I love a good sales pitch, and the Washington Redskins do too.
Since the days of RFK Stadium, when there truly was high demand to get season tickets for the 56,000 seat relic on East Capitol Street, the Redskins have marketed their bogus season ticket waiting list incessantly. Who knows, maybe it was an honest mistake since their marketing team doesn’t understand the difference between a page view and an impression.
However, a move to Landover, a change in ownership, a terrible product on the field and a stadium that swelled to 91,000 seats at its peak led to loads of cheap tickets (including season plan packages), empty seats and hollow claims from the Redskins front office.
Now, the Skins have removed seats from FedEx Field for the third time in five years and yet their ticket sales team is still pushing the illusion of the season ticket waiting list onto the Redskins public.
FSB regular Justin in Virginia Beach passed along this email he got today after a ticket rep from the Skins that reached out to him to give him some really big news! He’s made it off of the waiting list and is now eligible for season tickets at FedEx Field!
What a once in a generation event! A call from the gatekeepers on FedEx Way (seriously, you’re going to name the road the stadium is on after the corporate sponsor?) to inform you that you’re one of the fortunate ones who have been bestowed with a season ticket package to the giant FedEx box out in Landover.
When in reality, the Redskins had one of the lowest attendance capacity percentages in the league last year and often times the crowds were much smaller than announced (remember attendance numbers are tickets sold, not butts in seats). Also, ticket prices on the secondary market were often far from robust for certain games as people literally couldn’t give away tickets.
The timing of this email is classic sales as well, with the season only a few weeks away. “Guess what Mr. Customer, we just updated our wait list and you’re next on the list.” is code for “My manager said I need to create some urgency to sell these damn 400 level season ticket packages and I was hoping you’d be my sucker of the day.”
So the Redskins will continue the charade of the season ticket waiting list as another tool in the marketing tool kit. Given that this is a team that once used a 34 year old Donovan McNabb as a way to sell luxury boxes, this sales email Justin got today shouldn’t surprise any Redskins fans.
Genius. Pure genius.
Genius by the Redskins? I’m sure people probably still fall for it.
The season ticket wait list is non existent? You are the one who has been suckered. My father sat on the season ticket list for 25 years before he passed, well before Snyder. My brother has been on the list for 24 years that includes the Cooke era and the Snyder era.
Are you trying to say they were never on a wait list?
I know of at least 20 others on this list you claim does not exist. And they pay nothing. I also know a few that had waited 20 years on this fake list that finally received their season tickets. The fact is there is a 155,000 fans currently on this fake list.So they send out a few season tickets for media purposes, so what.
Never said there wasn’t one at RFK. They tear seats out of FedEx 3 out of 5 years and you think there’s a waiting list for season ticket?
Also, they make people who use wifi at the stadium automatically sign up for this “list” (http://thebiglead.com/2015/08/20/redskins-forcing-people-to-join-season-ticket-waitlist-to-use-wifi/)
More history: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/37109/wait-service
If you know anyone waiting on the list tell them to check Stubhub a few days before almost any game, you can sit lower bowl for most games for $50. Upper bowl for $15-20.
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