I’m disappointed, and slightly upset. Why, you ask? Well, I just got a letter from the Colts that says I am not going to get any more season tickets for this year. Here’s the history:

I put in my request for season tickets back in December of 2006. I got a letter in the spring of 2007 that said they wouldn’t be meeting my request, but that they did have some single seats available, if I was interested. I figured that one seat was better than nothing, so I bought my one seat. I asked the guy at the time, “What happens to my place on the waiting list for seats in Lucas Oil Stadium, when it opens in the fall of 2008?” He told me that buy purchasing a seat, I had just become a season ticket holder, and I moved ahead of all those people on the waiting list. He said, “Season ticket holder’s requests for additional seats are met before any seats are offered to people on the waiting list.”

Hooray, I thought! I only have one seat this year, but maybe next year I will be able to get my two or more seats. I ended up selling my tickets for most of the games last year so that I could in turn purchase two seats to the same games (for instance, I sold my ticket to the Saints game, and then turned around and bought two tickets, since I was taking my best friend Mike). Alas, it was not to be.

I got a letter on Saturday that says, “Due to the continually high renewal rates and increased demand for season ticket, we were not able to fulfill your request at this time. Please continue to request seat improvements and additional seats in the upcoming seasons. It is our goal to eventually meet your ticketing needs.” I called them for clarification. “You mean to tell me that not one single person on the waiting list got their request for tickets fulfilled?” Correct, they said. They told me that the previous season ticket holders got their requests fulfilled according to seniority, and all of the available seats were snatched up. Let me put this into perspective for you….most years they have a 95% or higher retention rating (people keeping the same tickets), but the fact that they had several seats available last year when I bought mine says that there are sometimes seats available. The Colts are moving to their new stadium this fall, and it has 5000 more seats than the old one. Every single seat has been spoken for. This bothers me for several reasons:

1. I won’t get to pay face value for the games that I want to take people to. If I want to take my brother to a game, I now have to do the same thing as last year: sell my ticket and purchase two others, probably for twice their face value.

2. There are people who own season tickets who have never attended one single game. They are only in it for the money. These people should not be allowed to make a profit on their tickets. Actually I don’t think anybody should be allowed to profit from the tickets. There are legitimate fans out there (like me) who want to go to the games, and already find it difficult to pay the face value, without some greedy person charging us 3x face value for the ticket.

3. Now I have to hold up the New England Patriots as an example of what we should do. That really sticks in my craw. They outlaw the practice of selling tickets for more than their face value. I believe the Colts should do the same.

So now I wait for two more weeks in the off chance that one of these season ticket holders gets cold feet, or can’t afford the seats they requested, or whatever. Then I might get my tickets. But otherwise, it’s back to stubhub.com.