Yep, and the hotel markups were insane too. A hotel that went for ~ $70/night during USATF Nationals was $209/night for Worlds (that was the rate back in December 2021 when I was looking for hotels).
$209/night? Not bad for anything compared to Boston during marathon weekend or elsewhere with Bidenflation.
Eugene is a great college town going through some growing pains from very rapid expansion. The weather sucks. Salem is a hell hole. Nike built a stadium that will have to host nationals and Trials for decades to come, undoubtedly. Just accept it and move out to the coast.
Most of the night sessions are close to sold out. The day sessions will have the most empty seats by far. Since Asics is the main sponsor, it's not a Nike issue to give out free seats unless you expect them to buy the unsold tickets and give them away.
They are not close to sold out. The tickets were bought but relisted on the ticket resale site.
I was able to resell my tix for a little over face value after we decided not to pay $1,000+ to fly from the East Coast to Portland / Eugene.
My seats were for a Sat. night session, which may have been more in demand. But people trying to make a huge profit ... lol have fun not selling your tix.
Sold an extra pair of finish line seats for all PM sessions for 2.5x what I paid for them earlier this year.
If you go to Ticketmaster or StubHub it looks like there are lots of empty seats for most World Champ sessions. Last minute purchasers may get some deals.
Lots of empty seats, but no empty hotels.
Even the dumpy hotels are ridiculously overpriced. Too bad a few big track meets a year aren’t enough to support a decent hotel industry.
Bidenflation? Is he also responsible for inflation in the rest of the world? I guess when you have no facts to back up your argument I guess all you can do is , lie, lie, just like the traitor Trump.
Inflation around the world, over the past two years | Pew Research Center
I really hope they do something like this if there are empty seats. Schools, youth groups, athletics clubs, etc. Like I posted in another thread, it could spark a lifelong interest in athletics for some children. It's way better than the seats being empty! There are so many ways they could do it. Personally I hope they sell out but we'll see!!
America, land of the free, home of the brave, residence of the improvident. You would think it would be the easiest thing in the world - giving away what won't be used. But there is so much greed, laziness and overregulation that it ends up being easier to do nothing. The reason why a company like Starbucks throws away unsold food rather than donate it to local homeless shelters is that there are tons of regulations that make it difficult. Local, state, federal. Plus, they can claim losses and get tax breaks for just throwing food out. So the system is set up to basically incentivize companies to waste. I'm sure this is no different. They can just claim losses on unsold tickets and get a tax break. Much easier than giving tickets away I guess. It's short-sided, and lazy. But it's the way to run businesses these days I guess.
Everybody sounding off on this is correct: this is missed opportunity to try and promote and grow the sport. While sitting here typing I've come up with some good ideas: reward individual and NCAA team champs tickets to attend World Champs. How about free tickets to high school state champions. Identify local youth track clubs and give them free tickets. How about setting up a national program in which youth track clubs can sign up for a lottery for free tickets. Extend offers to all members of active track clubs for discounts on tickets plus a chance to win free tickets. All of this would require pre-planning of course, but that might be took much to ask the group currently in charge of things.
Most of the night sessions are close to sold out. The day sessions will have the most empty seats by far. Since Asics is the main sponsor, it's not a Nike issue to give out free seats unless you expect them to buy the unsold tickets and give them away.
“Sold out” is gonna include lots of people who bought all-session passes but are only going to a few nights, and people who preemptively bought before seeing cost of accoms and travel to Eugene and are now trying to sell on secondary market or just eating ticket price
Local, former track guy here. Bought a bunch of primo night session seats when they went on presale a year ago. They were way overpriced then and disappeared way too fast (like within the first minute fast). It was suspect from the start. Who pays $300/seat for a track meet? In the US? Come on man. But I like watching track & field. Worst case figured I could probably sell them at cost to another enthusiast.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when huge blocks of primo seats for primo night sessions suddenly appeared for public sale. Still way overpriced, as evidenced by nobody buying them, in some cases ever (i.e. they're still available) or in any case not very fast. Nonetheless I picked up a few more. Again, I like watching track & field, and worst case figured I'd sell them at cost. I mean somebody always wants finish line seats for the men's 100, right?
Nobody's gonna buy them. They've been posted on the ticketbastard exchange for weeks, lower than anybody else's nearby. That some morons still think they're gonna get thousands a seat is the real laugh.
Bottom line I think the locals got greedy, including me. Bought into all the hyperbole and thought they'd charge $1k/night to airbnb their kid's bedroom. Guess what? There's plentiful $200-300 rooms available within walking distance of Hayward, or nice houses on the canal for $1k. If everybody would have settled for decent markups instead of going for the once-in-a-lifetime gouge, everybody would have done just fine. Instead, now they're begging locals to fill the empty seats. There's gonna be some embarrassment, myself included.
But here's the thing. It's gonna be a fantastic track meet. The weather looks damn near perfect, especially for sprints and jumps. At least handful of WRs are up for grabs. It's an awesome, brand new stadium. I definitely overpaid, but I've also got a bunch of sweet seats that nobody else cares to take. So F it, I'm gonna enjoy the hell out of it. Cheaper than a trip to Budapest or Tokyo. See you there!
I live up the I-5 freeway on the eastside of Seattle. I could easily go if I wanted to but I am not. I even have free housing at a friend's about 10 minutes away from the stadium. Even with all that I'm just interested in going.
I live up the I-5 freeway on the eastside of Seattle. I could easily go if I wanted to but I am not. I even have free housing at a friend's about 10 minutes away from the stadium. Even with all that I'm just interested in going.
Not a single meet, pro or amateur, has been even close to selling out at that stadium. I'd venture a guess they haven't even reached 75% of capacity in any single event. This has been a total disaster in attracting fans. There just isn't enough of a population base in Eugene to get that many butts in seats to watch a Track meet. Flights are expensive as hell right now. Not many are traveling all the way to Eugene which is on the opposite end of where most Americans live (east coast).
I've been saying all long, move meets like this to major population centers that has the infrastructure and population density to put butts in seats.
Most of the night sessions are close to sold out. The day sessions will have the most empty seats by far. Since Asics is the main sponsor, it's not a Nike issue to give out free seats unless you expect them to buy the unsold tickets and give them away.
“Sold out” is gonna include lots of people who bought all-session passes but are only going to a few nights, and people who preemptively bought before seeing cost of accoms and travel to Eugene and are now trying to sell on secondary market or just eating ticket price
Your premise is incorrect. There weren’t any all-session tickets offered.
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