Oh they're going to make the Miami match an exemption from our season membership, just like they did with Beckham back in the day. And sure, cheaper seats seem like a thing of the past based on current economics but a crowd of 15K (or less) weekly doesn't seem far fetched in these times either.Originally Posted by tfcfans
They'd better choose wisely or this team might tip head long into obscurity and worthlessness.
so my rep knows how upset and annoyed i am with this management. I had a call and email yesterday from someone at TFC working in the retentions department- as a Manager, Membership and Retention ( I assume Manning realized renewals are tanking)
I havent spoke to them yet - as I wanted to prepare a detailed list of why I am not happy including things such as:
marketing
price increase
game times
mis-management of assets
sunk cost that is being passed over to us.
paying premium price for a non-professional team
anyone else have someone reach out to them yet? I have been a season since 2018- but have been paying premium for seats.
Not yet but I really pissed them off with the League's Cup thing so I assume I am on a no call list.
If they exempt the Miami match from season seats then they are truly out of their mind - it frankly is the only selling feature they have for next year. Why would I buy seasons minus one game ? No other team does that - the Leafs don’t take out Edmonton from the season ticket package or have the Raptors take out Golden State from the season ticket package? Why would this be done now?
Again - I am like many others who were here since “worst team in the world” days and I am also seriously considering giving my seats up too when I never felt that way even in “those” years.
I cannot remember if TFC made ssh buy separate tickets for Beckham. If they do that for Messi, they will get lots of complaints and create new non-renewals for the following season.
Last edited by benito; 08-11-2023 at 01:25 PM.
They did the first time LA made it through I believe. Oh you will get first access to your seat at the discounted, loyalty price of 4 times what you would normally pay for a premium match.
I wrote to my rep with the following list, I was respectful to the rep as it’s not their fault but I asked that this messaging be passed along to the powers that be — I would suggest everyone flood their offices with similar messaging —
1) Performance is clearly lacking, and the roster construction is absolutely awful - we haven’t had a proper striker in a long time now, and having no true goal scorer is embarrassing for a club of this magnitude considering the money that is being spent, it has been spent foolishly repeatedly.
2) A complete lack of transparency as to what is being done to help the club improve - it simply looks like they have given up (too many examples to mention here).
3) Ticket prices have to be reduced as a means of good will to the fans (a credit for a 20th game that we didn’t get isn't a price reduction, that’s simply a refund for a game not played) - the phrase “worst team in the world” from back in the day is being thrown around by supporters now - frankly in relation to expectations (and money spent) this is by far the lowest that this franchise has fallen.
4) selling me Messi as a means to keep season tickets is a joke - he is at most one game out of 20 that we pay for (no guarantee that he even plays here too - Beckham didn’t actually play here in a regular season game until 2011) - we want to see TFC succeed - Messi is simply a bonus if it happens - I could take my $1000 and see Messi play, if that’s all I cared about, and save lots of money.
5) The game day experience simply isn’t fun anymore - getting to and from the stadium is a chore (and frankly dangerous with the Go Tunnel). No giveaways, barely any fan engagement. We had a game on Canada Day - nothing “Red” to speak of given away - no postgame fireworks - etc.
6) Fan engagement from the team is completely lacking - we “love” the team but it does not feel at all like they “love”
us back.
^ When you look at stuff like this it’s easy to realize that Bill Manning isn’t just failing at providing a winning football team, he’s failing at the operations side too.
I will add: the row with the Montreal Ultras this year was a complete disgrace and could have easily been avoided with basic awareness of security requirements for these events.
Besides the obvious team failures that keep occuring under the faithful watch of the unfireable these are big points for me.
It genuinely feels like they don't give a shit about fans now and I don't care about giveaways or fireworks. I mean the emails, events that I don't go to but still events that are offered to those who do, that pre-match south end getting in early to have cheaper but still too expensive beers. I used to get random emails from my rep and calls here and there but now I got nothing for years until I called to make sure they didn't scam my credit card into purchasing any more LC tickets. The even went lax of security for that Montreal match but I think they hired teh cheapest security possible by the looks of it. No gameday anything is "fun" in any way beside meeting people we know in our section.
The feeling I get at least, is that I should be thankful I'm allowed to watch football in Toronto and I should be grateful they buy players who are shit but have some kind of name recognition.
this is very important, the fact there was very few security and police on site- this to me seems like a way to mitigate high cost/sunk cost- buyouts and fired employees.
ive basically said my part to the rep- now he basically stopped trying and sent me over to the retentions manager. so i think i have a good start here- i will see if i can share his email or number for all of us to send the same email with consistent messaging.
Yep.
I’m repeating myself here but I go back to the quote I saw on Twitter a little while ago. The shambolic way things are run has removed any sense of “club” from TFC and instead are offering a “interactive soccer-based experience”
I think it just speaks to budget constraints and/or Manning’s limited vision as a manager. It’s obvious a lot of things are being skimped on behind the scenes.
Yeah that was pretty much it for years except now they've given up on their part of being interactive and the way they've treated the rest of us has drastically affected the experience (atmosphere) provided by supporters.
One other thing that I mentioned to my rep was the handling of ssh credit from the Covid season. Told them that the communications were poor and notification was sent a week before the expiry date with no games left at BMO.
I’m with you on point 5) we take GO from Mississauga and I’ve probably registered 30 safety concerns regarding Exhibition GO over the last 16 1/2 years. Most seriously last year during the CNE game…it was so bad ie I was getting pushed into the chain link fence on the westbound platform at the end of the game due to overcrowding to the point I was having trouble breathing and thought I was going to collapse. I wrote to MLSE, CNE, The transportation Safety Board, the local councillor and GO…I asked them all to work together to ensure that this wouldn’t happen again. Most never responded and all I got from others was “well it’s not really our issue but we’ll pass on your concerns”.
On point 3) we will have spent $3950 on our 2 seasons tickets and another $630 on go transit …no way the entertainment value equals $4500…I will not be renewing unless they offer significant price decreases.
Emailed my rep to find out about a refund for the second leagues cup match - they’re holding on to it to apply as a credit towards next season. If you want it refunded now you have to call your rep. I took the opportunity to let them know I was not going to be renewing…their response sounded very scripted and that they would call me during renewals to discuss.
I’m really not looking forward to these last few matches of the season especially the next two because of the CNE
Very well done, i may use portions of this, if you are ok with that. I will be interested in hearing the response.
Our seasons tickets are under my seat mate's name, he is the only contact. Although he's also pissed about the state of the team, he's always super busy. It can sometimes be hard to get him to deal with things.
Can somebody please let me know the process for removing your credit card number from the account? Can you do that online, or do you have to call the rep? I think when folks here originally discussed that, it was in relation to possible extra League Cup games, which obviously ain't happening. I suppose removing your credit card # now also puts them on notice that you're not sure you're renewing for next year, and they'll have to reach out rather than just deducting $ from your card.
Is that correct? Anything else to consider?
Thanks for the kind words.
By all means you can use any part that you like, I say that to everyone else here as well, please reach out to your rep and consistently give them your concerns whether they are similar or different than mine. I would assume things like reduced pricing, a horrendously poor product, and poor fan engagement are probably universal complaints I would bet.
So who is going to the TFC Season Ticket Holder event at the Zoo next week? just got the confirmation for myself and a guest. Good to see TFC starting to put on some events.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
FYI - MLSE is now advertising 25% reductions on the last 5 matches for non season seat holders?????
MLSE should sell TFC to a wealthy Canadian who actually cares about the club, as it's obvious that MLSE doesn't.
I more or less said the same thing to my rep, to which he responded back saying that the next time I'm at the game, he's going to buy me and my guest a drink on the house. Like wtf, how disconnected is that?
The two other important things that I mentioned, is how disinterested my friends and family are when I offer my tickets. And, no one is interested in going to BMO field in February, March and April to see a 7:30 pm game played in the freezing cold. I get that the league decides the game times and all, but the stadium is not equipped to handle the freezing fan base and does fuck all about it.
I talked with a fairly senior person there last week about their communications. After being assured their comms director was "a star" and then finding out she had fairly minimal real-world media experience, I brought up how it should be done.
The response was not a positive one. It was essentially "the league dictates how we handle that stuff, mostly." Seriously. The person in the job is connected in football as her father was a major manager in Colombia and she used to work for CONCACAF. They then blamed Jeff Bradley for setting it up that way.
In other words, they're absolutely not paying attention to non "house is on fire" staffing issues.
I made the argument that ALL of their internal hires should have weekly, even daily metrics. They should have tasks, and debates about those tasks. Their should be real direction towards goals.
It's just completely laissez-faire, respond in the moment, as far as I can tell.
I didn't even get an offer for it.
Another suggestion I made to my rep back when I complained about possibly be charged for League's Cup matches was that I should be refunded for the matches I don't attend for the rest of this season as it's shit and I am disgusted.
Now, if they really wanted to put their money where their mouth is then the should offer something like that so if we chose to not go to match and put the tickets on their sell site say like 10-14 days before the match then they should auto refund a decent percentage of the ticket value. This way if you schedule Feb 25th at 7:30pm then they probably end up losing some money or if they decide to hire a shit manager like Carl Robinson for instance and we shit the bed again like this season then they lose too. It's auto-accountability. Would never, ever happen but that's a pie in the sky thing that would show serious intent at least.
There is virtually nil communication by the club to its fans anymore. Those short All for One videos have pretty much stopped. What the hell does the Director of Communication do all day? Is this a part-time job?
Jloome your posts about the inner workings of TFC are appreciated however the more that I learn about how this club operates the more I am convinced that the only way to save TFC is to sell the club to an owner who cares.
Full time with multiple staff. The incompetence is staggering.
Thanks for all of the post quotes (full and partial) — feel free to use whatever portion strikes you as relevant when you talk to your reps about “not” renewing next season.
Having worked in communication and media relations for a couple CFL teams, I view the position with TFC as one of being a facilitator not one of developing strategy based how you describe things. In all honesty right now, TFC is not getting much coverage at all, neither of the cities two dailies currently have beat writers covering the team on a daily basis. As we have it right now, its basically John Molinaro and Michael Singh with Neil Davidson popping in from time to time for CP. Does she spend any time pitching story ideas to assignment editors, trying to drive some coverage? It is not a competitive beat at all. This job in its current state regardless of titles would be below an experienced communications/media relations type. She basically has one person under her and then a few social media people but I am not sure who they would report to as I believe a lot social media for MLSE all flows out of the same place.
Also I believe it would not take much for the senior MLSE communications staff to get involved if a serious issue came up. That is the difference when you have a team that is part of a bigger organization ie MLSE vs. one that stands on their own. Sports PR has greatly involved over the last 20+ years and there are many tiers of it.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
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