Post by TheShadow on Feb 15, 2006 19:36:24 GMT -5
insidebayarea.com/
By Monte Poole
ALAMEDA — The Raiders introduced their "baby" Tuesday, and the kid came out blowing kisses to the public.
The team's new ticket plan promises cheaper dates, inviting fans to buy for as little as $26 per game. It wants to get married to BART. It wants to designate areas for barbecue parties, complete with grills and charcoals.
And while the good times are extended to everyone, the season ticketbuyer is being flirted with like never before.
Discounted airline tickets to Hawaii. Discounts at Raider Image stores. And, of course, first option to buy in case the team makes the playoffs.
Seriously.
Can you feel the love?
Season tickets will be available directly from the team. No middle man, no miscellaneous $20 charge, no $7 maintenance fee. No Personal Seat License (PSL) needed. No more infuriating discoveries that you paid a lot more than the man in the seat next to you.
It's a simple and reasonable system, with prices ranging from $26 to $101.
Having assumed ticket operations inNovember from the widely despised Oakland Football Marketing Association (OFMA), which spent 11 years fumbling handoffs and crumbling when blitzed, the Raiders are seizing the opportunity to get a grip and protect themselves.
"We will have an enormous emphasis on customer service," said Amy Trask, the team's chief business executive. "Our service folks will sell, our sales people will serve.
"The object here is never to say 'no.' The object here is to accommodate."
So much so that current PSL holders who wish to relocate to another available section have several options, including one in which arrangements can be made to meet with Raiders representatives at McAfee Coliseum.
Seriously.
What we have is an organization sprinting as fast as it can to remake its image of greed, defiance, petulance, paranoia, insensitivity and deliberate unaccountability.
This makeover might work. It should work. It has to work if the Raiders are to survive in Oakland.
See, the team's 16-year lease at McAfee Coliseum, signed in 1995, runs out in 2011. That gives the Raiders five years to resurrect a fractured and dissatisfied ticket-buying base. Five years to regain some kind of home-field advantage.
Five years for Al Davis to vindicate himself for moving back to Oakland.
PSL holders have exclusive rights to buy season tickets until March 15, after which the general public can line up. Or wait until the season draws nearer and see what remains.
This all comes after 11 mostly dysfunctional years with OFMA, time during which the Raiders heard their fans mutter to the point of surrender and rant themselves into hyperventilation.
With virtually all 49ers tickets being accounted for by season ticketholders and the available Raiders tickets perceived as an Al Davis shell game, buying into an NFL seat in the Bay Area has been problematic for the last quarter-century. Many of those not frozen out were priced out.
Assuming the season-ticket base does not sell out the place over the next 30 days — a safe assumption — that should change.
For the first time in recent history, an NFL ticket is both affordable and accessible in the Bay Area. Though the average price for a Raiders ticket will be $65.60, in line with what fans pay around the league, the 16,567 seats available for $46 or less is a direct appeal to the blue-collar fan accounting for most of Oakland's base.
All those who have insisted for years they would pay $25 to sit in the so-called Mount Davis seats? This is your chance.
"Do we want more bodies in the stadium?" Trask asked rhetorically. "Yes."
The catch? Of course there is a catch. More than one.
You'll likely pay more to park. You'll likely pay more for your snacks. Some tickets have in fact gone up. And there is no guarantee any of this will make it easier to stomach another 4-12 season.
In the 31/2 months since replacing OFMA, the Raiders have remodeled their headquarters to accommodate their new operation. They have invested heavily in equipment and personnel, Trask said. Few will shed a tear upon the revelation that none of the people at OFMA are on the new staff.
While the football team, by hiring Art Shell as head coach, clearly looks to the past, the business operation continues to march with or ahead of the NFL in the 21st century.
The next knock you hear at your door just might be someone from the Raiders, on bended knee, maybe even shedding a tear, asking if you would please come out and watch them play.
They are trying, folks. They really are.
Seriously.