By Darren Rovel, CNBC Sports Reporter
After a bad loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy, the Seattle Sounders said they’d refund their season ticket holders for the game because of how poorly the team played.
The idea reportedly came from a player, Steve Zakuani, who said that the fans shouldn’t have to pay. Remarkably, the Sounders soon announced that the game would in fact be refunded to the team’s 32,000 season ticket holders.
Read the rest of the article here.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37063718
In a two paragraph response (a minimum of 5 sentences for each paragraph), answer the following questions. In paragraph # 1, what are your general thoughts on this type of guarantee? If you were the owner of a sports franchise, would you support an idea like this? Why or why not? Be specific with your thoughts. In paragraph # 2, discuss which sport to you think think this policy would work best with? Why? Be specific with your thoughts.
Please sign your name to the bottom of your blog entry.
I agree with this type of guarantee. I think it is smart for teams to do that. If a team doesn't play well then people should get a refund. They do that all over the place like at movies so why shouldn't sports? If I were an owner of a sports franchise, I would do this because it brings people back for another season and that means money coming in.
ReplyDeleteI think all sports should have this. Ive seen plenty of NFL games where one team did very poorly. Its just a good idea. Every team cannot have a good game every game. People would be willing to come to more games if they knew that, if there is a chance a team will not do good they could get their money back. Sporting events are pricey now of days and its juts some reassurance for the public.
Nastasja Lewis
This guarantee benefits everyone. The team is not actually losing money in this situation. Because of the promotion, fans will be able to see other games next year at a discounted price. This promotion still brings the fans to the games and these fans can still purchase merchandise or food inside the stadium. If I were an owner I would be skeptical at first but if I were an owner with a terrible team I would have nothing to lose.
ReplyDeleteI think that this idea could work with many different sports but probably the best sport would be baseball. Baseball has more games than any other pro sport in America and baseball stadiums are also larger than a hockey or basketball arena. Because of the 162(?)games in a season, it is harder to bring fans to the ballpark every night, especially if you are a bad team. The WNBA also might want to look into this idea because of their recent struggles.
This joint is insane, who in the heck would refund 32,000 fans. I would tell them to go f*** off and that if yopur a good fan you wont care if we refund you. Or maybe its just other teams are playing excellent soccer and the home team is just palying goood soccer. if I was a sport owner I would be pissed because that is a lot of $$$$$$$$$$. So that is my opionin on that
ReplyDeleteI think the best sport policy for this situation is the fans need to get over it. No sports team should have to pay their fans to come watch them play. I dont care if they didnt win one game. They need to be better fans and cheer on their team more because they are oviuslly not doing a good job of cheering. p.s i think soccer is overated and billy arnez is not good ai it.
JAKE CARAWAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In my opinion, I like the idea of refunding the ticket if the team plays bad. This is because in order to ensure that the fans keep coming back for more games, there has to be an incentive. If I were an owner of a sports franchise I would certainly support an idea such as this. At first glance, one would think the franchise and company were losing money, but you are certainly mistaken. In order to make sure there is no money loss I thought it was a creative idea to refund the ticket in the form of a credit against next year’s ticket. This allows the fans to come back next season for a game and now they know that the team will try their best efforts to make sure every game is enjoyable to watch.
ReplyDeleteI think this policy would work best with either baseball and/or soccer. This is due to the fact that they have already done it with soccer games and overall it has been a success. I also say baseball because in the article it states that many Major League baseball teams are struggling at the gate and this would be the catalyst that they need in order to expand their fan base and fill up those stadium seats. Sports such as football and basketball seem to be two strong based sports where I don’t think they are at the point where they have to institute this “bad play, free ticket” policy. Overall, I think at this time, it would benefit baseball and soccer teams as well.
-Courtney C.
This gurantee is not fair at all. I believe you weatch the game and their should not be any refund of the ticket or the money. Even if the team played bad, they still tired their hardest as atheltes, and they should still get the money they earned. I don't support this idea because the soccer plays still practice and earn a salary off those tickets, so one bad game= no pay day? Thats unessary.
ReplyDeleteThis policy would work best for baseball. Its loong and very boring and if a team beats a team 15 to 0 which i have seen the box scores for, the fans should get a refund for their tickets, because baseball team tickets that are in the 1st level are expensive.Another reason for baseball because you spend 4-6 hrs at a game and if a team gets destroyed you should get your money back.
Kamran Syed
I think this type of guarantee is unneccesary. The fans came to watch a soccer game and that is what happened. Playing bad or having an off game is part of sports. You cant expect a refund every time you lose a game. I dont think that was fair to the players.
ReplyDeleteI dont think this policy would work well with any sport. I think the policy is uneccesary. Losing is a part of sports. If they played terribly then maybe next time they should play well. Instead of refunding money they should improve their game.
Harris AHmadzai
This type of guarantee is a smart move by the Seattle Sounders because a loss makes fans rethink if they should watch their teams games. Also they don't lose revenve because fans will buy tickets for next season. If a was a sports franchise owner i would support this idea. A big loss can make fans lose faith in the team so they stop buying tickets. If we refund the tickets because the game was so bad they will come back, like a second chance.
ReplyDeleteThis policy would work best in soccer, the MLS mostly because they lose fans easily. People rather watch european soccer because the games are closer and the teams and players are better. The only way the MLS teams can gain fans respect so they keep ticket sales up is propose this type of guarantee. This is a win win for the team and the fans if it brings more fans for the following season.
Honestly when I first read this article, I thought it was kind of ridiculous. I didn’t understand why a team would refund 32,000 tickets just because they had a bad game. After reading the article, I understood more as to of why they would decide to refund the way they do. If I were the owner of a sports franchise, I think I would support this idea but only conditionally. I like it because the team doesn’t really lose any revenue but at the same time, you wouldn’t fans to think that ever bad game the team has, they wont have to pay for.
ReplyDeleteAs for what sport this would work best with; I think that it works best with the sport it was initially talked about in.. soccer. I think this because soccer has a lot of games and can afford to refund like this. I don’t think it would work with football because there are always teams that are just so bad that they never win many games anyways and you cant have fans expecting that all of those games will go unpaid. I guess it could work for basketball just because they also have a lot of games and its at the point that they have a lot of money to spare just because of how much of a following it has. What would be interesting, is if major league teams decided to start taking part in this.
I think this idea is straight stupid. If I go to a game and I pay for it I do not expect to get money back. And this money is coming out of the players pay check. This idea is kind of dumb. Just because I had a bad game you should get you money back? Negative you should just stop coming to the games Moe. me personally I would not support an dumb idea like this because all I doing is loosing money.
ReplyDeleteThe best sport that this dumb idea would work with would be golf. I pick golf because I don’t like golf nt like this idea. I think golf would be better because if say your faviort golfer has the worst day ever I think that’s about it.
I have never heard of such an idea as good as this one before. This one benefits more than just two sides of the coin. It benefits the sponsors, concession sales, the team and most importantly the fans. If I was owner i would definitely support an idea like this because it would motivate my team to play hard and win games.
ReplyDeleteThis idea would be great for baseball and MMA. I think baseball should have this because they play so many games and if they are bad they lose so many games and fans go support them but are not satisfied. Also for MMA like UFC fighters dont always satisfy the fans and tickets are so expensive as well as PPV.
If I was the owner of their team I would not do what they are doing now. They shouldn't refund the money because if they do that then they will not have enough money left for the team. They should of just decrease the price for next season. And they also could have gave a gift card to the customers. The Washington Wizards were in a losing situation but they didn't refund the money back to the season ticket holder.
ReplyDeleteI think that golfing would fit best with this situation. You shouldn't do this with a known sport like football, basketball, baseball etc, because there are always a large crowd watching the games. Golfing doesn't have large number of people. So this would fit best with it.
Jerome Mitchell
This guarantee will definitely make up for the loss in some way or another. It is also worth is because, like the article said the team doesn't really lose any profit and they are trying hard to get there customers back. I also think refunding the teams in other way might be better, for example a free meal or shirt. I would support an idea not exactly like the one explained in the article. but something similiar just to show the customers they matter.
ReplyDeleteA refund like the one in the article would work best for any sports that have alot of games during their season. For example, football compared to baseball has a very small amount of games. Football gets their profit off of those few games they have. Baseball, soccer, or basketball have so many games, they aren't losing as much profit or customers. I think some type of refund for any team would be a great idea, but not necessarily the one in the article.
Kaitlynn Miller
I think this benefits everyone. I don't think the team is losing money in this situation. The people will be able to see next years game at a discount price because of the promotion. The fans can still purchase foo and merchandise because of the promotion. If I were an owner, I would have no chose because I have a terrible team.
ReplyDeleteI think this idea works better for baseball. Baseball has more games and its stadium is bigger than any hockey or basketball arena. Because of the 162(?)games in a season, you can't bring fans in with a bad team. The WNBA might wanna take this idea too.
i agree, its going to cause more sell out games, and alot more people are going to go to the game. when ever fans go to a game the dont just sit there. they spend money on food and other things bringing in money also that way so eveen if another game is givin people ae still gonna spend lots of money.
ReplyDeletei think baseball would be a good sport for this guantee because there is alot of games, tickets are somewhat cheap. and lots of other ways to spend and gain money.
kevin jenkins