My ticket price strategy

[jmknpk2]

I try to squeeze as much money as possible, out of my team's fans. So that we can bring them better quality of baseball season after season.

I use the setting to allow changing ticket price throughout the season.

Depending on my mood, I proceed in one of two modes.

Auto-pilot mode:
Set the ticket price so that my stadium sells out on Saturdays, Sundays, and some Fridays, and fills about 95% on M, Tu, W, Th.
Keep an eye on changes to fan interest or deviations in attendance, adjusting as necessary.

Day by day mode:
Ticket price goes up a dollar for Saturday and Sunday games. About 50 cents for Friday games. First game back from a long road trip gets an increase. I monitor the price, fan interest, and attendance at the last home game, aiming for 99-100% sellout at every game (hopefully maximizing game revenue).

It is sort of like balancing on a bike. Lean to far to the left and fall. Lean to far to the right and fall.

Stadium was 80% full for a Saturday game, need to lower the price. Sell out on a Wednesday, need to increase the price.

And for keeping an accurate eye on money potential, I use the following calculations:

Last home game ticket price X (times) attendance = total revenue from last game.

Total Revenue from last game / (divided by) stadium capacity = target ticket price for next game on that day of the week.

Comparing different days of the week would be like comparing apples and oranges.

[krownroyal83]

I wonder if you do this over the course of the season how much of a revenue increase it is. This is something that should be done for all small markets for sure as they need the money more than anyone. I don't know if i'd bother if I had a 250 million dollar budget but I like reading stuff like this. It's interesting.

[Dyzalot]

How does this work? If OOTP was realistic about this you'd get bad press and a hit on fan loyalty or something. Can't imagine buying tickets for a game a month or two ahead of time in a market where that price can change at the whim of the owner.

[ThePretender]

That doesn't sound like you're maxmizing revenue at all. Your prices should be as high as they can go while you sell out everyday. Whether I play in online leagues or against the computer my gate revenue is usually top 3, even when I have a small market team. On my "small market" team, where my media revenue is 29/30, and basically half the amount of the first place team in media revenue, I'm running the second highest gate revenue and third highest season tickets. Combine that with my sustained winning seasons, and I end up with the 7th highest budget (172M) despite the massive disadvantage I have in media revenue (which is something that will never change).

To put it in perspective, the guy who has the lowest media revenue (1M less than me) has a budget that ranks 18th in the league, and is more than 30M lower than mine, because he can't maximize revenue like I can. The team that has media revenue half a million more than me (28/30 in the league) has an 84M budget because his team hasn't won in a while.

You'd actually be amazed how high you can raise ticket prices and still sell out when you're winning. Taking advantage of it allows you to turn small market teams into a big budget team.

[jmknpk2]

The way I figure it, if my stadium sells out. There were people who would have bought a ticket but couldn't. Price was too low. If I didn't sell out, price was too high. Because I'm capped out at sellout, I can't see how many I might have sold. If I am slightly below sellout, I can track the different attendances against different prices (paying close attention to fan interest, day of week, etc.). Slightly below sellout just gives me a better handle on the correlation. With a sellout, I don't know how much higher I could have raised the ticket price and still sold out.

I see it in the economics supply and demand curve way. If the demand is higher than the supply (at specified cost), I've lost money. If the supply is too high (at a given cost), I've exceeded the demand. If I could walk the line perfectly every game, I would where demand = supply. At a price where raising ticket price one penny would lose a ticket purchase. And if I had lowered the price one penny for a sellout, I could have sold out for one more penny per ticket.

But because game by game attendance is unpredictable, I aim for the next best thing: selling one less seat than capacity. Or something generally along those lines as described in my original post (95% on weekdays 100% on weekends).

In a 50,000 capacity stadium, if I sell out at $20 per ticket, then I've brought in $1,000,000 for the game. If I sell 49,999 seats at $20.01, I've brought in $1,000,479.99. Simple math shows the difference.

I tracked (in a spreadsheet) my ticket revenue game-by-game, over the entire course of seasons, before we were allowed to change the price game by game. That's where I developed the strategy. Now that we can change the price daily, I've refined it a bit.

[jmknpk2]

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

How does this work? If OOTP was realistic about this you'd get bad press and a hit on fan loyalty or something. Can't imagine buying tickets for a game a month or two ahead of time in a market where that price can change at the whim of the owner.

Happens in Saint Louis for Cardinal games. There is dynamic ticket pricing. If a game is not selling as well as expected, the price decreases gradually nearer to the day of the game. If the game is selling well, the price increases.

I haven't heard many gripes in the press about this. Or from fans I know first hand. Seems like good business and reasonable to me. Good business means a better team on the field, at least in Saint Louis.

And there are ticket re-sellers such as StubHub (which are not operating without consent of the team). They create an interaction of second market tickets which is also taken into consideration. Those second market tickets change hour by hour on a very competitive basis relative to other tickets availlable in the same section.

And of course, there are promotions and discounts which may be offered at any time above and beyond standard ticket pricing. I often see these offered a week or two before a game. Somewhat artificially lowering price in addition to dynamic pricing.

There is a standing deal, where game tickets can be bought very cheaply, but on a basis similar to stand-by for airlines. I've gone very cheap this way. Get a voucher for a reservation to stand in line early in the morning on the day of the game. Near game time, stand in line outside the stadium with the reserved voucher. If there are seats still available 10 or 15 minutes before game time, they are sold at the gate for the extremely inexpensive pre-arranged flat price. Sometimes less than 1/20th cost (depending on what seats you get). If there are no seats available, or seats run out before your place in line, you go home empty handed at no cost. I've sat in $135 seats at $11.20 for two tickets.

[ThePretender]

If you're in first you'll pretty much sell out even at 30+ dollars. Even at $30 if you're getting 40K, you're making 1.2M per game instead of 1M at 20 and max attendance.

I feel like you're trying to prove you're the smartest guy in the room, and overthinking it as a result, when there's a much simpler strategy to use to max out revenue.

[jmknpk2]

Originally Posted by ThePretender

If you're in first you'll pretty much sell out even at 30+ dollars. Even at $30 if you're getting 40K, you're making 1.2M per game instead of 1M at 20 and max attendance.

True. I've found that fan interest is what most drives optimum price. And of course, winning increases fan interest and game revenue as you mention. I try to win on the field. I try to find the perfect balance in ticket price that leads to the maximum revenue.

All of it is variable and relative, and I watch it closely to maximize exactly the difference you are talking about. $30 vs. $20. or $29.75 vs $20.12.

Maybe I'm just a penny pincher in real life as well as in my game universes. I just figure, a little extra money helps me edge out a competitor on a free agent that I wouldn't otherwise be able to beat. Or gain small pieces that can be added in to an upgrade trade deal. Or give an extra year in extension. I see money as what gives me on field performance.

Originally Posted by ThePretender

I feel like you're trying to prove you're the smartest guy in the room, and overthinking it as a result, when there's a much simpler strategy to use to max out revenue.

I already know I'm not the smartest guy on these forums. Nor in math, economics, or baseball in general. Actually far from it. Though I can see why you might think that. I definitely overthink in all areas of my real life, not exclusive of my gaming. Actually something I've been making an effort to let go of. I occasionally try to spend periods of time without thinking anything at all. Honestly.

I have a 112 team game universe with 3 levels of minors, feeder leagues. I keep a lot of detail in the league, keeping all logs, etc.. At the end of each month, there is a cycle of data dumps the game does (per my preference in the settings). I also make a full backup on the first day of each month. This process actually takes between 2 and 3 hours for my league. While I"m thinking OOTP Baseball and can't touch the game, I come on these forums and think out loud. Or type publicly.

I could refrain from posting if that would be better for our community. But there's a good likelihood I'll get bored of OOTP in a while and remain silent for months or years again anyway.

In real life, I am an applied math major which might explain some of it.

[Beechnut]

So the lesson here is don't assign ticket prices to your assistant GM? It would be nice if he could figure this all out for you, isn't that in his job description? Maybe future versions will give deeper backgrounds to front office personel hinting at their ability to manage finances, such as a choice to hire a guy with an accounting background, or even applied math!

I've never managed regular season tickets that closely, but I have experimented with playoff games. When you first see lineups before playing out a game, it tells you the ballpark attendance. If I didn't maximaize my revenue, I'd back out of the screen, adjust my ticket price, and try again until I got the most profitable outcome.

[NoOne]

there are multiple independent variables to track. a little calculus will clear it up, if motivated and you get enough data points... its going to be basic, simply plotting them will show the shape (the math) of the curve well enough for this context. even eye-balling it like me is ~nearly good enough.

1 key thing to know is that as far as what you choose to go with for season vs regular season, it does not change how much you need to price a ticket to selll out. never let the 2 choices mix.. they mean nothing to each other.

so, you want to increase the price of the season ticket as high as you can go until you break-even with the opportunitiy cost. it's not just more income than before, it's more incom per seat than before... that's all that matters when you choose a season ticket price. pretty sure they didn't think it through, but you start getting negligible returns, obviously. there was a patch note that said it stopped a problem with escalating gate revenue through overpricing, but there must still be a little loophole in the logic used.

* if a morbidly losing team, you may want to reverse what i said above... you may get more income by selling a greater # of cheaper season tickets, since those seats would otherwise go empty... i have said everythign from teh point of view of a winning team.

e.g. (slightly non-default settings, but close.. think default ticket price is +$2 from default 24->26 or 26->28?, baseline attendance is 30k or 31k etc, so default will be a bit less than the #'s i use, but the proportions should remain the same relative to baseline ticket price and attendance)

$80 season ticket sells out ~12,800 out of 55,600 stadium. anything less than 100 interest and it's less. (~23% at nearly 3X baseline price after a WS and 100team interest)

if i sell for ~$78, the additional seats sold does not make up for the loss of income of those seats selling for the drastically reduced regular season price.

i think at some point it should start going the other way, but for a 55.6k stadium and the context i gave i generally make more money if i continue to increase the season ticket price.

they may need to change somethign here?

other stuff --

fri-sat-sun sell x% more tickets, all other things remaining the same, compared to mon-thurs. easy to learn.

record definiteyl helps... opening day you can ~double the ticket price. after that, you need to win games in order to charge more money for the gate ticket price. you should be able to reach 150% or so of the ticket price if oyu win a ton. (think 120+wins or so, then negligible returns from wins? a bit of an educated guess here)

in the playoffs you can price quite high, like opening day, but a bit less. i think more successive playoffs in a row help? too many moving variables to be 100% sure, but i cna price more in playoffs after a few WS. if i recall, the first couple years i can actually reach a higher season ticket price than what i can sell a playoff ticket for and get a sellout. (what i consider a sellout)

with my setting if i want max attendance at max price (only an assumption that it give optimal revenue, certainly no gaurantee) i can start at ~$32-36ish and raise it to ~$60 in the best seasons.

season ticket price is always ~$80. i still get minor bumps to resulting yearly average ticket price if i bump it above $80.

now, my goal wasn't maximize profit... it was maximize profit relative AND max attendance. so, some of my conclusions may differ from yours, but teh same methods are used to get there. Also, i don't lose much, so that is a HUGE factor in greater understanding of the variables involved. all of this comes from a perspective of best-case scenario when it comes to interest/winning. (which is when it matters most to maximize profits, i might add)