By HOWARD BERGER
TORONTO (Sep. 22) — Imagine going to the Air Canada Centre for tonight’s Maple Leafs-Penguins pre-season game knowing you’ve paid $832.00 for a pair of tickets in the Platinum section. Clearly, you have no choice but to cough up close to that fee as a season-ticket holder, for the meaningless tilt is part of your 45-game package. When you arrive at the rink, you look around and notice that neither Sidney Crosby nor Evgeni Malkin are in the visitors’ line-up. Instead, you have doled out what amounts to a week’s pay for an average family to watch such luminaries as Ben Lovejoy, Dustin Jeffrey, Wyatt Smith, Chris Conner, Tim Wallace and Robert Bortuzzo skate for the “Stanley Cup champions”.
Though the Maple Leafs obviously have nothing to do with Pittsburgh’s decision to leave Crosby and Malkin at home, it’s difficult to imagine a consumer receiving less bang for his buck anywhere on earth. Which is part and parcel of being a ticket buyer in this city.
The price range for tonight’s exhibition match — though not a surprise — is nonetheless astounding. According to Ticketmaster, individual prices start at $95.00 and increase to $150.00, $165.00, $187.00, $196.00, $203.00, $217.00, $226.00 and $416.00. If you so desire, you can log onto Ticketmaster.ca and purchase a single seat in the very first row of Sec. 107 [right at the glass] for $423.50, all fees included. You can take your wife to the game for $847.00. That’s the equivalent of one week’s salary for a person making $44,000.00 a year. To own a pair of season tickets in the Platinum section costs more than $30,000.00, not including the seat-license fee.
As a comparison to how things have gotten totally out of whack, consider this:
In 1975-76, when I was 16, my dad bought a pair of season tickets in the south-mezzanine Blues at Maple Leaf Gardens. The cost for each ticket was $5.50. The entire season cost $220.00, which means my pop laid out $440.00 for a pair of ducats to see Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Borje Salming and Co. play 40 regular-season games. Imagine that expenditure being just $16.50 more than a single ticket in the Platinum section for tonight’s pre-season tilt. It’s almost incomprehensible. The top-end seats [Golds] at MLG in ‘75-76 were $6.60 apiece, or $264.00 for the season. The buyer of a single ticket for tonight’s practice game will spend almost that much [$226.00] to watch from the Golds at the ACC.
Crosby and Malkin played for Pittsburgh during last night’s exhibition match in Montreal. The Penguins were under no obligation to dress them for tonight’s game. Presumably, you buy your tickets with the understanding that line-ups are a crap-shoot in the pre-season, or you simply have no say in the matter as a season-ticket holder.
Still, the numbers are staggering.
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Maybe the leafs or league in general should not include pre-season games in the season ticket packages and let the average fan who can’t afford a regular season game go to the game at a reduced cost. They (leafs)don’t have an issue with selling out the ACC.
Thanks
- Tino DiasI read with some glee at your suggestion that Tomas Kaberle as I concur it would be a terrific idea. Having said that there is now NO WAY
- Brooks HipgraveHi Howard,
- Kevin Lakingprices would drop if fans stopped going. why do you think the Leafs don’t want Hamilton to join the league. perhaps because there will be a cheaper alternative and the Leafs are forced to get better or drop prices. let’s hope JB gets the team and the Leafs are exposed as a terrible team who can no longer charge whatever they want for tickets
Unbelievable, I just calculated a $148.71 average for every seat at the ACC. Multiplied it by the seating capacity of 18,819. I got a figure of $2,798,654.15 for filling the ACC. If you multiply that number on a 82 game schedule you’ll get $229,489,636 !!! that’s not including box seats!!! Take 56.8 million for players salaries, 20 million for management, human resources and event projects you have $152,689,636!! They could buy an NHL franchise in a year with all this money. I want to become a teacher and retire early.
Yonge St. better be paved with gold when the leafs finally earn a cup parade! We now know they can afford to do just that.
- NelsonI just started getting excited about hockey again recently (last year) but i know i could never justify blowing all this cash to go watch a live game.
The Leafs are very lucky to have such crazed diehard fans and lots of corporate money buying up all the seats because no average fan could afford to watch 1-2 games never mind purchasing season’s tickets.
- CarlosBeing a Leaf fan is like being hooked on drugs. You know it’s not good for you but you keep forking out that cash for that first buzz that never comes. MLSE is just the Pusher Man and the line up to get high is endless. So here is my money MLSE let’s hope this year the buzz lasts untill June.
- RickGreed, greed and more greed. How much money do these people need. I love the Leafs but holy crap you people are really making me sick.
- Brucewow what a cash grab! i said years ago i thought the prices were unfair and here is the proof. i love that they can charge that for a preseason game. i will sitback and hope rimjim gets a team in the hammer but for now my center ice package on tv is calling me.
- illazI live in Kingston and try to get to one game a year in Toronto. When I do, I don’t get tickets from the ACC or online re-seller. Like most out-of-towners I have to go to the scalper on the corners. You think it’s hard to be a season ticket holder, paying face value? - try paying scalper prices for the nose bleeds. It really takes a lot of the magic and passion out of the experience for us Leaf fans who travel far to see their favourite team.
As much as it pains me to say, I actually go to see games more in Ottawa and Montreal as the scalper’s prices are much cheaper. In Ottawa I saw Toronto play and got tickets from a scalper for seats 7 rows up in the visitor’s end for $150. What section do you think I would get for $150 in Toronto?
I would love to see the new Leafs this year, but I may just stay in Kingston and watch Doug Gilmour coach the Kingston Frontenacs - for myself, my wife and 2 kids it’s $55. And oh yeah, on Oct 18, the London Knights visit, so I’ll get to see Nazem Kadri as well.
And fire Ron Wilson, he’s an ass.
- FireRonWilsonHoward:
A real culprit is Ticketmaster…their markups are inordinately high, if compared to what the price “should” be if sold by the Team at its Box Office.
But don’t for a minute think that the Seasonticketholders pay full price for exhibition games.
I participate in a share of a friend’s Golds. He basically sells his tickets at cost to his friends. This year, he charges the face price of $203 for Centre Golds for each of the 41 Regular Season Games (allocated in an equitable fashion so one person doesn’t get all “good” games and another “nothing but Nashville and Phoenix”) and $35 for the 4 exhibition games.
This is likely close to ‘fair market value’.
A review of StubHub.com would show that most exhibition game ticckets that are re-sold on the second hand market are sold at a ‘discount’, and most Regular Season games are sold at a premium, varying by quality of opposition.
(Incidentially, StubHub’s Commission is 25% in total…even more usurous than TicketMaster!)
If the Leafs weren;t 90+% seasonticketholder sales, you would likely see single game pricing varying even more than what the Blue Jays do…unless the NHL forbade that as bad for its image.
Regards
- Mel NortonHoward, I was wondering, who do you think outta the d-men will be sent to minors, we have 9 nhl d-men and they all can’t stay with the club, can they?
- robHey Nelson,
There are only 41 home dates. Still a lot of money though.
- RaviHi Howard
- DavidAh, the joys of unbridled capitalism. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment continues to demonstrate what happens when there is no competition in the marketplace. Wouldn’t it be satisfying to watch MLSE have to spend millions of dollars to defend its monopolistic veto against Jim Basillie, lose, and then have to deal with the competition that Basillie’s team would bring to the region?
To Nelson —- Try multiplying by 41 home games, not an 82 game sked. You’re also forgetting the Raptors, Marlies, TFC, the condo developments, Sharon Lois and Bram, my backyard shed and everything else MLSE owns
- Andrew Shone[…] at home, 3-2, over the Sidney-less, Malkin-less, Fleury-less Penguins. (In front of fans paying slightly less than the price of a round-trip airline ticket to watch a glorified scrimmage.) With the game-tying goal and this shootout beauty, Kadri is making […]
- Video: Kadri’s deke-tastic preseason shootout goal for Leafs | Sports News Images and VideosWith an average of 3.6% annual inflation, the value of Howard’s dad’s 1974-75 $220 seasons tickets would be $759 today.
Far cry from the $15,000-20,000 people pay today.
- AngeloI thought there was a league rule that a mimnimum number of regulars have to dress for exhibition games where the team is charging regular prices for admission. Is this no longer the case?
- Paul McDougallI really don’t blame the Leafs one bit. Supply and demand - people line up like lemmings for the chance to fork over thousands of dollars to see a hockey game. If you owned the Leafs, wouldn’t you accept their money too? The Leafs could charge MORE if they wanted to. I’m a huge Leafs fan, but I watch my games on TV - not willing to pay for it. Unless enough people do the same thing, nothing will change - why would it?
- BradThere is a deal in Buffalo tonight to watch the leafs. My friend paid $20 US to sit in the 200 club section. You’d never see a deal like that in TO.
- alex jonesBalsille’s Blackberries will fetch the same prices. Wait and see.
- VinceI really hope that there will be a team in Hamilton next season, maybe it will force MLSE to drop prices.
And good luck to Wayne Gretzky. I’m glad he got out of that mess in Phoenix. But please don’t try to pull a Theo Fleury/Brett Favre stunt and make a comeback like the rumours are saying. What do you have to prove????
- Mur from KingstonMore power to the leafs if they can get it.
You charge what the market will bear. If people weren’t willing to pay it they wouldn’t charge it. At some point win or lose the leafs will confront a diminishing fan base and/or a threshold where people just WON’T pay the asking price.
Nobody is forced or co-erced into going to a hockey game; and if you (like me) decide that it isn’t worth the asking price then you don’t go.
It’s not like it diminishes the value of your life if you don’t go to a hockey game.
- joelI totally disagree with you Howard. I was at the game and although it would’ve nice seeing Crosby and Malkin suit up for the Pens, I still though I got my money’s worth. It was still an exciting game!
- DanielThe old Carleton Street cashbox was nothing compared to the ACC.We are seeing greed at its worst.Toronto should get a second NHL team to prevent this kind of robbery.
- PaulKeep paying those prices to watch the same old leafs. According to Wilson, for any of the kids to make it, they all have to be a top six forward. So it sounds like the Marlies will be stocked. The kids are playing great and in my estimation they are of more use than Tlusty, Ponikarosky and Kulemin and I think already Kadri is ready to replace Stajan. It would be far more exciting watching a team of young kids rather than the same old crap. Please tell me they are not keeping Frogren.
- Gary OAnyone see that kid holding up his ticket to the camera in Detroit the other night? I freeze framed the shot on my PVR - The ticket price was $25
- Andrew Shone