Toronto FC ticket prices on the rise although damage varies depending on spot

Toronto FC's Michael Bradley (right) battles for the ball with Los Angeles FC's Marco Urena during first half MLS action in Toronto on Saturday September 1, 2018. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Chris Young)

TORONTO -- On pace for its worst league showing in four years, Toronto FC is raising ticket prices for next season.

Not everyone will get dinged but team president Bill Manning says the increase for season ticket-holders, who have already had their first 2019 payment date, will be about 10 per cent across the board.

The increase may be as high as 20 per cent in some premium areas at BMO Field. There are other sections where the increase is three or four per cent and two are actually having the price rolled back.

After its 2017 championship season, Toronto FC made the final of the CONCACAF Champions League and won the Canadian Championship. But the league campaign has been a disappointment.

"I like to think that, fast-forward a few years from now, this season will be a blip on the radar screen," said Manning. "It's going to be on us to rectify that. I think our past history, the last few years, show we know what to do."

Manning says the reaction he gets from most fans is that they remain on board "but don't let this season happen again."

At 9-15-6, ninth-place TFC is seven points out of the playoffs with four games remaining. Whatever happens, Toronto is en pace for its worst regular-season showing since 2014 when it finished seventh in the Eastern Conference with an 11-15-8 record.

Toronto fired head coach Ryan Nelsen and virtually all of his coaching staff with 10 games remaining in the 2014 season. Greg Vanney took over, earning coach of the year honours for the 2017 campaign.

The franchise, which joined the league in 2007, has taken a circuitous road with its ticket pricing thanks in large part to poor on-field performance. Over its first seven years, it reached double digits in wins just once -- in 2009 when it went 10-11-9 -- taxing the loyalty of fans.

Things got so bad that after the 2012 season -- a franchise worse 5-21-8 campaign -- it rolled back prices for existing season ticket-holders to inaugural season levels.

"We've let them (the fans) down in the quality of the product," Tom Anselmi, then president and chief executive officer of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment said at the time. "Especially the last few years obviously."

"This is really trying to recognize their support, their loyalty," he added. "They've done their job and we haven't done ours. And we've got to get it right."

Several years later Manning says the team is trying to "right-size our ship, for lack of better words."

The MLS franchise continuously looks at every section of the stadium, examining price and demand like a restaurateur checking the menu to see if there is room to up the price of entrees.

It also monitors the secondary sales market and checks other MLSE-owned teams like the Maple Leafs and Raptors to examine their pricing structure and sell-through rate.

"I would say this year we were actually -- even in the season we're in -- a little bit more aggressive than we were a year ago in certain sections where we felt based on the other teams in the market that we were pretty under-priced," said Manning.

The club has just under 24,500 season ticket-holders this season with another 500 on a waiting list. Manning's hope is get to 25,000.

The lower bowl at BMO Field is all season tickets and sold out. There are also season-ticket holders in the upper east and west stands.

This season, the team increased the number of season tickets available and added seats in the north end. There are currently 29,570 seats in the building including 1,010 in the temporary bleachers in the north stand. Anything above that is standing room.

The initial renewal uptake from season ticket-holders was 83 or 84 per cent with the rest opting out or in a holding pattern because their credit cards did not work. Manning says the credit card problem rate is usually eight or nine per cent, with most of those usually sorting out the technical issues and renewing their tickets.

"It's very similar to last year at this point," Manning said of the renewal rate. "Last year we finished at 97 per cent though. I don't think we'll get that high this year. My gut feeling is we'll be in the low 90s."

The pricing of single-game tickets is flexible, depending on opponent and date. The club sells 3,000 to 4,000 tickets a game as single-ticket sales.

Toronto has drawn more than 404,000 people through the BMO Field turnstiles this season. The team ranks third in the league in average attendance (26,993) behind Seattle (40,584) and Atlanta (52,273), both of whom play in NFL stadiums.

Manning says the average ticket price during the 2017 championship year was $44.83, up from $40.41 in 2016. This year it's $44.79.

Full disclosure. My two season tickets are going up by a total of $260, an increase of 11.8 per cent. The increase was $210 the previous season.

"That's prime real estate," Manning said, referencing those tickets near field level. "That's just the market reflecting the value of what that is."

But historically, from 2008 to 2019, those two season tickets have only gone up 2.39 per cent a year, he added.