Nowani

I cringe everytime they go to him for comment. He still thinks Jeff Weaver is an Angel.

Junky I have to agree with you on this. While I do think having Hamilton in our line-up is superior to hunter, I can't help but think that the money spent cost us on the pitching side of things. I look at our starting pitching and realize we really need another Weaver quality starter and we would be a much better team. Hunter was criticised for his age and last year was attributed to a break out year but in watching Tori hit last year he really figured something out. He was no longer trying to be the pull hitter hitting for power. This guy was consistently using all part of the field to hit singles and doubles and he has carried that over to this year and probably will the next few years. He gets it. He knows he can no longer be what he used to be. A lot of hitter towards the end of their careers don't. He became a much better hitter last year by making that key adjustment. He won't put up the same numbers as Hamilton still but he would have been a valuable part of our offense for a significantly lower price tag. Plus I always felt his leadership in the clubhouse was one of the best in MLB. No knock on Hamilton but I don't think he will provide that for us.

I am doing comparisons and I will switch to TicketExchange if sales are higher than ticketexchange but so far for the most part I get consistently higher sales on Stubhub. I get a lot of out of state sales and these people I am sure do not know about ticketexchange. The other thing that REALLY bothers me about the Ticketexchange customer service is how they handled an issue with my seats. I have a group of 5 seats. When I went to list those 5 seats on Ticketexchange, I could not list all 5 together. I could list 4 and then the 5th had to be listed as a single. When I emailed them about that issue their response was that I can't group those 5 together because I had added the 5th seat this year and (last year I had 4). That didn't make sense but they said it's how their system worked. They did say they would see if they can fix it. I emailed them 4 times for follow-up and each time they said they were checking into it. I finally just gave up and now no longer use the TicketExchange. They did show me a way around this. I can list my tickets as a non-season ticket holder by entering the barcodes manually but when I did do that they charge 15% commission on sales. When I asked them about that they said they would check into it. Again no response. I totally understand where the Angels are coming from and why the customer service is so bad. This system competes directly with their ticket sales so why put any effort into it to make it work well. StubHub on the otherhand is part of a public traded company and there is a bottom line that needs to be met.

Yes. stubhub does guarantee those so if there was a problem and they were not valid you would get your money back. Also, Sellers on StubHub have to validate sellers accounts with a Credit Card so it helps reduce fraud. I'm sure it still happens but it's nice StubHub will back you up if there are any issues. Also, within the StubHub sytem, they have a way of doing a first level check on an electronic ticket. For example, recently a friend of mine wanted me to help him sell his tickets for "The Who" because they were not going to be able to go. He had printed PDF's tickets. I had him scan those and send the scanned PDF to me. When I tried to upload that on stubhub it would not take despite the scan being very clean. I then had him log on to ticketmaster (where he bought those) and I had him forward those tickets to me. That worked. So they do some sort of validation. It's obviously in their best interest as they don't want to have to pay out to customers who bought bugus tickets.

Agree with all of this. One of the best ways to beat your competitors is to beat them at their own game. It's amazing to me that the ticketexchange took away the single most convenient option about selling on stubhub and that was being able to sell all your tickets electronically. Despite this advantage for ticketexchange, StubHub is still better in my opinion (as a seller). The Last Minute Service option is working very well for me and I can bring a month worth of tickets there at a time so I don't have to make too many trips. Also, the StubHub staff there bends over backwards to make this work, If I don't sell my tickets, I can come pick them up or have someone else pick them up. I think Stubhub's 15% take is greedy but it's hard to argue that I'm not getting something back with the customer service and the superior website and mobile app. Can other seller's comment on their success using TicketExchange?

Those electronics tickets on Stubhub were either bought at Angels Website or were electronic tickets created by an Angel Season Ticket Holder. I don't beleive electronic tickets can be created any other way.

Recite his 10 year contract word for word

I thought "Chasing 3000" had huge potential. Still a decent movie but could have been really good. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483586/

Stuhub will guarantee electronics you buy off Stubhub. However, after talking to the guy over at the new StubHub Last Minute pickup there is a scam going on more frequently this year. A person will buy an electronic ticket off StubHub then turn around and sell it 15 or 20 times on craigslist or to other third parties for a discounted price. Be careful of where you buy an electronic ticket. TicketExchange or Stubhib only.

something you normally only see in Little League.

It's interesting that the Stadium holds 45,483 yet I have never seen attendance hit 45k. So back to the question, Is there a business advantage for calling the game a sellout? Just curious. I remember in the recent past (2005ish) you would go online for Angels tickets and a week or more ahead of opening day you could not get a ticket online or at the box. The only way was on the secondary market. That is what I always thought of as a sellout meaning they literally sold all the tickets they had available.

It was either that or "Key Largo"

That was the most empty Seats I had ever seen on Opening day at Angels Stadium in the last 10 years. in the 4th inning in section 503 and 504 area it appeared they were only half full. All throughout the stadium lots of empty seats. Probably season seat holders who decided to not go to the game at all becasue these were in season seat areas. Two hours before game time I checked the Angels website and you could still buy 2 seats in just about any part of the stadium you wanted. In the outfield section 236 the top 7 rows were mostly available for sale. At the game, those top rows were mostly empty so they definitly did not sell to walk ups. I find it interesting they would call that a sell out. Sounds like "fuzzy math" to me. There must be a business reason for them to declare that a sell-out even though it wasn't. Can someone with business background chime and and explain the advantage for doing that. I can see them buying tickets and giving them away but like a previous poster mentioned who are you going to give them away to? Charities and organization have to plan for stuff like this.

Agree 100%. they could play Muskrat Love and I would be over it by the first pitch of the next inning.

So the way that's explained. The Angels are basically saying, if your a season ticket holder we don't want you to resell your tickets because that competes with us. So here is the question if there are so many people doing this and the Angels discourage them from reselling and all those people cease as season ticket holders, what happens to those sales next season. Are the people who bought $6 seats off stubhub now going to buy the same seat for $15 off the Angels website because the secondary market is non existent? I assume in an ideal world they eliminate the secondary market completely.Is it better to sell 6000 seats at discount to season ticket holders or lose those 6,000 season seat holders and sell more expensive seats to 3,000 people. You lost 3,000 in attendance but are selling a more expensive ticket. Which is better? Apparently there are enough season ticket holders doing this that it's impacting direct sales. Why don't they just no allow it and require all season ticket holder to agree that reselling your tickets is not allowed under the Season ticket license/agreement .

Another way I thought about it is like this. How much does it cost the Angels in staffing per 1000 people in attendance. That price can help you set the lowest price you are willing to sell a ticket because even though you can sell a ticket cheap, it may cost you more in staffing than you get back in revenue. I bet that price is pretty low. I would think below $5 but I am guessing. Anyone have a guess? What's the disadvantage of pricing to fill a stadium versus keeping prices higher and leaving thousands of seats unsold. Five years ago the Angels did a phenomenal job doing this albeit they were winning.

I'm sure you are right but then why worry about the secondary ticket market prices.

What''s even more interesting is there still appear to be a few thousand tickets for sale on the Angels home page. They may sell all those before the game but I did notice they had to come off the steep prices they initially had earlier in the week. Folks this is a bad sign for our Angels. I'm sure there will be a good crowd this week but the next series and into May is going to be interesting. It's typically lower attendance then but we may see A LOT of no shows. Some season ticket holders like me have been able to afford these seats by only going to 20% and selling 80%. There are a lot more people out there like me with the dawn of the Internet making these affordable by using the electronic resale market. If we can't afford to keep our seats we will give them up which will hurt the secondary Market even more and drive prices up. Here is what I think the Angels organization does not sense. People will only pay so much to go to a ballgame and no more. As that cost goes up, attendance will go down (not counting big games like opening day of course). The Angels may be able to sell their tickets at higher prices but they will fill less seats and sell fewer souvenirs and concessions. If I were running the organization my goal would be to price the stadium to fill every night not price people out of it. You will make up your money in Parking, food and souvenirs. oh yeah and beer.

I'm looking at the number of tickets still on sale at Angels website and it appears they still have thousands of tickets unsold. Has Opening Day the last 2-5 years been a sell out? If opening day does not sell out that is not a good sign for the Angels Organization and Ball Park Revenue Especially with all the big signings. Is the variable pricing a bad idea? Is is better to sell out the stadium with standard pricing or to get a premium price for certain games but leave thousands of seats unsold?

Season Tix prices are going up too. In the last 5 years my location had gone up maybe $.50 or $1 per season and sometimes remained unchanged. This year my location went up $5. The Angels organization are making a serious gamble with Arte's money. If the Angels do not win and make the playoffs you will see season ticket holders leave in droves next year due to the increase in prices and the lack of winning. This is an interesting team to watch regardless of whether they win or not but winning is what drives season ticket sales and ticket sales in general. It's interesting to me how successful the Angels were when Arte took over. Many playoff appearances and with players that were not super exiting to watch. We had one star named Vlad and a bunch of pitching prospects. The Angels were almost sold out every game mostly due to a very large season ticket holder base. Stars like Hamilton, Pujols are great to watch but it only equates to win on paper. Don't get me wrong I am glad we have these guys but winning take a lot more than this. I hope they figure that out.

What could be happening is It's an interesting problem and with a new system this year, those who scam will be trying to take advantage of this. For me personally it's sad for so many including the Angel Organization. Stubhub's greed and lack of concern for ticket dumping caused all this in my opinion. However, that being said their system is very good as far as ease of use for both Buyer and Seller. I was probably the most exited person when I saw the new TicketExchange program as the 5% seller charge is vey reasonable and the floor pricing on ticket I think is fair. The problem thus far is with the system iteself. Not being able to sell tickets up to game time is not acceptable. It's also difficult to list and manage a large number of games. Also, cutting sales 7 hours prior to game start leaves a lot of sellers in a bind as many many buyers wait until the last minute. Hopefully that will change as buyers realize there are no more deals to be had. Or perhaps more and more people go to places like Craigslist where the chance of fraud is highest. I really think this is going to be a field day for the fraudsters because of the increase in ticket prices on the secondary market. People will no longer buy cheap ticekts on StubHub but will buy them from strangers and not realize they bought an invalid ticket.

Not being disrespectful to her but I still don't think she is accurate. I sold all my Thursday games on Stubhub using forwarded tickets from my season seat account (3 sets of PDF's). If there was an issue I guarantee Stubhub would have contacted me by now because StubHub is the one that validates PDF tickets as you upload them and they would put a stop to that if no PDF's tickets were accepted by the Angels. The Angels can't distinguish between PDF tickets someone buys online and downloads to their computer then uploads them to Stubhub for sale. It's the same original PDF file when someone buys it on Stubhub. The Angels have no way of knowing what specific seats were sold on stubhub and whether the PDF has moved to Stubhub for sale. What you can't do it Scan that Printed ticket and reissue it. It will be caught by Stubhub as a scanned ticket versus an original issued PDF. Someone buying on Craigslist would not know the difference though.

That is not accurate. You can sell PDF tickets on Stubhub that were bought online at the Angels website or PDF tickets that were forwarded from an Angel Account holder. People can and will create fake looking PDF tickets but if bought on stubhub you are guaranteed protection as a buyer. If your ticket is invalid it's not your fault and you will get your money back from StubHub via their FanProtection policy. They do go through validation on Sellers as sellers have to validate accounts via Credit Cards. I have been charged for mistakes before. A few years back I accidentally sold tickets on ticketexchange for a Ducks game that I forgot I had also sold on Stubhub and it cost me a lot of money to pay for that mistake. This week I have had limited success selling my 427 seats on Ticketexchange for the minimum amount of $12 and I found I could then forward PDF tickets to myself and list them on StubHub. On Thursday I listed my 427 seats and my Club MVP seats and sold PDF versions for more than I was asking on ticketexchange in less than 5 minutes after listing. Tickets are scarce on Stubhub and ticket sales shut off 7 hours before gametime on ticketexchance leaving sellers in a bind and buyers the only choice to either buy expensive tickets on StubHub or expensive tickets at the Angels website. If you understand the meaning behind the previous sentance then you understand why the Angels did this. It' more money for them in walk up sales. It screws the specific season ticket holders who can only afford to carry season tickets by having to sell a certain quantity. If these season ticket holders bail on them next year it may even be worse as tickets for sale on the aftermarket will become even more scarce.

I have 16 season seats which I resale. I don't make much money off these but they do help pay for my nice club seats which always lose a few thousand dollars per year. This year is different. The Angels are trying to manipulate the market floor like GotBeer mentions and they pretty much have succeded. Here is the problem and here is my prediction. People like me who carry season tickets and can't afford them unless they are resold will no longer be able to afford them. The reason is that I rely on cheaper sales. Around 70% of my games I would sell below my cost otherwise I would eat the entire cost of the ticket. This is why you saw so many cheap seats on stub hub last year. The Angels have capped TicketExchange to not allow ticekts to be sold below cost. So that will affect 70% of my tickets unless customers are willing to pay more. My prediction is people will not be willing to pay more and they will just stay home and watch on TV. I think you will see a lot of empty seats this year for the low demand games as season ticket holder like me will not be able to sell them and the seat will go unused.

The new TicketExchange System is going to scare away a lot of season ticket holders. It's awkward to use for Sellers and not heavily advertised for buyers to find. My tickets for tonights game were removed from sale at midnight so it appears you can't sell games the same day as the game. I relisted them and they were promply removed. I can't afford season tickets unless I can sell 3/4 of them. I wonder how many people do the same thing I do? I expect many of those like me will give up their season seats next year.