Teams are getting more and more creative with their ticketing plans in order to draw fans. The San Diego Padres are the latest team to jump into the fray with the creation of the $99 “Five Win Pass”.
With this ticketing plan, fans will pay $99 and receive tickets to the first five Padres home games of June. Every time the team loses, fans with the pass will have an extra June game tacked on to the end of their plan. Once they get to five wins, you’ve exhausted your plan. If they don’t get to five wins…well, you just got tickets to 16 games for around $6 each.
Some more details, via the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Padres Five-Win Pass – delivered to smartphones via MLB.com’s BallPark app – includes a $20 credit to use on seat upgrades and includes an additional $5 upgrade credit after each Padres’ win to be used toward your next seat upgrade.
The pass – which is on sale until 10 a.m. June 9 – guarantees seats in left field in sections 226, 228 and 230.
The plan conveniently starts on June 2nd, a couple of days after the Cubs’ trip to Petco Park for the only time this year. The first five games fans will receive tickets to are three games against the first place (still weird typing that) Colorado Rockies, and two against the Kansas City Royals (who have the worst record in the American League).
Assuming the Padres don’t win five home games in a row, the plan can stretch into a series with the Reds, one with the Tigers, and one with the Braves before concluding on the final day of the month against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Given that this is the only time all season that the Royals, Reds, Tigers, and Braves will be in San Diego, this could be a worthy investment for local fans of those teams looking to see their team and maybe catch some other games. Maybe the team will sweep the Rockies and take the first two from the Royals to make the plan a short one, but that’s not a guarantee.
If the Padres have success with this plan, I wouldn’t be surprised if more teams try to get creative with future ticketing plans. The Padres’ attendance issues aren’t as dire as some other teams, but their average crowd is down about 10% from the same time last year to just under 25,000.
