45 PERCENT OF VIKINGS’ SEASON-TICKET HOLDERS PASS ON PLAYOFF TICKETS

On Monday, various Vikings fans took issue in the comments with our decision to point out the fact that 20,000 seats remain for Sunday’s playoff game against the Eagles. Some thought that it was misleading to suggest that the availability of so many tickets on the first day after the clinching of a playoff berth might result in a local blackout of the game. But, as the Minneapolis Star Tribune points out, the threat of a failure to sell out the Metrodome is real. The problem is that a whopping 45 percent of the season-tickets holders opted not to buy playoff tickets. Forty-five percent. Wow. Vikings V.P. of sales and marketing Steve LaCroix says that some fans were reluctant to buy tickets until they knew for sure that the team would make the playoffs, and that as of Monday sales were brisk. Then again, “marketing” is defined as “saying whatever needs to be said regardless of its truth or accuracy in order to move merchandise.” And thus we don’t put much stock in LaCroix’s line of LaCrap. Indeed, since the season-ticket holders would have received refunds if the Vikings hadn’t qualified for the postseason, why wouldn’t they have protected their ability to sit in the same seats they occupy for every home game? The message for all NFL teams might be that it makes sense to include in the season-ticket contract a provision requiring season-ticket holders to purchase playoff tickets. If the preseason is part of the “season” for which the season-ticket holder buys season tickets, then the postseason is part of that same “season” too, right? Maybe teams have simply assumed in the past that such conditions aren’t necessary. After all, no playoff game has failed to sell out since 2002, when the Dolphins hosted the Ravens. [UPDATE: We’re told that, technically, the Ravens-Dolphins game was a sellout, because locals purchased all of the remaining tickets once the blackout was announced.] From a business standpoint, however, the prudent approach -- especially for teams that have a waiting list for season tickets -- would be to make the purchase of playoff tickets as mandatory as the purchase of tickets to those meaningless games in August.