loathing of the sinister billionaire, you're not going to take the time to understand what's really going on.  You might even take things as far as speculating that he might continue the Bills-in-Toronto series, and then claim you never did so.

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What's missing from both the ace TBN reporting and PA/Gorby's posts is any sense of context.  How much have the Sabres' prices risen around the NHL during the 5-year period they cite?  Where do the Sabres' ticket prices rank after this increase relative to the rest of the NHL (including the Leafs, which PA/Gorby seems to think is some kind of magnanimous community-minded organzation)?  What about expenses?  How much have payroll and other costs increased during that period? 

 

Of course, if you can't get past fear and loathing of the sinister billionaire, you're not going to take the time to understand what's really going on.  You might even take things as far as speculating that he might continue the Bills-in-Toronto series, and then claim you never did so.

Do you need glasses? In both cases, I tried to give Terry the benefit of the doubt, in the ticket case using his own words. If it were up to him (and it is, but he's trusting his business people), in my opinion, ticket prices wouldn't have gone up that first year and probably not this year either. And I clearly stated I thought Terry did not want to extend the Toronto series. What I speculated was that the business side of the Bills might try and convince him otherwise.

 

You're being an idiot. And an awful moderator. You accused me of trolling (personal attack) and now you're taking a thread off the rails while yourself being a troll. Nice roll you're on, partner.

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I think we need superhero/villain names assigned to Freeman, PA, and Drane to adequately describe the adversarial relationship they have. I don't think it's as clean as good vs evil, but there's definitely rivalry there.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. 

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Do you need glasses? In both cases, I tried to give Terry the benefit of the doubt, in the ticket case using his own words. If it were up to him (and it is, but he's trusting his business people), in my opinion, ticket prices wouldn't have gone up that first year and probably not this year either. And I clearly stated I thought Terry did not want to extend the Toronto series. What I speculated was that the business side of the Bills might try and convince him otherwise.

 

You're being an idiot. And an awful moderator. You accused me of trolling (personal attack) and now you're taking a thread off the rails while yourself being a troll. Nice roll you're on, partner.

 

Which is it?  Is it up to him, or is it those nefarious "business people?"  If it's up to him, is he accountable for the decision to raise prices and the putative decision to keep the Toronto series going?

 

TP is either accountable for these decisions, or he isn't.  If you think he's accountable, then how can you possibly claim that you "are giving TP the benefit of the doubt" and that you weren't speculating that TP would keep the Toronto series going?  If he's not accountable -- i.e. if he's some lovable wealthy dimwit who is led around by a bunch of ill-intentioned advisers -- then why do you keep taking shots at him?  Didn't you quite literally put him on trial?

 

And I don't see how responding to your shots at the team by asking for context (which you didn't respond to) and by pointing out what I see as your agenda, is taking the thread off the rails.

I think we need superhero/villain names assigned to Freeman, PA, and Drane to adequately describe the adversarial relationship they have. I don't think it's as clean as good vs evil, but there's definitely rivalry there.

 

Can Scarlett Johanssen be on my team?  Or can I at least kidnap her for a while?

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