Chicago Bears Fans’ Thanks for Another Bad Season: Ticket Price Hike
Published by Bob Warja on February 20, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Despite a third consecutive season of missing the playoffs, the Chicago Bears expect you to pay more for the upcoming season. And if you don’t? There are about 40,000 fans waiting to take your seats!
Yes, about 75 percent of Soldier Field seats will face an increase in price.
The team announced that non-club seat increases range from $2 to $17. Club seats will be raised from $10 to $20 per ticket. Prices for the Bears‘ non-club tickets, which make up about 85 percent of the seating at Soldier Field, now range from $68 to $125.
So what justifies the increase?
“The raising of ticket prices was justified for business reasons,” said Chris Hibbs, the Bears Senior Director of Sales and Marketing. “We recognize that it’s not a good time because we underperformed on the field. We spent a ton of time and analysis on this, and we knew it would not be well received, no matter what, unless the team was successful.”
But look, the bottom line is this is simply the law of supply and demand at work. If you have fans willing to pay the price, then you take advantage of them. It’s no more onerous than the Cubs raising ticket prices, right?
The Bears’ 2010 home schedule includes games against the Philadelphia Eagles , Washington Redskins , Seattle Seahawks , New England Patriots and New York Jets .
Bears President Ted Philips blamed the amusement tax. “Although we’re the largest single-team market in the league, we have the smallest stadium capacity, and we pay one of the highest amusement taxes in the NFL,” Phillips said in a release.
Still, raising ticket prices after such a miserable season seems to be a bad business decision.
Maybe we should move our loyalty to the Chicago Rush, where Da Coach is an “owner” or the Chicago Slaughter indoor football team, where former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon is an owner and former Bears teammate Steve McMichael is head coach.
Still, Bears fans pay through the nose. Let’s hope that nose eventually has a ring in it.
A Super Bowl ring.
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