Heat make Miami Herald and writer Adam Beasley their bitch

[G.cracker]

http://www.nba.com/heat/news/woolworth_ ... 20321.html

Hahaha. Herald is not worth wiping your ass anymore.

[quote]Letter to the Editor of the Miami Herald
Mar 21 2012 3:16PM
Dear Editor:

I assume like most high profile businesses, our general rule is that no matter how inaccurate the information, how out of context a quote is used or how mangled it might be, or how flawed the underlying thesis is in local newspaper stories reporting on us, that we just ignore it and let sleeping dogs lie.  The theory behind that general rule is that when you try to stand up for yourself, correct the record, point out the flaws in the reasoning, or demand a retraction you just contribute to prolonging the impact of the offending story and making it a bigger deal than it would otherwise be.  We have also come to realize over time that as the subject in question we always care much more deeply about accuracy and tone than the average reader does, so like most other companies similarly situated we choose to keep our annoyance to ourselves, suck it up, and move on.

So for me to be writing you this letter and breaking one of our long-standing cardinal rules, you know things must have reached an all-time low.  But your story on the front page of today’s paper entitled “Site Offers New Way to get Heat Tickets on the Cheap” is so beyond the pale that we just cannot stand by and let it sit.  In fact, it is so awful and so patently ridiculous that we are not even sure how or where to start in responding to it.

So far as we can tell, the only accurate part of the story is the mention at the very end of the article that “efforts to reach the Heat for comment were not successful.”  Despite not getting any comment from us, the article states in its opening salvo that: “a new website allows you to buy tickets for as much as half off—and the team is just fine with it.”  If we had no comment, how exactly does the Herald know with such certainty that we are “just fine with it?”  The article later states as fact that: “The Heat has tasked a third-party ticket service…with doing its price-chopping in a surreptitious way..”  Again, if we had no comment, why does the Herald believe we have “tasked” this company with anything, much less doing something “surreptitious” on our behalf???  This kind of nonsense represents the height of irresponsible journalism.

The fact is that GoldStar.com apparently bought some limited number of tickets through our Group Ticket department at the full Group price like any other ticket purchaser could do.  Beyond that we have no relationship with them.  It appears that they are yet another entrant into the ever-growing secondary ticketing market and that they are now trying to resell the tickets they purchased from us. Like any other purchaser, whether we are “fine” with it or not, they are entitled to do so within the confines of the law.  We chose not to comment, precisely because we don’t know them and are not working with them.  We are most certainly not party to some nefarious plot to “attempt to unload excessive inventory” as your story suggests.  There are hundreds if not thousands of these kinds of operations out there these days.  Buyer beware.

What we do know, and what we have made clear to the Herald and all of the other local news outlets time and time again is that there is only one way to safely and securely buy tickets to Heat games on the secondary market and that is through the website controlled by our ticketing partner, TicketMaster, at their secondary market site http://www.heat.com/ticketexchange.  There are other sites, big and small, that will tell consumers that they will get a refund if the tickets they buy turn out to be fraudulent; which is all well and good, except that in our experience what ticket buyers want is not a refund but entrance to the event they believe they have purchased tickets to attend.  We deal with a fair amount of ticket fraud and have a lot of experience with unhappy consumers who get denied entry to a game or event because they bought a fraudulent ticket on one of these sites (by the very existence of their refund policy these sites make it clear that they cannot guarantee the authenticity of the tickets purchased through them, only that they will offer a refund if the tickets turn out to be fraudulent).  The ONLY way to guarantee entrance to a game or event when buying a ticket on the secondary market and to know with 100% certainty that the tickets are authentic is to use http://www.heat.com/ticketexchange.  That is a fact worth printing in your newspaper.

Having dispensed with the nonsense of the first premise, we feel the need to address the further idiocy of this article.  It states: “But in year 2 of the Three Kings’ reign, demand has dipped to the point that the team has begun offering tickets at up to half off the regular price, in an attempt to unload excessive inventory and compete with bargain basement deals found on the secondary market.”  Seriously???  I could swear that the Herald has not moved yet and is still located three blocks from the AmericanAirlines Arena.  Has anyone over there been to a Heat game this year? If you had, you would understand what a patently ridiculous statement that is; in fact,  you may have noticed that in your own reporting about last night’s game, it was stated in your “Wild Card” area on page 5D that we had our highest attendance of the season (20,212), which included standing room only tickets.  Your two stories contradict one another.

The fact is that every home game this year has been sold out and attendance on a per game basis is actually up over last year because we have sold more standing room only tickets than we did last year (including for last night’s game on a Tuesday night vs. the Phoenix Suns when we were at 100% capacity).  We also just completed the single most successful season ticket renewal campaign in the history of the organization and have a significant waiting list for season tickets.  We are the most sought after ticket in all of professional sports.  I am not sure that anyone in town, other than your writer and editor apparently, would have reason to believe otherwise.  I can assure you that the Heat remain very hot, indeed.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eric S. Woolworth
President, Business Operations
Miami Heat/[quote]

[broke]

ouch, burn

[unowen85]

Done, son.

[BennyGfromFL]

Beasley? They'll trade him to the Minneapolis Gazette for two interns.

Gotta stand up for the story though --- I actually started a thread on this at the beginning of last season because I was pissed off when trying to resell my tickets on Stubhub. Don't know if it's still going on this season, but a day or two before all the "non-premium" games last year (i.e. outside of the Knicks, Bulls, Celtics, Magic, and Lakers), Stubhub would get flooded with entire rows of 400-level tickets for about $10 or less. If you'd checked Ticketmaster shortly before, these exact seats had been available only at the face value of $55 or whatever it was. So it was obvious these tix were being unloaded to some broker or outlet for dirt cheap, certainly not for $55 or for normal group pricing, if selling em for $10 was somehow prudent for the seller and they'd been available on Ticketmaster at full price hours before. If anything, the Heat made me their bitch when I could only recoup about $8 for my tickets.

In general, I got the journalist's back in calling out shady business practices. There was something definitely going on there, and this just seems like an extension of that. Yeah, the "no comment from the Heat" stuff was contradictory and this Woolworth guy enjoyed honing in on that, but the rebuttal's severe indignance certainly doesn't make the practices I noticed last year seem any less dubious.

[Heat3]

It would have to be cheaper on Stubhub right before the game because they have to sell the ticket inorder to recoup some of their investment. Ticketmaster doesn't buy the tickets from the Heat and resell them. They just take a cut from the sale so there is no incentive for them or the Heat to drop the prices. Otherwise people will just wait to an hour before game time and buy.

[BennyGfromFL]

Yeah, as someone who's in the past inquired Ticketmaster about a refund or two, I know they're just a middle man and it's the "event organizers" and their policies that control everything. What I'm saying is I saw entire available rows of $55 tickets in the 400s disappear off Ticketmaster hours before games, and a short time later the exact tickets would show up on Stubhub as low as $5-$10, which in turn screwed things up for people legitimately trying to resell their tickets. Unless some schmoe thought it profitable to flip hundreds of tickets in a few hours for a $50 loss each, it was pretty obvious the Heat themselves were somehow using the resale market to "correct" the overpriced tickets (probably through unloading the tickets to brokers for peanuts), achieve a sell out, and not have to answer to angry fans who'd already shelled out $55. Maybe this is all common practice, maybe not. Now they can talk about how the secondary market is soooo sketchy and potentially fraudulent when, at least for the early part of last season (before they finally considered supply/demand and dropped retail prices in those sections), it was clearly somehow an ally and a tool. And probably still is.

My bad if this is making people's eyes glaze over. Given what I noticed last year though, I'm just a little wary of those in charge of making lots of money for a big business, especially when they try to dress down journalists and newspapers.

[LEIF]

Beasley? They'll trade him to the Minneapolis Gazette for two interns.

I found this comment absolutely hilarious, well done!

[This IsMy House]

Beasley? They'll trade him to the Minneapolis Gazette for two interns.

I found this comment absolutely hilarious, well done!

+1

But man did he lay into the Herlad that was awesome.

[Diggity Dave]

Do you see what happens, Miami Herald? Do you see what happens when you **** a stranger in the ass?

[RhapidKid]

Eric Woolworth....