Ire over rising season-ticket prices fueling negative cycle

Jeremiah Oshan -

One of the annual traditions around this time of year is for Seattle Sounders fans to express frustration with what is usually an increase in season-ticket prices. Any increase, especially one during a season where the play has been as uneven as it has been this year, is greeted with loud grumbling. Whether it’s fair or not, though, this tends to be sort of hand-waved away as a “vocal minority.”

There’s a logic in that reaction, too. Despite a steady decrease since 2017, the Sounders continue to have one of the biggest season-ticket bases in MLS, and with few exceptions, the renewal rate usually is in the 90s. The franchise continues to be one of the most valuable in MLS and their overall revenues have never been higher.

While there’s still almost a week to go before the renewal deadline on Aug. 16 and hard numbers weren’t made available, the public reaction feels very different this time. Since the new prices were formally released on July 31, the volume and level of frustration has seemed louder and more consistent than I have ever heard before.

There is currently a forum on the Sounder at Heart Discord about season-ticket renewals that has already reached about 1,400 comments. There’s a thread on the Sounders’ Reddit page that has more than 200 comments. Among those roughly 1,600 comments, there’s virtually no one offering a real counter-argument to various frustrations. I’ve personally heard from dozens of fans who say they’ve already decided to cancel or at least reduce the number of season tickets they’re buying, a disconcerting number of whom say they’ve been going to games regularly for well over a decade and seem genuinely saddened by their decision.

It is, of course, an old business adage that satisfied customers give feedback far less frequently than ones who are upset, but what I found interesting is that these complaints mostly hit on a few similar points:

  • Obviously, no one is thrilled about the price increases. It looks like most are seeing increases of anywhere from 10%-30%.
  • While most seem frustrated with that, they are seemingly more upset with the way the increase has been communicated.
  • There has also been a longstanding sense that the value proposition of having season tickets has diminished and that this price increase is something of a final straw for a significant group of people.