Bucs Need To Sell 7,400 Tickets To Lift Blackout
November 19th, 2012
Maybe the Bucs beating a division foe in dramatic fashion in overtime has moved some Bucs fans to buy tickets. Per a missive from the Bucs official Twitter feed, the game with the Dixie Chicks is some 7,400 tickets short of the 85 percent non-premium plateau for lifting the NFL-imposed local TV blackout shroud.
@TBBuccaneers: About 11,000 non-premium tickets left to sell out Sunday’s game against Atlanta and about 7,400 short of reaching the 85% to lift blackout
Joe will be interested to see if these tickets move on a holiday week. That might be a tough sell with so many fans out of town or already with a full docket of weekend plans.
Now before anyone uses the weak sauce, knee-jerk cry of “Why don’t the Glazers buy the tickets?” How about asking a better question:
Often in other markets when a team needs to sell tickets, the local business community steps up and buys the remaining tickets left just before the deadline (Thursday, 1 p.m.) to ensure a local broadcast. Why hasn’t the local Tampa Bay business community stepped forward to not just help fans, but countless bars and restaurants which will be otherwise packed with fans watching the game?
To date, that has never happened to Joe’s knowledge in the past three years.
Or an even better question:
In other markets when a blackout looms, the local FOX/CBS affiliate will buy up the tickets. Since WTVT-TV Channel 13 is a FOX owned-and-operated station, that means Rupert Murdoch, the head honcho of FOX who makes Teams Glazer look like Joe he has so much cash, wouldn’t even miss the paltry thousands it would cost to broadcast the game locally.
Again, neither the local FOX nor CBS affiliate does this. Joe has an idea why: if either station thought it could make some cash doing this, they would have pulled the trigger to lift a blackout already.
So instead of being lame and whining about the Bucs owners, why not direct your ire at those in the community that, unlike in other NFL markets, haven’t/won’t step up to the plate to help out local Bucs fans.
Sometimes, it’s just too easy blaming the local pinata, Team Glazer.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Why not ask the President of Tilted Kilt, to guarantee the 7400 tickets required to lift the blackout? At $0.34 per ticket that’s only around $2,500 for the advertising his franchise could possibly receive for bailing out the Bucs.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Picaroon:
And just exactly why would the Bucs sell each outstanding ticket for 34 cents a ticket? Seems as though you’ve been at Tilted Kilt a little too long today.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Correction, it’s $.34 on the dollar for unsold tickets, maybe Joe can find out what the actual cost to guarantee 5,000 unsold ticket would be to a sponsor.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Picaroon:
Only if owner(s) of the NFL team in question buys the tickets. Anyone else, it’s face value.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:42 pm
Joe: I happen to be a season ticket holder that has lived outside the U.S. since the 2000 season(Miltary and Diplomatic service related) for all but the 2004 & 2005 seasons and have NEVER resold my seats because of the impact the NFL Ticket Exchange program has on local blackouts.
The NFL should be ashamed every time Goodell mentions the need to “fill the seats” as justification for the TV Blackout policy. The NFL obviously profits every time a season ticket holder resells their seats when there are similar seats available through normal sales.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:50 pm
Let’s assume that one is a business in Tampa that wants to support the Bucs and see the game on TV. A guarantee would need to be made to purchase any remaining tickets. Let’s say there are 5000 tickets remaining. I would assume that they could negotiate an aggregate ticket price of no more than $50/ticket. We’re talking about $25,000. Assuming worst case scenario of 7500 tickets at $100 a ticket is $75,000. Joe’s argument regarding Fox13 makes a lot of sense here. In my opinion, $25-$50K is a small price to pay for all the local advertising dollars one would assume an affiliate could pick up for a local football game.
Very interesting take Joe.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:54 pm
Kevin:
Thanks.
Joe’s guess is the FOX (and CBS) beancounters have gone over the pros/cons of buying the remaining tickets and they don’t think they can sell enough ads in such a short period of time to make up for the cost of buying the tickets.
But Joe has read countless times in other markets how a local network TV affliiate or a local brewer/distributor/group of businesses buy the remaining tickets so a game can be broadcast.
That has never happened here in the past three years.
November 19th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Fuzzy math by the Bucs for a stadium that has 50-something thousand cheap seats
November 19th, 2012 at 8:05 pm
great points made Joe…for the record I am a huge Glazers fan..
November 19th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
A huge “Glazers fan” … that’s creepy. Those guys should have put out annual trading cards. I’d trade a Joel rookie for a pair of Ed and Bryan Super Bowl year cards.
November 19th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
So the fans stop getting the blame, now the blame lies with local business’s? Soon enough this fan base will run out of excuses why they don’t support the team. Pathetic.
November 19th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
What about clear channel with a massive ticket give away contest?
November 19th, 2012 at 8:33 pm
According to the NFL there have only been 4 blackouts this year; 3 in Tampa and 1 in San Diego:
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/02/nfl-says-attendance-is-up-and-blackouts-are-down/
With the Bucs playing Atlanta this Sunday hopefully some of their fans will come down to the Bay area to see Matty Ice play; unfortunately it won’t occur before the Thursday deadline.
Sure seems like the Glazers might be itching to move to LA??
November 19th, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Joe, why don’t a few of the Bucs sponsors like Publix, SunTrust or some of the others get together and purchase the remaining tickets, when there’s only 5 or 6 thousand needed. It would be good publicity and PR and I’d rather have them do that than have the dozen Publix give-aways I’ve collected over the years. Just a thought.
November 19th, 2012 at 8:48 pm
When the Thursday count of ticket sales are released (Blackout or no Blackout), I’d like the NFL Ticket Exchange and Stub Hub (officially sponsored by the Buccaneers) sales for this game. Any resell of a previously bought ticket through either program should be added to the sold tickets to lift the blackout.
I get weekly emails as a season ticket holder asking if I want to resell my already counted season tickets. The local fan based should not be penalized by these two NFL profit making programs.
November 19th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
@ kennedy..you must not of been here during the Culverhouse years…
Glazers have opened their wallets an gave us a great team,and give ALOT to the community…One buc place used to be next to a run way at TiA…
We have over 30 million on IR now,[tops in the NFL]…..we are lucky to have owners like them..
November 19th, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Picaroon,
What you seem to be suggesting is that a resold ticket count as two tickets instead of one. If you bought a season ticket, it counts towards the total one time. One time whether you go to the ticket, resell the ticket, or skip the game entirely.
Fans and the community businesses need to step up and buy those tickets. I was among 5-10 thousand Buccaneer fans in Charlotte yesterday. I drove six freaking hours to watch the game, bought a $120 hotel room, AND paid for parking. I’m a public school teacher in Northern Virginia with two kids and a wife. I jumped at the chance to watch my team. When you look at what I paid for the tickets, hotel, gas, and time spent on the road, I could’ve probably bought season tickets if I lived in Florida. There were many other people at the stadium with similar stories (though I did meet a guy that was a season ticket holder in Tampa that drove up for the game). It seems that the Bucs have better support on the road than they do in their own town.
November 19th, 2012 at 9:13 pm
I agree with fuzzy math. 11,000 – 7,400 =3,600. If 3,600 is 15% then 100% = 24,000. This math does not work and therefore their information is all bull$hit.
Last weekend the stadium was every bit of 85% full.
I’m not buying any of this. I’m not blaming Joe either but we have a lot of Falcon fans here and this is a ploy to sell more tickets. That is fine but they shouldn’t be deceptive about it.
I am also a ticket holder, like the Glazers a lot, but some clown marketer is spouting off bull$hit propaganda and I ain’t buying any of it.
C’mon Man, give us more credit than that.
November 19th, 2012 at 9:19 pm
TBuc:
Why not? Local businesses in other markets buy up tickets. You see the empty seats in Carolina and St. Louis? In St. Louis, either the local TV station or Anheuser-Busch buys tickets. Same in San Diego. Never here. Funny how that works.
Joe will never blame the fans. If Fan-A prefers to watch pirated feeds on his computer or wait until midnight to watch it for free than go to a game, Joe has no problem with that. Joe is not in business to tell people how they should spend their cash or how they are supposed to enjoy something.
This brings Joe to this:
If you aren’t going to the game, you have zero reason to complain. If you aren’t going to the game and are whining about how others aren’t buying tickets, then you are just wanting a free handout. Man up and find a way to buy a ticket or wait a few hours and watch it for free.
If you are going to the game, then so what? You are already there. What do you care if there are some empty seats?
November 19th, 2012 at 9:23 pm
The Ferengi have taken over the Federation, money is useless.
November 19th, 2012 at 9:40 pm
Brandon:
“Picaroon,
What you seem to be suggesting is that a resold ticket count as two tickets instead of one. If you bought a season ticket, it counts towards the total one time. One time whether you go to the ticket, resell the ticket, or skip the game entirely.”
My point is the NFL promotes resell of tickets already purchased. The resold ticket DOES NOT COUNT towards lifting the blackout. If the NFL is blocking TV based on ticket sales, then the NFL should not be sponsoring or endorsing the resale of tickets already purchased.
As such, all tickets sold through NFL sponsored NFL Ticket Exchange via Ticketmaster” and NFL endorsed Stub Hub should be blocked from sale (NFL Sponsored outlet) or count as additional sold ticket (NFL endorsed outlet) in order to lift a blackout.
It’s nothing more than a way of counting “tickets sold” in order to lift a blackout. A single pair of seats (two tickets) could be sold and resold via Ticketmaster three times and count as 6 additional tickets or the NFL could block Ticketmaster from the resell of tickets to games in which similar tickets are still available so that 6 new tickets could be sold. It’s easier to implement the math figure that creating a software program that blocks some games and allows sale of other games.
Either way, the local fans that can’t or won’t ever go to RJS, should not be blacked out based on ticket sales when the NFL profits from the resell of previously purchased tickets.
November 19th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
I put the blame on the pathetic fans. And I mean the ones that can go but don’t. There’s enough people in this town to sell out the stadium. Using another excuse like the holidays is just ridiculous. I agree business’ especially major sponsors should help out all the time but I’m embarrassed by our fan base.
November 19th, 2012 at 10:07 pm
BigEl:
Good question.
November 19th, 2012 at 10:09 pm
bucfanjeff:
No way that will happen. Clear Channel wants blackouts. That way more people listen to the games on radio.
November 19th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
7386 more! Just got 14 tickets. Stop the excuses/complains and support our team!
November 19th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
I live in Iowa so I obviously have no horse in this race, but what I will say is that i think the whole blackout concept is ridiculous. I have Sunday Ticket and obviously watch every game that way. It has almost become unbearable to even watch the games on TV there is so many freaking commercial breaks and advertisements. The NFL is making plenty of money off of this, no reason to rob people of the chance to watch on TV. My friend and I were talking that it must be ridiculous watching the games in stadium, the guy with the red hat signaling TV timeouts is probably on the field more than the players.
Touchdown!
Commercial break….
Extra Point Attempt.
Commercial Break….
Kick Off out of the back of the Endzone.
Commercial Break…
RIDICULOUS
To hit on one of Joe’s points, how could a local TV station not make enough money in advertisements to cover costs of tickets with that number of breaks in the game?
November 19th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
If you weren’t there at 1-3, I don’t want you there at 6-4. And I sure as hell don’t want you there during the playoffs.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:22 pm
gotbbucs Says:
Touchdown!
Commercial break….
Extra Point Attempt.
Commercial Break….
Kick Off out of the back of the Endzone.
Commercial Break…
RIDICULOUS
To hit on one of Joe’s points, how could a local TV station not make enough money in advertisements to cover costs of tickets with that number of breaks in the game?
Exactly why the local station has no room for commercial revenue, the national commercials dominate the airways. When watching Sunday Ticket, you see the same national commercials in the identical order on every game on Fox & CBS with only certain TV breaks at the end of each quarter and at halftime for local sales. The local commercial TV ads are sold out long before the season begins.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:27 pm
Picaroon, was not aware of that. Thank you.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Adam-well said
November 19th, 2012 at 11:36 pm
Oh I don’t know, maybe the fans of this team should put their complaining asses in the empty seats. No more sorry excuses. Bums
November 19th, 2012 at 11:45 pm
HEY JOE. You need to update your ads man. I tried to lease an SRX for $350/mo and they told me that deal ran out in October.
November 19th, 2012 at 11:55 pm
I welcome any and all Buc fans to the CITS. Future, New, Longtime, Young, Old, Decrepit, 8 to 80, Blind, Crippled, or Crazy. If you can’t walk, we’ll drag you.
And if you’re nice to me, I might just buy you a ticket. If you’re hot, most definitely.
Btw, there are a good number of businesses buying small blocks of tickets. It is easy to spend other people’s money, isn’t it. This is just going to take some time, probably about 4 more years, but I hope not.
November 20th, 2012 at 12:06 am
1 cent of your sales tax pays for that stadium, it should be free to all hillsborough county residence.
November 20th, 2012 at 12:59 am
The Glazer Children NEVER get a dime of my $$$ ever again (too many bad experiences and thoughts about them) Sell the team!!!!!!!
November 20th, 2012 at 1:00 am
Joe Says:
November 19th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Picaroon:
Correction, it’s $.34 on the dollar for unsold tickets
Only if owner(s) of the NFL team in question buys the tickets. Anyone else, it’s face value.
.
Actually, when the Glazers buy tickets it is usually because the sponsors kicked in the money to do so. If the tickets are not being bought, it is because of a lack of sponsors or because we as fans are not spending the money.
However, Picaroon is 1000% correct.
I have been saying for 2 years that buying resells does nothing to help avoid blackouts. That’s why, on the occasions when I buy tickets without being able to attend, I always buy at full price brand new.
To me, fans who brag about going to the games when they buy resells, they are not really supporting the team other than being there to cheer them on.
If nothing else, I would be curious to see how many resells are sold each week and whether the number sold would have equaled the amount needed to avoid blackouts IF fan had bought new.
I already bought for this coming week, two tickets for my son and his mentor. And yet…because I cannot go due to health reasons, I will have to stream even though I bought tickets…because not enough tickets are sold.
I do believe the 85% is sold after walkups though. If the NFL counted walkups, I doubt we would see so many blackouts.
November 20th, 2012 at 1:09 am
DallasBuc….bums?
Dallas population = 1.23 million
Tampa population= 346K
50K of fans in a Dallas stadium = 4% of the city
50K of fans in a Tampa stadium = 14% of the city
To compare apples to apples, Dallas would have to pack a stadium full of 172,000 fans to compare to that draw.
But, I doubt you would understand that, you are from Texas.
If you don’t like Florida, kindly leave and take your hummer with you.
PS. Tony Romo is horrible and hasn’t accomplished anything. GFY
November 20th, 2012 at 1:18 am
Joe,
I know you said the blackout deadline is Thursday but Thursday is Thanksgiving and ticket offices are closed that day. If the game does get blacked out wouldn’t it be announced on a Wednesday or a Friday?
Just wondering.
November 20th, 2012 at 1:23 am
Dutcher, shut your fat mouth, punk. You have no right b!tching about fans not going to games. You sit on your fat rear end and whine about people not buying tickets, yet you brag about watching the video streams on your TV. You are an out and out hypocrite.
So you bought tickets once or twice.Wow. Just shut up. People who don’t go to games have no right to tell others how to spend their hard-earned cash.
You are a two-faced fraud.
November 20th, 2012 at 1:44 am
Jimmy Delach:
Tthe deadline is Thursday (72 hours prior to kickoff), holiday or not. While the ticket office may be closed, Ticketmaster is always open.
November 20th, 2012 at 1:55 am
I believe with Dallas, Ft Worth and all surrounding areas the pop is close to 4 million. Tampa also has fans as far south as Ft Myers and east to Orlando that all attend games. We drive from Sarasota to every home game, no problem. I would guess though that the Buc Bay Area pop is easily over 2 million.
A ticket is a ticket and matters not where it came from. It is still support of the team and the best seats come from season ticket holders.
I say whatever, if it feels good, do it.
November 20th, 2012 at 3:57 am
@Picaroon – You fail to realize that local TV affiliates still make plenty of money when there’s a blacked out game because another game takes its place. The local ads in that game are sold far in advance.
November 20th, 2012 at 4:12 am
Someone should help Kevin with his math. He’s leaving off zeros.
November 20th, 2012 at 5:53 am
Bottom line; we have the worst fans in America. We prove it time and time again in baseball and now football. 90% of the posts here are nothing but a beg- a-thon, hoping some business will buy the tickets so they can plop their lazy ass on a couch and stuff their face. Pathetic!!!
I’m tired of ” it’s too far to drive” or “it’s the economy.”
The should move both the Bucs and the Rays.
They would attract more fans in the Saraha Desert than here.
We suck!
November 20th, 2012 at 6:56 am
Where was it ever written that every NFL game (or any other sporting event for that matter) should have every seat filled?
November 20th, 2012 at 8:59 am
I blame the negativ sports radio on the blackouts. At a time when fuel could be added to the excitement, Tampa Bays local sports radio goes all out negative nancy on this towns beloved Bucs. Who is in the mood to spend money on the games when the negative sports radio talking heads trash their very own team, day in and day out.
When the Bucs get sold to another market becauseof ongoing blackouts, I am going to create a website proving tim after time why the local sports radio is actually the Bucs #1 villan.
November 20th, 2012 at 10:19 am
I think the Obama administration should demand that anybody making $250,000 should pay a fee to go towards the sell out, so the people that can’t afford to go can watch it on tv and are not disenfranchised from the NFL.
November 20th, 2012 at 10:50 am
I’ve been to every game and the only one not above 85% was the first game of the year. An extention request was all that was needed to have had the other games televised. I guess hindsight is 20/20 for the owners as well. I don’t think they realized what the actual attendance was going to be for the other games.
November 20th, 2012 at 11:18 am
Yo0u cannot just count Tampa, if you are going to talk about population you have to count the greater Tampa bay area, after all they are the Tampa Bay Bucs. That number should be around 4 million if I remember correctly. Now, you should also count Fort Worth in the Dallas numbers. Tampa bay will still win out numbers wise. Houston would be a different story.
November 20th, 2012 at 11:20 am
Scott, I beleive it was written in the 70’s, I could be wrong maybe the 80’s.
THE BUCS WILL NOT BE SOLD! You guys should get over that. How many times does Joe have to tell you about the sweet heart stadium deal?
November 20th, 2012 at 12:01 pm
238:
LOL!!
If that was the case, there wouldn’t be any people in the stands in Philly, NY, Chicago, Washington, Pittsburgh, Cleveland.. hell virtually anywhere.
November 20th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
Jimmy…lol…you are a complete idiot. I bet I contribute more in each season to stop the blackouts than you do in two seasons. Butts in the seats don’t prevent blackouts…tickets sold do. And I make a healthy dent in those sales each year.
Perhaps you missed where I said HEALTH ISSUES prevent me from going to the games. Perhaps you should be thanking me for even buying tickets? Don’t act like my money isn’t good. I would think that the fact that I cannot make use of my own purchased tickets makes me a stronger fan than you.
I would also guess that you probably buy 1-3 tickets a year as opposed to my 20+ per year. And the way I see it…if I am spending that kind of money, I have the right to watch games.
So instead of attacking disabled people who spend money on the team, take a look in the mirror bigot.
November 20th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Jimmy says
“People who don’t go to games have no right to tell others how to spend their hard-earned cash.”
.
I spend my cash too, fool. Even if I don’t go. That earns me the right.
November 20th, 2012 at 1:03 pm
I’m so tired of hearing ppl say our fans are pethetic.. first off alot of the ppl here are retired and not able to go to the games and alot of ppl don’t have jobs and in my case I have a wife and 2 kids and it would cost to much money to look threw some binoculars. When I can stay home and watch the game on my big screen HD TV.. hmm what should I do? Stay home and relax or spend everything I just made. That I should use to pay my bills with.. not every is rich. I wish I was I would always be there but unfortanitly I have a family to take care of.. so sorry to all of you. I must be so pathetic because I wild rather supper my family then to support my team that is already rich…
November 20th, 2012 at 2:47 pm
Don’t listen to Pete.
The time to buy tickets is on gameday, from a scalper, at a fraction of the face value.
Pete is a doucher. This is no charity.
November 20th, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Pete, you really shouldn’t call anyone an idiot.
November 21st, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Does anyone know a site that is accurate in availability