Monday night, the Washington Capitals announced ticket-price increases for the 2017-18 season. If season-ticket holders choose to renew for next season, they will pay an increase of $5 per game.
The deadline to renew is March 17.
Here’s how the prices stacked up per a fancy chart I made after poorly combining the Capitals graphics.
According to a team spokesman, the Capitals’ analytics group derived these new prices based on marketplace conditions. The team also plans to spend up to the salary cap and ice a very competitive team next season.
Not only that, the Capitals won the President’s Trophy during the 2015-16 season and may do so again in 2016-17. The team has never been more popular. They also sport one of the greatest players of all-time in Alex Ovechkin.
Reactions from fans have spanned from meh to annoyance.
While a uniform $5 price increase seems fair to everyone, the impact felt by fans in the upper bowl is much greater. While fans sitting glass side will see a .01 percent increase in pay, those fans sitting up in the upper deck are seeing fees jump as high as 18%.
@Capitals realize $5/seat for all 2017-18 is bad math? .01% up on glass, my seats up 18%..Little guys taking it on the chin @russianmachine
— Rex (@RexM78) February 21, 2017
“My seats in what we affectionately call The Top Shelf (408 P), went from $2732 for the full season to $3157 ($33.31 to $38.50/game/seat). That’s a 15 percent increase,” reader Joe F. said in an email. “I feel that there’s no rhyme or reason to what happens. The only other time these seats were even close to this expensive, Adam Oates was coaching. Last year, when the Caps were invincible (at least when the prices were announced, in February), the prices for our seats went down. So no matter what happens, it’s always a surprise.”
Joe and other fans also voiced their displeasure about how much more difficult it is to sell tickets via other avenues.
“The Caps have made it steadily less convenient to be a season-ticket holder, most notably by not allowing fans to print out their tickets at all this year for ‘security’ reasons (primarily the security of their market share from SeatGeek and StubHub), and forcing Monumental Rewards points to expire for the first time this year,” Joe F. continued. “While I recognize that they don’t control the product on the ice (which all sides acknowledge may regress in 2017-2018 due to the salary cap), we certainly aren’t getting a better product for our money than we were a year or two ago.”
@ianoland It’s not only the financial increase, it’s the dilution of value of being a STH. Harder to sell tix and no exchange option
— Robin (@MdCapsGirl) February 21, 2017
Here’s a sample of the reactions I received online from other season-ticket holders.
@ianoland @ianoland it’s a bit irritating. We already pay a ton and an additional $425 isn’t chump change.
— Tyler Spooner (@TySpooner1993) February 21, 2017
@ianoland 112 and mine went up $100 to $14,462
— Steve Rabil (@1fishndude) February 21, 2017
@ianoland mine went up $5 a game…..nothing too bad
— Sheena (@CAPLDY) February 21, 2017
@ianoland furious, especially because they’ve already limited my ability to use stubhub with this season.
— Matt (@Mulerr) February 21, 2017
@ianoland already hard to justify the cost, totally an emotional purchase … eventually you have to start staying home, or win powerball
— Willy Clark (@WillyTClark) February 21, 2017
@ianoland A $5 increase is nothing compared to last year’s $35 increase!
— Danielle Weinberg (@DWeinberg8) February 21, 2017
@ianoland for those of us up top, wow.. rather increase be by % based on location… can’t beat the entertainment though.. for now
— Rex (@RexM78) February 21, 2017
@ianoland if they win a Cup I won’t even care if they don’t pic.twitter.com/vJY3x42Msp
— Rachel O’Brien (@rmobrien21) February 21, 2017
Bad enough we had to give up our season tickets after 30 years. Pretty soon they'll price us out of going to #Caps games altogether. https://t.co/w8AypSPZ6n
— LuvdCaps (@luvdcaps) February 21, 2017
How are you feeling about the price increases? Will this keep you from renewing next season? What could the Capitals do better? What are they doing right? Let us know in the comments.
