Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Where Will You Be?

It's been a while since I had a guest blogger, but I got an email today from a reader, and while I don't agree with them entirely, I feel they bring up some interesting points about the Cauldron, it's price, and the growth of the section. As with last time, I'll give just as much space for a rebuttal of this entry, if someone from the front office or another fan, wants to, much like Sam Pierron did last time I had a guest blogger.




I know that you haven't been wanting to post guest blogger entries, but I hope that you'd please consider posting this. This is something that I think is important for your readers to know.

As you've posted already, the Cauldron will be in what had been the left field berm. The berm will be replaced with bleachers for the Cauldron to stand on, instead of standing on the berm and it's grade. I've been to T-Bones games and sat in the berm, it's definitely steep. For doing all of this, the price for the Cauldron for season ticket holders will be $299. The raise in the price is to help to cover the construction cost of building the bleachers. If you're not a season ticket holder, and attend every game, then you'll be paying $324 for each game. Compared with the rest of the league and their seats behind the goal, the Wizards ticket price for that section puts it SECOND in the league, behind only the Galaxy (Thanks to Spoon on bigsoccer for that fact.). Call me crazy, but I don't think the Cauldron is worth that much.

Are high school and college students going to want to pay that much to stand in the Cauldron there? Unlikely, especially when they have the cheaper option of the berm on the other side of the field. The team has said that the berm will be like the rest of the stadium at Arrowhead in not allowing constant standing. How long will that last when many of the Cauldronites, La Porra, and all the high school and college kids move over to the berm because of the cheaper tickets? Especially when the tickets for the berm are going to be cheaper then the Cauldron.

I predict that by the second game there will be a large group standing, cheering, and celebrating, and the team will start to look the other way. While the Cauldron will be much smaller then the team is expecting. The reason the Cauldron was such a success last year, was because it was the cheapest ticket to be had. With that no longer the case, many of the fans are going to look for the cheap option in the stadium. What this all means, is that the team is going to end up losing money on the building of the Cauldron at CAB because season ticket holders will move. I already know of a few people that are moving their season tickets. Especially families, some of whom have been in the Cauldron for years. But without a child's priced ticket are being forced into the cheaper option to be able to come and still enjoy the game.

I worry that the entire growth from last season will be negated by the next two years because of the problem that will occur due to the price.

Thank you again for the chance to get this off my chest.

2 comments:

KFad said...

Won't stop me from buying the cheapest ticket available and then sitting in the Cauldron.

Anonymous said...

Just get there, somehow, someway.

The Cauldron isn't a success because of cheap tickets.

It's because we bring it. The gameday experience is ill like Illig.

I want them to be the cheapest too, but I also want to stand, jump side to side, and curse out the goalkeeper in Spanish. I'm not sitting on a blanket.

It's like a snowball that keeps growing

Once it reaches critical mass, it's all over KC.