All sellouts all of the time?
A waiting list for season tickets?
Massive growth in tough economic times?
Red becomes the town’s colors?
The Caps are the hottest ticket in town?
Read this Washington Post article. Thank you so much for all of your support and your belief in our plan; our players; and our playoff push.
We will remain humble, responsive, loving and caring. I promise. Go Caps! Thank you again.
Tags: Hockey, NHL, Ted Leonsis, Ted's Take, Washington Capitals
Let’s Go Caps!
Let’s Go Ted!
Thanks for leading the charge with all of your employess…let’s hope that we have a couple of months of hockey left as well!
Congrats to you and your organization for the hard work it took to get there. I rememeber a lot of bitter fans once Jagr and the house cleaning started in 2004. I’ll admit I was one of them too.
Thanks for a kick a$$ product. In the rare instances when I can get to a Caps game this season I always have a blast.
Yes, that’s nice Ted. But I get the feeling that a lot of people bought full season ticket plans just because they had to in order to get playoff tickets. So you’re going to see a flood of Caps tickets available next season from brokers, StubHub, Ebay etc. Which means more available for opposing team fans.
Hooray for the Capitals! Good luck is the residue of hard work.
Ted,
There are no gimme’s here — the team has shown it deserves this. There has been a lot of hard work by management in rebuilding, a very special spirit and comraderie shown by the team (with a lot of wins and talent exhibition along the way), and the fans feel like we are the 7th player on the ice. We all win when this happens. Regardless of the economic downturn (and I’ve just finished listening to two days of economic aviation forecasts), the reality is that the Caps bring joy to my heart. We’ll cut back on food and basics before we give up our great seats.
Thanks for all you do in your role of stewardship.
Most respectfully,
Toni Trombecky
Ted-
As an 11-game plan holder this year, I too am excited. But when told by the ticket office that I would have to order full season tickets for next year in order to get full playoff tickets this year, I said no thanks, in “tough economic times” it would not be prudent for me to commit to that. Then I was informed that I would have to prepay $1200 for 2 seats in the upper deck nose bleed sections for just half of the playoff games, with any unused balance applied to next year, I again said no thanks, cannot commit to that. With this much excitment around the team, these typical sports team draconian measures are not needed, and are not appreciated by at least these 2 fans. Fans that have attended an average of 10 games each year since the lockout.
Ted,
Congratulations on reaching this pinnacle with the business side of the organization. I look forward to an exciting playoff run and many years of Rockin the Red at Verizon Center.
Actually us season ticket holders who have been to every one of the 42 games this year also had to renew for full season in order to get playoff tickets for THIS SEASON.
I don’t understand that concept at all. I have paid to watch this entire season and pledged my support to the team for 42 games and then get shutout of the playoffs?
The only thing we need now is a California Tortilla inside Verizon Center!
I tend to agree with Patrick above. The measure of a class organization is how they treat their fans when the team is good, not how they treat their fans when the team is bad. And I’m afraid the Caps organization is failing that test. They’re becoming Redskins-like, with the attitude of “well, it doesn’t matter how we treat them, someone will take their place.” Someday, it will come back to haunt the Caps.
As a brand new STH (yesssssss!), I bought because I want to see this great wonderful team play next year without begging my buddies or playing ebay roulette. People will come to ME to beg to accompany ME to the CAPS next season. Playoff tickets are a bonus but not close to being worth the trouble and money for season tickets just to turn around and hawk them to penguin fans. Who wants to see those clowns at the game anyway:)? People who didn’t know the CAPS existed a couple of years ago say “oooooooohhhhhh cool!” when I tell them I have CAPS tickets. Not only do I get to see the best game ever invented whenever they play home, but now as a CAPS STH my street cred has gone through the roof:)!!!!! Now that I have my STH, I have gone from saying Leonsis to Uncle Ted when talking about the CAPS. Wow Mr. Leonsis, I hope that is OK with you
Ted,
Thanks for all you’ve done in bringing this ream back. I’ve been going to games since I was little with my dad and I bought my own plan right before the lockout (right when I heard about the lockout actually, had to get my fill before hockey was gone.)
All I can say is I know you have bills to pay, but don’t raise the ticket prices too much in the future. I would hate to get priced out of something I love only to have a ticket broker be able to afford my seats.
Other than that we love what you’ve done and how much fun you’ve had doing it.
We seriously need rules regarding ticket resales. I’m in support of people not eating their season tickets, but if you look at the ticket exchange, most tickets are way overpriced. Sometimes it is hard to find something that is less than double the retail value (unless it is an expensive seat anyway).
I love going to games. How many have I been to this year? Just one. There are many tickets available on ticketexchange, but they are ripoffs. They are marked up so much! I think that the ticketexchange should be a place for people to give fans a chance to get to a game, not a place for people to be a**holes and charge people extra. Because ticketexchange is official, I think there should be limits. I mean, if they are season ticket holders, selling the tickets at face value would give them a profit!
DO NOT RAISE THE TICKET PRICES!!!!!
Seriously. I feel already betrayed enough as it is.
Why? Forward this to Gary Bettman:
The NHL WANTS to push away its fans. I don’t pay for tv. Subscribing to a cable or satellite service won’t give the NHL more money. But because Caps games are on CSN, I’m blacked out of gamecenter live. The games are NOT available in my area (I live in fairfax county). I can’t pick it up with an antenna (obviously). So the only way I can watch is if NBC shows the games (only 1 this year) or they are on yahoo. The stupidest part about this is that if I used gamecenter live, I would get the same exposure to the EXACT same ads I would if I watched on TV.
Congrats and well deserved. For all of you folks that are upset for having to commit to next season to secure playoff tix this year, I think you’re only seeing the grey in the cloud. Anyone comparing this organization to that of the Redskins is just silly. This group is one more organizations will try to emulate from personnell maangement all the way to customer service.
With 12 month interest free, for all levels, anyone should be able to afford tix. If you can’t, perhaps you shouldn’t be spending your evenings going to caps games, but maybe bettering your opportunities. Moreover, for STH, they always get a pre-sale opp for playoff tix.
All in, I think its a pretty fair offer.
GO CAPS!!!
Congratulations to you, Ted, for your principled, intelligent leadership of this team.
As the result of the Caps’ success, my 14 year old daughter has become a rabid Caps fan. That’s where the future is, in youngsters who will be fans the rest of their lives. Also, I think it is great that hockey players are so accessible. It is a real treat to be able to take her to watch them up close at practice at Kettler.
One other thing: your media department deserves a lot of praise. The Caps’ web site is first rate, and Capitals Red Line Monday is a treat.
As fans we are grateful to you for bringing top notch professional sports to our region. You, your management staff and especially your team deserve all the recognition you are getting.