Are Golden Knights Pricing Out Vegas Fans For Individual Games? A Henderson Family of 5 Thinks So
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The Vegas Golden Knights released a funny video about single game tickets going on sale Monday. The video posted on social media showed a VGK ticket worker answering his phone literally every second, while another employee advised fans to check back often for tickets.
But Golden Knights fan Darla Schneider didn’t find the ticket prices too funny at all.
Schneider, a married mother of three in Henderson, wanted to go as a family of five to a Golden Knights game in January but she could not buy tickets for five seats together.
The most she could buy were four tickets when the individual game tickets went on sale Monday — and she suffered sticker shock when she learned about the total price for the four seats.
Schneider said the cost for four individual tickets in upper bowl section 214 for the Golden Knights-Minnesota Wild game came out to $556, which included fees.
“That’s a pretty significant amount in our house,” Schneider told LVSportsBiz.com this week. “And the fees are astronomical.”
She thought a reasonable ticket price for a seat in that section would be $75 a seat — or $300 for four tickets instead of the $556 for a night out watching Golden Knights hockey at T-Mobile Arena.
“I understand it’s a business and they’re in it to make money. But there has to be an option for us because regular working people will have a hard time buying tickets,” Schneider said. “Going to a game — it’s not going to happen.”
LVSportsBiz.com emailed Golden Knights President Kerry Bubolz, team ticket sales chief Todd Pollock and team PR chief Eric Tosi to respond to her concerns that individual game tickets are too expensive.
Tosi informed LVSportsBiz.com Thursday that the team would like to connect with the Henderson family to respond to Schneider’s ticket price concerns.
Schneider said her situation is not unusual. She mentioned other friends who are fans of the Golden Knights also struggled with trying to decide whether to buy individual game tickets because of their high cost.
After last season’s miracle inaugural campaign that ended with a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Golden Knights have the leverage to ask for much more money for tickets, sponsorships, suite costs and merchandise.
ADVERTISEMENT
Typically, it’s the season right after a successful season that a team cashes in because of the franchise’s peak popularity.
Sources have told LVSportsBiz.com that the Golden Knights’ asking prices for suites and the four coveted on-ice ad spots in center ice have gone up by six figures.
And Bubolz has told LVSportsBiz.com that there are 14,000 full season ticket holders and there are thousands of more fans who are on a “can’t wait” list waiting to buy season tickets. The Knights averaged 18,042 fans a game in 2017-18, good for 103.9 percent of capacity. The average Golden Knights ticket price was among the top third in the NHL last season.
Do you have a ticket issue that you believe is worth a story? Contact LVSportsBiz.com at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com
*
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Contact LVSportsBiz.com publisher/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com
