Rooney Expects To Maintain Road Field Advantage in 2006
High Demand For Steelers Away Game Tickets
"Obviously, [NFL Teams] can market their own fans and put the effort out to get their own people in the building. But we just felt like, once they put the tickets on sale to the general public, they shouldn't be descriminating against Steelers fans." Steeler President Art Rooney II, --Pittsburgh Tribune Review, April 6, 2006Steelers President Art Rooney III continued his crusade against NFL teams limiting direct sales of single-game tickets to Steelers fans, either by requiring the purchase of 2 and 3 game ticket bundles or refusing sales from telephones and ip addresses in the 412 and 724 area codes.
Of course, as I've mentioned before, the only thing this practice does to stop Steelers fans from getting tickets to away games is to ensure that the NFL owners get a cut of the money that would otherwise got to ticket brokers or fans who choose to sell their tickets on outlets like e-bay or StubHub.
Tickets for 2006 regular season games have been on sale since before the end of the NFL Playoffs.
Fans that want Steelers vs. Chargers tickets have several viable choices.
First, The Chargers played to 93% of capacity at Qualcomm Stadium last year. That means that there are single game tickets available to be purchased for many games. Fans can wait for individual game tickets to go on sale sometime in the summer, and hope that some tickets for the Pittsburgh game to be available.
Second, Steelers fans (especially California Steelers fans) can put together a group, subject to the rules esatblished by the Chargers.
Third, fans can purchase Chargers season tickets, which cost as little as $600, not a bad deal when you consider that the Steelers game is selling for nearly $250 on ebay.
Fourth, fans can purchase in a fan-driven ticket market place like StubHub or ebay.
Fifth and finally, fans can purchase through a traditional ticket broker.
The best part is that the market is transparent and efficient. If you want to see the Steelers on the west coast and Steelers Chargers tickets are too high, you can look at Steelers Raiders tickets. If those are too high, you can settle for Steelers Cardinals preseason tickets. You can see asking prices and recent sales on e-bay to evaluate what a ticket to any NFL game is worth.
The transparent trading of tickets makes more tickets widely available to more fans than ever before. The box office doesn't close when a team's sold out sign goes up, and that's why you see more black and gold in the stands at Steelers away games than ever before, occasionally giving the Steelers an oddity in professional sports, a "Road-Field Advantage."
posted by Sully at Friday, April 07, 2006
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