Mets Have Biggest 2010 Ticket Sales Drop

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I wrote back at the end of April that the Mets were experiencing the largest drop in ticket sales this season among MLB teams. That was according to a report in Fanhouse. Since then, things have only gotten worse for the Mets according to the NY Times.

In April, sales were down an average of 6,690 tickets per game. Now they’re down 6,852 tickets per game. Things have gone completely into the toilet. If you’re on the Mets email list, you know how aggressive they’ve become this season trying to sell tickets. It’s become a daily event for them to email about some new ticket sales promotion.

The premium games that used to sell out immediately still have seats available. You can get tickets for the Yankees series at Citi Field. For those of us that watch every game, you can see the empty seats everywhere. And it looks like SNY is consciously trying to show camera angles that don’t show the seats because it’s so embarrassing.

The Mets blame early season weather and recent poor play. But you also have to look at the reduced payroll coming off a horrible season. Slashing payroll after a bad season when the team is flush with money from the new stadium was a bad idea. That’s what it comes down to.

The hot start that the Mets talked about during the offseason and the spring never materialized either. The fact is that there just hasn’t been an exciting product that would motivate the casual fan to empty their wallets for tickets. Even dropping some of the ticket prices hasn’t been enough to move fans to buy. Clearly, the financial team that projects ticket sales based on demand and cost factors has done a poor job for two straight seasons and it’s cost the Mets dearly.

The Mets had a 40% drop in season ticket sales and have had an 18% drop overall.