TFC season ticket sales - same old, same old

A while back one of my best friends in Columbus suggested that TFC season ticket sales were not as strong as in past years and that there were bound to be games that weren't sold out. When I suggested to him or her that the sales were the same as in past years, with about a 95 per cent renewal rate, he or she asked me to provide documented proof of that claim.

An e-mail from the TFC ticket office to those on the Gold waiting list today:

Hi there ,

The time is so close! Thanks for your continued patience. We are currently preparing for the GOLD Waiting List sale of 2010 seasons seats and partial packages. The good news is we are holding onto some great seat locations for you!

Similar to past years, we will email you an appointment time in which a Toronto FC Account Executive will contact you by phone to discuss your 2010 options. If you need to update your contact information, you can do so through your online Account Manager under 'edit profile'.

This year we have over 400 Full Season Seats available (mostly in the Dark Grey sections) and approximately 2000 Partial Packs!

Don't forget to keep checking your inbox for an appointment time (we're hoping to be able to send the email by mid next week). The email will include all of the information you need to know about this year’s ticket process and packages.

Talk to you next week!

Toronto FC
// All For One

So, about 15,400 season tickets have been sold out of the 16,000 available. That would be a 96.25 per cent renewal. With more than 16,000 people on the waiting list it would seem pretty likely that the 400 tickets left, along with the 2,000 partial packages, will once again sell out (the Gold list is for people that have purchased partial packages before. They get first crack at both the full and partial sets before those that have never had tickets get a chance).

Now, just because the seats are sold doesn't mean that people are using them. The ticket scalpers controlled a great deal of seats in the past few years and, as a result, there have been empty seats at TFC games (it's made to look even worse on TV because of the amount of people that squeeze into rowdier sections, or who watch the game from the north end beer garden. I would estimate that at least 1,000 fans per game are not watching from their assigned seats).

More involved fans have been frustrated by that phenomena, and critics of TFC and its fans use it as a GOTCHA! example of how the team isn’t nearly as popular as it is made out to be. However, season ticket renewals do not lie. That there are still 16,000 people willing to fork out money to watch a MLS team in Toronto after three losing seasons is significant. There is no novelty factor anymore. Toronto is just a good market and good for MLS’ bottom line. I don’t say that as a pompous brag, but rather as a "stuff it" to the critics that told us in 2006 that it would never work and in 2007 that the bubble would burst after the party was over and in 2008 that the team would need to win to keep the fans and in....

The team is here to stay. Clearly. For those of us that have supported the game in this city and country for a long time, it’s still a big deal to realize that.