2007 Opening Day Ticket Sales: Box Office Hose Job or Egalitarian Triumph?

While we were respectively working and sleeping this afternoon, attempting to ignore the fact that a man who looks like a grown fetus was the MVP of the 2007 Super Bowl, we received some very disturbing news via email from our New York Mets: we were cordially invited, along with every other dickwad who has ever given their email address to mets.com, to register for our only chance to purchase single game tickets to Opening Day. Immediately perturbed by this, we called the Mets ticket office to confirm.

"Hi, I'm a Saturday ticket plan holder, so I'll get my usual presale opportunity to purchase Opening Day tickets before all of the other assholes, right?"

"No, sir."

"But, but, the last four years that's how I've gotten my Opening Day tickets!"

"Sir, everyone has to register for the ticket lottery this year."

"Really?"

"Really."

Fuck.

Having briefly discussed this with two of my fellow Mets fans, and perusing the comment section of the thread dealing with this issue on metsblog, we quickly realized that Mets fans fall into two camps on this, with virtually no exceptions: "Plan Holders Who Feel Like They Just Had a Souveneir Bat Shoved In Their Urethra" and "Those Too Cheap To Pony Up For a Ticket Plan Now Basking In The Possibility To Get Decent Opening Day Seats." We fall into the former category.

After initially purchasing our Saturday Plan in 2001 with the intention of getting guaranteed playoff tickets for what we assumed would be a decade of Mets dominance (God did that backfire), we also came to love our mini-plan because it gave us the opportunity to purchase single game tickets, for any game, before the rest of the general ticket buying public. While we were not extended such outstanding perks offered to season ticket holders, such as the opportunity to tour the Kiner's Korner "studio" in the bowels of Shea Stadium, we were more than satisfied with this B-list VIP treatment.

It is understandable that a lot of people would bitch about this practice. The typical complaint is that the Mets, and most professional sports teams in general, are simply catering to the richer fans who can afford to buy season tickets or a partial ticket plan. We can sympathize with these cheap fuckers to an extent, but at the same time, ticket plan holders should receive some perks besides a crappy stadium tour in the dead of winter or leather mouse pad (yes, our reward for purchasing three seats for thirteen games last year was one leather mouse pad). Ticket plans are relatively inexpensive ($103 for a 7 Pack in the Upper Deck) and provide some insurance against fair weather fans scooping up all of the tickets to good games. For example, by opening up "Platinum" games to anyone with an email address, the Mets are all but inviting Yankee fans to load up on Subway Series tickets. By offering single game Platinum tickets to ticket holders first, Mets fans can be sure that Shea will be packed with (mostly) other Met fans come May.

As much as this new policy may blow, we have hedged our bets and purchased an additional ticket plan that includes an Opening Day ticket, bringing our game count for this year to twenty. We expect our mouse pad to be shipped shortly.