[HisKneeWasDown]

• I had to cool off for a couple days after this post about the "seat tax".:-). I drafted a very heated (and sarcastic :-) email to Muir and Matt Wittig (VP of Development) but did not send it (still busy drafting my band letter to President T-L). Glad to see you all covered many of the same points :-) (excerpts at the end)
  
  A few things to emphasize:
  
  • The TV deal (with the Thu and Fri night traffic and the 5-day notice for Big Game kickoff) was supposed to solve all our financial problems.
    
    
  • Yes, it's "just" 8 more sections (upper and bowl). By my estimates that's 5,000 seats. And it's your most loyal fans. That's a lot of fans.
    
    
  • "Charging the median piece" is the wrong goal. "Getting people to come to the games" should be the goal. I'd like to see a system that rewards attendance. Not one that rewards rich patrons who give their tickets away to clients (who know the cheers)
    
  • I also made the point of taking my basketball seat tax out of the University donation.
    

The two seats next to me have been vacant for all but 1 season since the new stadium was built. I fail to see how charging this seat tax will help sell tickets.

I plan on contacting members of the local media and share the letter, along with this nice picture from David Lombardi of ESPN: https://twitter.com/LombardiESPN/status/...4536722432

Here are some excerpts from my unsent draft. Still working on my larger letter to President T-L; I will certainly add those to my list of grievances:

I can only think of a few reasons why this logic might make sense:

1) You have a long waiting list of people willing to pay more and actually show up to the games, so you're raising prices to kick out the deadbeats who have tickets but don't show up
2) You're trying to push the fans out to the other sections, so the stadium looks more full on national TV, since the cameras don't usually show the West sideline
3) You're raising money to build an even smaller, 5,000 seat stadium that will provide a more intimate fan experience than cavernous Stanford Stadium 2.0
4) You need to buy shiny new clean uniforms suitable for the new, squeaky-clean marching band
5) Jed York is the new AD

Tell you what. How about you tell ESPN that for twice the money, you'll play any day of the week, 24/7? Then you won't care at all if anyone actually pays to attend the games! Problem solved!

[HisKneeWasDown]

• I had to cool off for a couple days after this post about the "seat tax".:-). I drafted a very heated (and sarcastic :-) email to Muir and Matt Wittig (VP of Development) but did not send it (still busy drafting my band letter to President T-L). Glad to see you all covered many of the same points :-) (excerpts at the end)
  
  A few things to emphasize:
  
  • The TV deal (with the Thu and Fri night traffic and the 5-day notice for Big Game kickoff) was supposed to solve all our financial problems.
    
    
  • Yes, it's "just" 8 more sections (upper and bowl). By my estimates that's 5,000 seats. And it's your most loyal fans. That's a lot of fans.
    
    
  • "Charging the median piece" is the wrong goal. "Getting people to come to the games" should be the goal. I'd like to see a system that rewards attendance. Not one that rewards rich patrons who give their tickets away to clients (who know the cheers)
    
  • I also made the point of taking my basketball seat tax out of the University donation.
    

The two seats next to me have been vacant for all but 1 season since the new stadium was built. I fail to see how charging this seat tax will help sell tickets.

I plan on contacting members of the local media and share the letter, along with this nice picture from David Lombardi of ESPN: https://twitter.com/LombardiESPN/status/...4536722432

Here are some excerpts from my unsent draft. Still working on my larger letter to President T-L; I will certainly add those to my list of grievances:

I can only think of a few reasons why this logic might make sense:

1) You have a long waiting list of people willing to pay more and actually show up to the games, so you're raising prices to kick out the deadbeats who have tickets but don't show up
2) You're trying to push the fans out to the other sections, so the stadium looks more full on national TV, since the cameras don't usually show the West sideline
3) You're raising money to build an even smaller, 5,000 seat stadium that will provide a more intimate fan experience than cavernous Stanford Stadium 2.0
4) You need to buy shiny new clean uniforms suitable for the new, squeaky-clean marching band
5) Jed York is the new AD

Tell you what. How about you tell ESPN that for twice the money, you'll play any day of the week, 24/7? Then you won't care at all if anyone actually pays to attend the games! Problem solved!