The return of Joe Gibbs to the Washington Redskins prompted a flood of calls to team offices from fans seeking tickets and luxury boxes, ending a long period of increasing fan malaise and emptying seats.
Team officials say more than 2,000 names have been added to the general admission ticket waiting lists in the first 30 hours since Gibbs’ return became public, with a sizable but undetermined number of people also calling for club seats, loge seats and luxury boxes.
“The phones have been ringing off the hook for literally everything we’ve got,” said team spokesman Karl Swanson.
The fervent interest is a significant change from the past several years. In recent seasons, fans could easily buy club seats without waiting, provided they were willing to pay prices that start at $2,100 per seat per year and sign a multi-year contract.
Increasingly desperate team officials routinely offered perks — autographed jerseys, single-game tickets or free tickets to Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen concerts at FedEx Field — to sell club seats.
The waiting list for less-expensive general seating exceeds 100,000, according to team officials, though many fans have received formal offers for such seats within a few years of joining the waiting list.
All that ended with the return of Gibbs.
A second wave of demand for tickets likely will occur in March, when the 2004 regular-season schedule is released, fans can make plans for each game and ticket brokers in the secondary market can begin their work.
The clamor for Redskins tickets mirrors the frenzy seen immediately after Michael Jordan announced his return to basketball as a Washington Wizard. The rush for Wizards tickets, however, cooled when the team failed to meet expectations, and by the end of his rocky two-year tenure with club no-shows and unsold seats were common.
The Gibbs news also created confusion among Redskins staffers yesterday. A pop-up ad on the team’s Web site, redskins.com, seeking new names for the ticket waiting list touted the forthcoming addition of seats to FedEx Field. Installing a block of 6,000 new seats on the stadium’s lower level was considered last fall as part of the team’s unsuccessful bid to play host to the 2008 Super Bowl. But those plans are now on hold, Swanson said, and the stadium’s capacity will remain a NFL-leading 86,484 for the foreseeable future.
A decision on pricing for general admission tickets will be made within the next several weeks. Keeping the prices used for the 2002 and 2003 seasons, peaking at $79 per seat per game, is the most likely option.
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