Our family has had season tickets on the east side 35 ydline since 1971. When attendance plummeted after Curley Hallman's last year we obtained another four seats together on the east 50 ydline about 20 rows up - Prime sating. Now we will probably hang on to all of these seats...but it makes me wonder, if we didn't want to pay the "contribution" - what would our prime seats be worth??? Could we not offer to "transfer" our beloved seats to those willing to make the highest contribution to us?? Start the bidding.
Rex, Interesting idea. I've got a dilemma myself. I got 5 tickets on the East side 40 yd line. Got those during before Curley's last year. My family income isn't great but isn't bad either. But adding 2,000 to my season tickets might be pretty strapping. You might be onto something. An idea I thought of today was, running an Ad NOW in the paper offering to trade seats for next year but not a straight swap. If I've got 5 on the 40 then 8 in the corner might be a fair swap. this way, I can swap seats for a game this year with whoever the person may be to confirm I like the seats. All that said, it would be very difficult to part with my tickets regardless of what they charge. So I'm betting on sticking around........forever. P.S. Welcome to the Board!!!!!!
Tigerfanintampa calls it scalping...and he may be right, but another word for it is "free market." Take a look at the current bids on EBAY or Golden Tickets and you'll see that prime seats for the LSU vs. GA game are going for $225-$350 each. That's just for one game! Makes you wonder what the true value of prime season tickets would be for perpetuity. Although I've never participated in one of those auctions, many people do it legally by "bundling" their tickets with other items. Seems to me there is a tacit property right for someone who has held the same season tickets for 1 year or 30 years. Whethor or not they intend to do it or not, LSU has set up a market with their limited transfer option period. So how come it's o.k. for the LSU A.D. to require "contributions", but not me?? Hub, you raise some interesting questions regarding bartering...whethor it's 8 seats for 4, a used mobil home, or a camp in Grand Isle...there are possibilities and as long as this is a "contribution" it could be legal -LSU set precedence for that today. The interesting question is what marketplace would be optimal for such an offer. Seems to me that a venue like this would be better than a want ad - but a national auction could be much better...provided the legal wrangling could be figured out. Rex
Guys; You would be suprised at the potential "market" to swap tickets. Even with the surcharges, LSU tickets are a bargain. There will be a long line of Tiger fans anxious to upgrade their seats - me being one of them. Compare the prices to NFL tickets. Club seats for the Saints cost around $130 dollars each - and that includes having to pay for 2 preseason games that don't count. I would guess that Skip's people have already addressed this issue - but it is interesting. This is a way for people who are going to downgrade their seats next year to "cash out" by downgrading one year early. I'm interested - any offers ?
If the tickets are sold at higher than face value, it is scalping. IMO, the donation does not count towards the face value. The ticket purchaser gets the benefit of a partial tax deduction as well. As for bundling the tickets with other items, I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't see anything wrong with bartering either but that can get real messy real quick.
If they would start printing the total actual cost to the ticket buyer on the tickets including surcharges and "donations" there would be no problem for anybody who had to sell their tickets to recover what they actually paid for them
I think it's a bit strange that people who have decent seats want money for transferring out to lesser seats. Wouldn't that be selling something that isn't exactly yours? If you're not paying a surcharge or fee right now, what makes the seats yours to begin with? If you're just a regular customer who has paid face value for the same tickets for years, the seats aren't yours to sell. The athletic department owns the seats. They just allow season ticket holders first dibs at their current seats. That, IMO, is a privilege, not ownership. Just my two cents.
