Ti-Cats to Hold Town-Hall Meeting About Guelph

The uproar that has emerged following the renewing of season seats for the 2013 season in Guelph has reached a fever pitch, so much so that the Ti-Cats have invited fans to a town-hall style meeting to have their concerns addressed.

In a post on the ticats.ca message board, director of communications Scott McNaughton posted the following on Friday afternoon:

We’d like to invite any season seat holders on the forum to discuss the 2013/14 renewal process at a ‘town-hall style’ meeting at the Tiger-Cats business office (1 Jarvis Street in Hamilton) next Wednesday, December 5 at 6 p.m.

Please note that space for this event is limited. First come first served. If you’d like to attend this event, please RSVP with Mike Hardill (mhardill@ticats.ca) by 5 p.m. on Monday, December 3.

Thanks

The team has taken a lot of heat over the process for renewing season tickets in 2013 and what the implications will be for the 2014 season in the new stadium. I touched on it a couple of days ago and Drew Edwards did his own piece on the subject that was published yesterday (yours truly is quoted in the story).

Most of the anger stems from the tier 1/tier 2 designations for 2014 renewals and rightly so. A 37-year season ticket holder could find themselves behind a three-year season ticket holder because the former decides they can't make it to Guelph and the latter decides they can. I understand that the team wants to reward fans who make the trek to Guelph, and I don't have a problem with that, but this still doesn't seem like the right way to do it.

Will the team reverse course? I don't know. But they are taking heat from a lot of places and the fact that they aren't hiding from it is actually a good sign. So if you have the time on and want your complaints to be heard, you can arrange to be at 1 Jarvis St. at 6:00PM on Wednesday night.

Renewing Seats for Guelph

By now, Tiger-Cat season seat holders have had their renewal information mailed to them regarding what the procedure is for renewing season seats for the 2013 season in Guelph. This information has been out there for a while, but I wanted to wait until I received my annual renewal form in the mail before commenting on the rumours.

The rumours are now indeed true: Tiger-Cat fans will be paying an extra five dollars per game for seats next season. The surcharge is to help offset the cost of erecting temporary seats at the Alumni Stadium.

There has been a lot of uproar about that, with many angry that they will be paying higher prices when promised no increase and that they will pay more for worse facilities. The increase when none was promised bugs me a but, but not all that much. I understand why others would be angry, since the team promised one thing and gave us another, and that does anger me, but paying the extra five dollars does not. The idea that fans will pay higher prices for worse facilities is, to me, a non-issue. I didn't pay my money, and I doubt any of you did either, at Ivor Wynne Stadium because of the world-class amenities. I paid my money so I could watch a football game live in person. I paid more money to watch games in Moncton and Montreal, and neither of those places had great facilities. Moncton was a bunch of portable toilets and food tents, while McGill's bathrooms and concession lines were no better than Ivor Wynne's. So paying more to get less isn't a big deal for me in this situation. If others are bothered by paying these prices at Guelph, I understand; however, it doesn't bother me.

That said, there are a couple of things that do bother me, and bother me quiet a bit. The first thing is asking us to renew by December 14th to ensure 2012 prices for our seats. That falls 10 days before Christmas, which is not exactly a time when many people have extra cash floating around. But that's just a small quibble about the timing. The bigger one is that they are asking for our money before we know when the games will be played. I know that is standard operating procedure, but nothing is standard about this upcoming season. The team should have given fans a chance to see the schedule before forcing anyone to make a commitment. With the extra commuting time, some who will put down money might wish they hadn't when the schedule is released sometime in February.

The other thing that bugs me is the tiered access to seats at the new stadium in 2014. When we all reupped in 2011 for 2012, the promise was that 2013 would have no impact on 2014; now they've pulled a bit of a bait and switch and are now tying 2013 purchases to 2014. This annoys me on a couple of levels. For starters, newer season seat holders could jump the queue over those that have held season seats for decades simply because they have no problem travelling 10 times to Guelph. Secondly, I sit in a large group, so if one or more of us do not decide to purchase seats for 2013 (which I am still on the fence about) we cannot be guaranteed seats with one another the following season. I'm more annoyed by the former than the latter, because I will simply not buy tickets in 2014 if my group cannot sit together. But people who have been loyal patrons of the Tiger-Cats for three, four, five decades shouldn't need to worry about whether or not they will have their seat in the new stadium.

I have been pretty supportive of the Ti-Cats in every stage of the stadium mess, but this I cannot support. The tiered access to 2014 seats and forcing fans to pay before knowing what the schedule will look like is just wrong. The promise going in to 2012 was that those purchases, not any potential 2013 purchase, would be the determiner for 2014 seats. Now they are saying something else. And by making fans pay six months in advance, they are treating this season as if it is no different than any other season. The problem is, that 2013 is completely different. I understand that paying for seats before the schedule is out is standard operating procedure, but there is nothing standard about this upcoming season in Guelph and the team needed to recognize that and adjust for it.

I am disappointed in the Tiger-Cats for what looks like outright lying to their fan base last season. When they didn't know what 2013 held, they were fine with making promises to their fans; now that they know where they will play in 2013, it seems is if they are fine with breaking those promises. They are acting as if this season is like any other when it is very clearly not. Circumstances changed and the team needed to be more flexible when asking for season ticket commitments. They did not and I find that very disappointing.

We're Going to Guelph

Nothing officially official yet, but if Drew Edwards says it's happening, it's happening: the Ti-Cats will play next season in Guelph.

Alumni Stadium on the University of Guelph campus will be the stadium that plays host to as many as 10 Tiger-Cat games next season. Yes, that's right; every game next season could be played in Guelph. No Moncton game, no game in London at Western and no Labour Day game in Toronto. It could all be in Guelph. I still believe that Labour Day will be in Toronto because the crowd size, something I think could be as high as 35,000, might be too much to pass up.

Obviously this solution isn't perfect and won't appease everyone (I've already seen some backlash, which was to be expected), but I do believe it is the best the team could do once McMaster told them no. Western, thought to be the front runner, is just too far from the Tiger-Cat base, whereas Guelph is less than an hour away. This allows the team stay close enough that most of their current fan base can make it to games.

With only 15,000 or so seats available, the team is aware that not everyone will make the trek to Guelph for every game. That will allow them to possibly pick up new fans in that region, expanding their fan base in the process. Once the Ivor Wynne site was chosen, we all knew the 2013 season would be different and that any plan would likely anger some and be met by indifference by others. But I truly believe this is the best possible solution for the fans.