Way back in ancient 2009, Mike wrote a piece highlighting one spectacularly awful example of a business going out of their way to alienate their fans. We talk a great deal about connecting with customers here, but when we saw the Washington Redskins suing season ticket holders, who weren't able to keep to their contract terms after the economic downturn, we had to point it out. In that case, the actual contract language was on the Redskins' side, although in similar cases, sports franchises rarely go after their customers in that manner. Instead, typically the team and customers work out an amicable deal to resell the tickets or provide for some kind of payment plan. In other words: suing your fans is a crappy way to do business.
But what if I told you that there's a worse example of a professional sports franchise threatening to sue their own fans? What if I told you that the customers they were threatening were perfectly happy to continue paying for their seats, despite the team doing everything in their power to alienate the fans, but the customers just wanted to sit in different seats, which they say the contract allows for? And what if I told you that all of this hate and bile comes from the team with the most obnoxiously festive stadium in pro sports?
Little known fact: the entire stadium is made out of tropical flavor skittles
Image source: CC BY 2.0 Don't believe that all of the above could be true? Let me
introduce you to the Miami Marlins of Major League Baseball.
The flea-market ownership of the Miami Marlins have let down their fans too many times to count through the years, whether it's running one of their traditional fire sales — see: November's $160 million salary dump — or pocketing revenue-sharing money intended for players. Or, lest we forget, getting South Florida taxpayers to plunk down 80 percent of the cost for a new $634 million baseball park. But this might take the cake even for them.
The team has threatened to sue Bill and Jan Leon, season ticket holders since 1998, for having the gall to ask for a different seat location — as they say the ticket agreement permits — and refusing to pay when the team failed to comply. The New Miami Times reports the Leons signed a two-year agreement for their tickets (at $25,000 per year) with the option of changing their seats if they were unhappy with their location after the first season. Which they were, thanks to a sign that obstructed their view.
Yes, you read that right. After bilking taxpayers out of a huge chunk of money to build their stadium, the team is suing two season ticket holders for asking to switch seats. Now, I know what you're thinking: surely this must have happened because the team couldn't accommodate their request to move their seats. You're thinking that all the rest of the seats in the stadium must have been gobbled up by Floridians. Well, if you are, you're wrong. The
Marlins drew enough attendance last year, the first year of their new stadium (generally considered to provide a bump in attendance), to not quite fill 75% of the seats. In other words, if the team had wanted to be amicable, they had over a quarter of their skittle stadium to choose from to reseat the Leons. Instead they're suing, because evil doesn't do logic.
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