DDP: Approx 8 sections of seating removed in upper deck endzone - more removed as of 2012 DDP, LL Endzone in 2013

[Koolblue13]

I like to stand the entire game and I make a ton of noise. I've lost my voice for 3 days after almost every game I've been to. That stadium is so quiet though, even in close games.

[IONTOP]

Dude everyone is being completely stupid about this... They're putting in "Premium seating" in the end zones which have cupholders... only $30 more per seat per game!!!

[hail2skins]

All the talk of fedex sucking directly correlates to play on the field. When the team sucks, the stadium, fans, atmosphere, everything sucks. When we made our playoff runs in 05 and 07, fedex was AWESOME at the home games later on in the year. Detroit playoff game in 99, fedex was ROCKING. As soon as the team starts to win, the stadium experience will be on par with other stadiums around the league that are considered to have great home field advantages.

Those games you mentioned were awesome.

But at the same time, I think the fans can be inconsistent. I thought the crowd was pretty lame in the '06 opener after we had been in the playoffs the season before. And the amount of ticket holders that sold out to Pittsburgh fans in 2008 was appalling.

At least there's no night games this year.

[Long-Time-Fan]

The color of the seats in FedEx suck,
They don't all match and they don't match our colors.
Jack really f'd that one up when he went with what the Co. gave us.
The 2nd start of our JINX
The 1st being relocating out of DC.

[worstSeat]

When I saw that yesterday, I was like ???? But that's cool to hear. I guess this kind of shows that they are admitting they cannot fill FedEx and are using other ways to create revenue.

But at the same time, this is reminding me a little too much of the problems the Jags are having in Jacksonville, where they cover up entire sections to pretend they're selling the place out. From that article: "Even with nearly 10,000 seats covered by tarps, which trims the stadium down to suit Jacksonville's relatively small NFL market... [they're still falling short]"

Look up behind this guy to see a couple of closed sections.


The waiting list was an important revenue source that came with the Skins. Looks like Snyder's burned through it in 10 years. Maybe The Big Jack is too big, but winning and treating your fans to a better experience would help too.

How many seats is it? Looks like maybe 4-5,000, and then maybe x2 for the other side? That's guessing about 25 per row, about 20 rows per section, about 9.5 sections at least in RFK's picture would be about 4750. Wow.

Do standing room only folk drink that much more beer?

[RFKFedEx]

The waiting list was an important revenue source that came with the Skins. Looks like Snyder's burned through it in 10 years.

I don't think the Cooke family viewed it as an asset to generate revenue the way Snyder has. There were no mass mailings, or email promotions resulting from membership on that list before Snyder took over. The list also wasn't advertised before Danny. In fact, the Cooke's made you do quite a bit of work just to join it in the RFK days.

I gotta give the guy credit where it's due. Danny's data mining from that list has afforded me several opportunities to buy great seats from the TO over the years. If I weren't on the email list, I wouldn't know about last minute deals.

OBTW, I don't sit in lousy seats, EVER.

[worstSeat]

I don't think the Cooke family viewed it as an asset to generate revenue the way Snyder has. There were no mass mailings, or email promotions resulting from membership on that list before Snyder took over. The list also wasn't advertised before Danny. In fact, the Cooke's made you do quite a bit of work just to join it in the RFK days.

I gotta give the guy credit where it's due. Danny's data mining from that list has afforded me several opportunities to buy great seats from the TO over the years. If I weren't on the email list, I wouldn't know about last minute deals.

Absolutely agreed. I believe the waiting list morphed with Snyder from, um, a waiting list to a leads list. Now the "waiting" part of its character is completely gone.

I should add that there's a larger lesson there. Honestly, I wonder how badly the lockout is going to hurt Snyder's pocket. I get the feeling the team isn't a hobby on its own (the feeling I get from the Cookes) but an integral part of his day to day cash flow. He's less steward than snake oil hocker (sp).

OBTW, I don't sit in lousy seats, EVER.

Neither do I. It's just that somebody put this daggum pillar in front of mine.

[SonnyandSam]

I don't think the Cooke family viewed it as an asset to generate revenue the way Snyder has. There were no mass mailings, or email promotions resulting from membership on that list before Snyder took over. The list also wasn't advertised before Danny. In fact, the Cooke's made you do quite a bit of work just to join it in the RFK days.

I gotta give the guy credit where it's due. Danny's data mining from that list has afforded me several opportunities to buy great seats from the TO over the years. If I weren't on the email list, I wouldn't know about last minute deals.

OBTW, I don't sit in lousy seats, EVER.

It is also quite a different situation that Snyder faces vs Cooke. Snyder incurred a huge debt in buying the team. Cooke had very little if any debt. Snyder had to find ways to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to pay off his loans. And Snyder is not alone with this problem. All the other owners who purchased teams in the last 10-15 years have had to take on tremendous debt to purchase their teams and Snyder had to purchase the stadium as well. All these marketing complaints about Snyder also apply in varying degrees to owners in all the major sports.

Snyder's problem is he cannot field a consistently winning/playoff team. New Orleans is a great example...the team was going bankrupt and likely was going to move until the team started to consistenly win and make the playoffs.

I still say all these empty seats at FedEx would not be empty if the Skins had been a regular playoff team over the past decade.

[RFKFedEx]

Snyder incurred a huge debt in buying the team. Cooke had very little if any debt.

OMG, Cooke's debt ratio was probably pennies on the dollar in the RFK days. Fortunately, the years of TV money is probably what afforded him to privately finance Raljon.

I'll bet Snyder's debt ratio on the stadium and practice facility today are lower than that of most other owners in the league. Considering our stadium was built on the cheap at $200mil and it included minimum public financing to be shared with local govts, it's probably a more efficient cash cow than the other new buildings around the NFCE. I'm not saying it makes more money than Jerruh land, but the lack of debt is key to keeping the money made.

The $800 mil he paid for the whole package looks like a better deal all of the time.

[pjfootballer]

Already had it confirmed. They removed seats to make an upper deck party deck.

Great, just what the upper deck needed. More beer for the drunk douches. to act like asshats even more.

[SonnyandSam]

OMG, Cooke's debt ratio was probably pennies on the dollar in the RFK days. Fortunately, the years of TV money is probably what afforded him to privately finance Raljon.

I'll bet Snyder's debt ratio on the stadium and practice facility today are lower than that of most other owners in the league. Considering our stadium was built on the cheap at $200mil and it included minimum public financing to be shared with local govts, it's probably a more efficient cash cow than the other new buildings around the NFCE. I'm not saying it makes more money than Jerruh land, but the lack of debt is key to keeping the money made.

The $800 mil he paid for the whole package looks like a better deal all of the time.

According to Forbes 2010 report, Snyder's debt/value ratio ranks 16 in the league. The Packers and many other teams with old stadiums lead the league in the lowest debt ratio. (no surprise there) That still leaves Snyder with about $250 million of debt down from about $700 million 12 years ago. It takes time and money to pay down that debt although he was able to refinance several times at lower interest rates.

While Snyder has whittled the debt ratio down to 15%, I count nine teams over 20 percent with the Giants at 55% and Jets at 65%. And yes, Snyder does have a cash cow....but that is because all of the marketing and money he makes off the fans that everyone here complains about. Each year he gets to keep more and more as he pays off his debt. But he still has a lot of debt to pay off. And of course, it looks like a good deal now....its 12 years later....look what the Cowboys, Jets and Giants have had to pay for to get new stadiums and all three had heavy assistance from local/state governments and the NFL.

But I also wonder if Forbes overestimates his revenue considering it looks like a lot of those premium and GA seats are actually going unpaid. Why rip out thousands of seats to make party decks unless those seats are not revenue generating seats. Forbes value and revenue estimates may be greatly overstated. That would make the debt ratio significantly higher putting him well into the bottom of the debt ratio list. Worstseat estimated 9,500 seats were being yanked on the upperdeck, At $65 per seat, that is a loss of $6.1 million per year. And what about the premium seats removed last year?

Not saying Snyder is not making money....but he has to make money to pay off the debt and to cover his football operating costs which are the highest in the league (He doesn't spend it well but he does spend it on players and coaches!)

[EternalSkinsFan]

We've all seen the very persuasive arguments many of us have made concerning the benefits of purchasing tickets on the after market instead of being a season ticket holder. I'm sure the Redskins organization has seen these comments and they realize they are in direct competition with the after market. This move might be seen as an effort to limit the number of tickets available second hand. By tightening supply vs demand they probably hope to lessen the turnover ratio. In a couple of years I wouldn't be surprised if we see more seats removed in the limited view seating sections. Of course none of this is going to matter much unless they improve the product on the field.

[worstSeat]

In a couple of years I wouldn't be surprised if we see more seats removed in the limited view seating sections. Of course none of this is going to matter much unless they improve the product on the field.

I thought about that, and decided you've got to figure out what they can do with that space that'd bring in more money. Luxury boxes are about all I could figure, and in today's market, I'm not sure that's a viable move.

With the standing room only areas...
1.) You can still sell standing tickets.
2.) You can sell them as long into the week as you like and not worry about a blackout if you can't move them.
3.) You provide an area where it'll be easier to serve expensive concessions.

So you're right on the standing room, I think. Lower the amount of presold, speculative tickets, and allow you to be more speculative yourself -- seems the "visitor returns" usually sell out. Now, you've got a larger pot of tickets you can sell closer to the game without the risk of losing TV.

But for OV, I think they'll stick around. There's not enough room to stand, and nobody'd want to unless it's raining. It doesn't lend itself to much other than, again, luxury boxes and people sitting behind posts. That's why JKC had -- that's right -- nothing there at all.

But for the 75 yards of the field that you can see, they're very good seats. Better than watching at home.

[SwampEm]

I traded seats with a friend last year and sat in the upper upper endzones for the Packers game. The seats were in about the 20th row of section 442. The seats weren't bad when the action was coming towards you but it looked like I was watching one of the old electric football games when the action was going away from us.
I do wonder how the TO is going to spin this? I bet they are going to say that the SRO's are going to provide a opportunity for even more people to attend the game.

[worstSeat]

I do wonder how the TO is going to spin this? I bet they are going to say that the SRO's are going to provide a opportunity for even more people to attend the game.

I've still got money on them making more cash with SRO. Not only do they control more of the discretionary ticket market, I'm guessin' Jeurrah told Danny that you sell craploads more concessions to standing room folk. When you've got a cheap ticket, I wonder what % of the total cash they expect to get from you per game would be. If they can attract you to a place where their sell-through is better than aisle barkers, they can only benefit.

That said, I wonder how short they are filling JKC up?