Skins sell ticket straight to scalpers

[irish]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

They weren't exactly a beacon of class before Snyder either. The Redskins run a tough business, which is what they are-a business. It's a game to the fans, but that's not reality

It is a business but its a different kind of business. One for the business between owner & player, and another for the organization & fan. I think the former is more like a business we are used to (car dealer, etc.) and the latter is more like a public relations group.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Ridiculous to hate on Snyder for utilizing standard business practices. But not really surprising.

I am not hating on Snyder, I am hating on his decision to sue a 72 year old grandmother and life long/die hard Redskins fan that no longer has the money to afford her tickets. This women did not even have enough money for a lawyer.
Here at my arena, we had a dozen or so big corporations that had signed multi-year corporate deals (sponsorships and/or advertising deals) go belly up during this recent recession. We did not sue them. I think your 'standard business practices' is a little bit of an over generalization.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

I am not hating on Snyder, I am hating on his decision to sue a 72 year old grandmother and life long/die hard Redskins fan that no longer has the money to afford her tickets. This women did not even have enough money for a lawyer.
Here at my arena, we had a dozen or so big corporations that had signed multi-year corporate deals (sponsorships and/or advertising deals) go belly up during this recent recession. We did not sue them. I think your 'standard business practices' is a little bit of an over generalization.

How did you guys handle it?

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

I am not hating on Snyder, I am hating on his decision to sue a 72 year old grandmother and life long/die hard Redskins fan that no longer has the money to afford her tickets. This women did not even have enough money for a lawyer.
Here at my arena, we had a dozen or so big corporations that had signed multi-year corporate deals (sponsorships and/or advertising deals) go belly up during this recent recession. We did not sue them. I think your 'standard business practices' is a little bit of an over generalization.

Your 72 yo grandmother had over 100,000 dollars in debt not just to the Redskins. I think alot of my disdain in this goes back to how the media spins things. Do you really think this is all the story behind it? I read the opening paragraphs, and the lil ole grandmother, and I felt like the Post was just trying to do a hatchet job. I have no idea if there was sufficient justification, or what steps the Skins did or didn't do to resolve it without a lawsuit. But this lady wasn't some helpless clueless grandma sitting down and knitting sweaters. She was a real estate agent. She dealt with contracts for her livelihood.

As to the fact that the Skins maybe do this the most, could it be because they have the largest ticket base. if they do 20 lawsuits for 20000 club seats(just simplifying the numbers) thats 1 for every 1000 CLUB seats. How many club seats does Gillette stadium have? or any other stadium.

This article was written with one intent, paint as sympathetic view of the people who broke the contract, and as antagonistic view of the Skins business practice, as possible. There was little if any attempt to portray a balanced viewpoint, and it was relatively lazy journalism.
I say lazy journalism, because lawsuits are public domain. Instead of just accepting a no answer or decline to comment, pull up the records. Did Dallas do this same tactic. What about teams that have the top 10 # of club level seats? Were the Skins the only ones, or did 6 other teams that have large stadiums file lawsuits. What steps did the Redskins offer the 72 year old grandmother. Why did she not go to court and dispute it - I want say again, she was a very successful real estate agent who dealt with contracts mortgage lending, etc. not a stay at home, unsure of the banking and finance.

This article smacks of the media's intent to shape opinions rather than report facts in an unbiased manor.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

How did you guys handle it?

We eventually found other companies to replace the ones we lost. It might have taken a little bit of time and in the end some of the new deals were not as sweet as the old ones we lost. But overall we are fine. Here in Houston, like Washington DC, there is money. The recession did not hit as hard as other parts of the country like Detroit. The Redskins will find people to buy their seats and if they don't maybe they are charging more than the market is willing to pay.

[irish]

Originally Posted by Defensewins

We eventually found other companies to replace the ones we lost. It might have taken a little bit of time and in the end some of the new deals were not as sweet as the old ones we lost. But overall we are fine. Here in Houston, like Washington DC, there is money. The recession did not hit as hard as other parts of the country like Detroit. The Redskins will find people to buy their seats and if they don't maybe they are charging more than the market is willing to pay.

I agree, the Skins had so many other options besides suing that I just cant understand why they chose to fight these people and lose even when they "won".

[souperbad]

New article in the Post about how the Redskins are not making Grandma pay her judgement. The he said/ she said between Donovon and Grandma are quite funny.

The Redskins say that their decision to not collect from Grandma has nothing to do with the recent string of articles. If you believe that...I have some club seats to sell you.

[FRPLG]

Let's get one thing straight here that is being ignored by many.

The "waiting list", 160,000 strong or completely fairyland fake, is irrelevant.

They, as I understand it, are suing over club-level ticket contracts. These tickets have not ever been sold out in the history of the stadium. There is no magical group of eager patrons just waiting for the opportunity to buy these. In fact all these recent stories about the team marketing tickets that would seem to contradict the idea of a giant waiting list are in fact them trying to sell the club-level tickets. So we need to back off the the theory that they could just easily go find others to buy the tickets. The breach of contract represents a real loss in revenue for the team.

I also think CRedskinsRule is almost totally right. The only thing he has wrong is that he is being too nice. The WaPo has a long standing and documented feud with the team. In fact a large part of the feud involves the loss of their block of tickets since they were abusing them (and the team just didn't like their coverage). In essence the piece was a total hatchet job in every conceivable way as CRR pointed out. Are there threads of interests within the article? Maybe, but they weren't explored in a complete or balanced fashion at all.

I am not necessarily defending the team actions as nice but they sure are legally suitable, financially reasonable and all-in-all they way business operates in this country.

[Pocket$ $traight]

Originally Posted by souperbad

New article in the Post about how the Redskins are not making Grandma pay her judgement. The he said/ she said between Donovon and Grandma are quite funny.

The Redskins say that their decision to not collect from Grandma has nothing to do with the recent string of articles. If you believe that...I have some club seats to sell you.

lol. They have just come to the decision to let this person off the hook. And they never worry about PR...

[SC Skins Fan]

Another question here is why in the hell would you ever sign a 10-year contract for tickets? Are people really that desperate to go to every game? Pick up a few tickets per year on StubHub if you really want to go, or just get a good HDTV. Wow! And I think the suits attempting to collect the entire contract, without regards to actual damages (i.e. less whatever money is collected through re-sale) is bad business, and of questionable legality, but seriously people, don't sign a 10-year contract! That is just dumb.

[mcarey032]

This was not at all a shocking revelation. The Redskins have been doing this for years. I don't buy for one second that they had no knowledge of this practice. It is just like Watergate, follow the money. You will see at the top is Dan Snyder pulling the strings. What is funny about this whole incident is that it brings me back to a time when Snyder was attempting to buy the team and apparently the NFL Didn't want Snyder's partner Milstein buying the team because of how he ran the NY Rangers into the ground with all kinds of bad financing. Now fast forward ten years later and Dan is accepting money from car dealerships like Eastern Motors and selling tickets on the secondary market and suing the fans for non-payment of long term contracts during a recession.
Yeah Dan is probably near the bottom when it comes to team ownership and structure.