Orioles to offer free UD seats ALL season to kids

[Going Underground]

4 minutes ago, OFFNY said:

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Here is another article on the matter.

 

Orioles' Bold Bet Offers Youth Free Admission All Season

(By Eric Fisher)

https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2018/03/12/orioles-bold-bet-offers-youth-free-admission.html

 

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All the articles say you get free tickets if you buy an adult  priced ticket .  On the Oriole website it says this: or each regularly-priced individual game Upper Deck ticket purchased, adults can add up to two additional free Upper Deck tickets valid for use only by children age nine and under (subject to availability) , The April 29th game is showing no free tickets available. I wonder if they will release more per demand or is it a set amount for each game?

[atomic]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

That really is about as family-friendly as it gets.    Wish they’d had that when my kids were that age!

It will be interesting to see what that does to attendance.    

Should help attendance as people like bargains. I won't take advantage as I don't sit in the upper deck.  

[Going Underground]

Some clarification. It will be for all games besides Opening Day,including Red Sox and Yankees. Limited number of seats for each game but most times should be enough. Not all sections of the Upper Deck. The day that does not have any is probably a glitch since it is a new promotion started today. Some days might have less based if that day has group tickets ,or Little League Day,etc.

[FanSince88]

I must give the FO tons of credit for this.  A very nice gesture toward families.  

As much as I complain about the competitiveness of the team, a trip to Camden is always a pleasant experience.  

[foxfield]

This is a terrific move by the Orioles and I hope it takes years for the rest of baseball to follow.

 

That said, it would also make sense to help build the love of those little fans...to you know have a franchise player they could watch for the next 10 years.  Those guys are soooo hard to come up with.  If only there was a way to get a Mike Trout or a Bryce Harper...

You know....Some how...the O's are gonna find a way to keep that Machado guy....I just feel it!!!!!!!

[ThomasTomasz]

3 hours ago, ReclaimTheCrown said:

Great initiative by the organization.  Those seats are for the most part just sitting empty anyway....get people in there spending money on something, or at least developing their fan-dom.  Lot of credit due for taking a bold step like this.

 

In most of the posts I've made here, I've advocated for doing something for the season-ticket holder experience.  While they didn't do that to my satisfaction, this counts as doing something for the sport as a whole, which I totally appreciate.  Especially in this area, lacrosse and soccer are taking kids away from the baseball diamond, and exposing them at that young of an age is certainly going to make them fans of the sport and coming to OPACY more often.  My other hope is that this increases the number of kids playing youth baseball once more.  20 years ago, we had 6-7 teams in southern Anne Arundel county, and now they have rolled into two- Edgewater and one South County team.  Time for that to change. 

[allquixotic]

4 hours ago, eddie83 said:

The next step is to attack the weeknight issue. 

Curious how it plays out.  

For weeknight attendance, they should offer to subsidize transportation (e.g. via light rail or bus) or deepen discounts for group purchases. For everyone, not only kids, because you won't get kids in there on a school night 95% of the time.

They're going to have to give up a degree of profit margin if they want to fill seats, but ultimately, a busier stadium will be more profitable in the long run: eventually people will start coming because they want to, because they're fans, and they'll be buying snacks. So eat the loss on ticket prices and build another generation of O's fans in Bmore. Seems simple.  A packed stadium on a ho-hum weeknight against the Twins is exactly the sort of thing the club needs for long-term viability (and to keep the rumors of the team being sold or moving from becoming reality).

[weams]

 

[sportsfan8703]

Really good positive press. Hopefully this buys us some good Karma because we need it with this rotation. 

[InsideCoroner]

I love this move. This sport needs more young fans. This team needs more fans (especially those cheering for the home team). And a lot of young kids in the city could use an offer like this. Well done, front office. 

[MrOrange82]

So...O's spend a lackluster winter failing to do much to improve the team. Seems likely they'll find themselves on the wrong side of the competitive scale for much of the season, and with lots of empty seats. They propose a plan to get parents to bring kids to OPACY on low-attendance nights for "free," which actually entails filling likely-empty seats with consumers of concessions and souvenirs. And it's a good PR move, a sign that the team is giving back to the community...? I'd prefer they give back a contender, or at least a framework that might lead to contention. 

[OFFNY]

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I heard that a bunch of 9 year-old Oriole fans from Maryland and southern Delaware said that they were willing to pay their way into all games if the Orioles would just sign Alex Cobb.

 

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[Satyr3206]

I really like this. You fill the seats, sell more Concessions, and develop a new generation of Fans. I remember the first time I walked into Memorial Stadium.

Now if they can show this kind of foresight for the actual Team.

 

[Going Underground]

10 hours ago, MrOrange82 said:

So...O's spend a lackluster winter failing to do much to improve the team. Seems likely they'll find themselves on the wrong side of the competitive scale for much of the season, and with lots of empty seats. They propose a plan to get parents to bring kids to OPACY on low-attendance nights for "free," which actually entails filling likely-empty seats with consumers of concessions and souvenirs. And it's a good PR move, a sign that the team is giving back to the community...? I'd prefer they give back a contender, or at least a framework that might lead to contention. 

But it is to almost every game,even Yankee and Red Sox. games. I am sure probably less amount of tickets for those games. Little lLague and big groups even less tickets available. Looks like around 2,000 tickets are made available for games with no big group sales or Little League Day. 1,300 of them are in the last three sections down the right field line.So most of these seats would not be sold to 90 % of the games. The Orioles get a few extra hundred fans who bring their kids who will spend on concessions and maybe merchandise. Good marketing move to generate a few extra dollars. Also a nice PR move for the Orioles.

[weams]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2018/03/13/orioles-will-let-kids-under-the-age-of-9-attend-games-free-hope-to-grow-fan-base/#47a72b5f7493