Last year, the Colts had an 87-percent renewal rate for season tickets. This year, the rate dropped to 82 percent.
If my math is correct (and it almost never is), the Colts have lost in two years 29.66 percent of their season-ticker holders as of 2016.
The Colts are blaming this year’s reduction on two things. Via the Indianapolis Business Journal, Colts COO Pete Ward said that it’s a result of the team’s performance and national anthem protests.
It’s a convenient excuse, and probably an overstated one. Roughly 10 Colts took a knee during the anthem two days after President Trump’s notorious “get that son of a bitch of the field” rant regarding protests during the anthem. Two weeks later, when Vice President Mike Pence stormed out of a 49ers-Colts game, only 49ers players were taking a knee.
But while the Colts lost roughly 3,000 2017 season-ticket holders, they added 1,330 new season-ticket holders -- more than twice the amount than the Colts sold last year.
So the net (again, my math is questionable) is a drop of 1,670. Which isn’t bad for a 4-12 team that either recklessly or deliberately lied to the fan base throughout the 2017 offseason regarding whether quarterback Andrew Luck would be ready to go as of Week One or, you know, Week 17.
Given the 12 losses and the more-than-12 lies, a drop of only 1,670 season tickets should be regarded a cause for celebration. Instead, it’s an occasion to once again boil down the anthem issue to a bad-for-business dynamic.
If the Colts want to believe that 2018 is a very consisting of good business performance, they’ll need to sell roughly 12,000 tickets for each of their 10 home games. That will be easier to do if Luck plays or, more accurately, if the customers can be persuaded to believe that he will.
Again.
