Pitt better meet/exceed expectations early, because the frustration over parking and construction will only make it that much more likely people opt not to turn out for games.
Since this matter is taking over some comment threads, I might as well put it in a post.
Sorry to be late on this matter. I don’t handle the tickets and parking passes in my group, and since I don’t live in the ‘Burgh I did not know about yet another Northside giveaway to the Rooneys. In this case, the huge chunk of parking near Heinz Field for an unnecessary amphitheater. This eliminated some 800 prime Gold parking spots. Amazing ripples across the entire spectrum.
My group has been parking in Green 22 and then Green 23 since 2000. A bit detached from most of the action, but convenient in terms of getting in and out of the Northside. Especially since our group is almost all out-of-towners, and often at least one of us is running late or has to get home with some haste. It was also useful since our seats are on the Allegheny Avenue side.
Now we find ourselves with most of our parking relegated to the Red 5 Garage and one spot in Red 7B. The first thought was that we might go “old school” with the whole parking garage — tailgate in there. Just like everyone did when we were in Oakland with Pitt Stadium.
Problem is, Alco prohibits grills and glass bottles in the garage. Not sure how strictly this is enforced, but given this is Alco and a Pitt game — not a Steelers game — I expect rather stridently.
I think everyone understands that space is limited with the removal of some key parking, there would be some problems and frustrations.
The way that Pitt has handled it, however, has been mind-blowingly stupid.
It starts with the lack of any warning or advanced notice. No letter in advance laying out the problems. No explanation as to what the options are, and especially the possibility of splitting up parking passes. That’s really the big thing. No one knew until they received their parking passes in the mail, and then they had to call the ticket office/athletic department/Panther Club to find out what the hell happened.
Instead of any bracing, you get season tickets and parking passes — especially in a large group — and find out that you are scattered all over the stadium parking lot.
There is absolutely no excuse for not giving any advanced notice. I fully expect an apology about it at some point. An empty, hollow, useless, and meaningless apology only about the lack of notice. Not for anything else, though.
They had to know there would be a huge backlash. Part of the reason for the popularity of going to football games is the tailgating. For many of us, football season is one of the only times we can get together with old friends, just hang-out and be.
Tailgating before hand is almost as important as the football game. Bill Simmons may be playing a lot of the same notes after all these years, but he hit it right when talking about the NFL and the pain of going to live football games (and is already beating this into the ground). It also applies to college football as well.
This isn’t about the economy. It’s about the fact that it’s more fun to stay home and watch football than it is to sit in crappy seats to watch any team ranging from “lousy” to “mediocre.” It just is. For many fan bases, here are the two choices every Sunday:
Door No. 1 (more expensive): Traffic, parking, long walk to stadium, lousy seats, lifeless state-of-the-art arena, TV timeouts, dead crowds, drunk/bitter fans, more TV timeouts, hiked-up concession prices, PDAs with jammed signals as you’re searching for scores, even more TV timeouts, long walk to car, even more traffic.
Door No. 2 (less expensive): Sofa, NFL package, HD, fantasy scores online, remote control toggling, gambling, access to scores, seven straight hours of football, cell phone calls, beer and food in fridge, no traffic.
I can see going through Door No. 1 once a year just to remind yourself that going to an NFL game sucks. But eight times a year? Unless you had good seats, or unless this was your only excuse to get out of your house and get plastered, why would you? It’s a blue-collar sport with white-collar ticket prices.
As far as Pitt goes, the ticket prices are fine. Even the parking pass isn’t too expensive on its own. But then comes all the mandatory donations, and clearly you have to pony up big to keep a group of any size together in the lots. I know plenty of intentional moves to ruin tailgating happen all over the place. That doesn’t make it acceptable.
My group is spread from Harrisburg to Cleveland and places north and south of Pittsburgh. We have families, jobs, all the crap that keeps us from just popping in the car and going some place.
When we put up the money in March or so for season tickets, it isn’t just buying tickets for the games. It is each of us making a commitment towards getting together with one another in the fall on set dates. Those home dates serve as the lodestone for getting together. Set days that don’t allow the excuse to cancel and argue to do it on another time.
We plan for it. We start to bring our kids so they can experience the fun. The activities before the game. Playing some games in the lot with them. Taking them in and conveying the joy of being at the game and the love for Pitt.
I’m sure Pitt’s braintrust put a lot of thought into this, and concluded since tailgating is important better to at least give large groups at least one outside spot. Of course, they appeared to put no real thought into the best way to do it. Sending people scattered throughout and making it an absolute pain to get to one spot.
That also doesn’t begin to address the other concern. By giving people only one (or maybe two) spots in a regular lot and assuming others will come to those spots they are going to make the parking lots that much more crowded with people relative to space. Rather than 2-4 people per car in the lot, you suddenly jump it to 4-8 or even more. Space becomes more compressed.
Noise is up. More aggravations. Frustration. Then toss in some alcohol.
I can’t help but think that the Pittsburgh police are going to be dealing with some shorter tempers in the lots.
I really am surprised at how dumb this whole thing appears to be. After years of trying to make Pitt games at Heinz Field more fan friendly. Trying to drown out the hardcore naysayers still bemoaning the lack of an on-campus stadium, they do what they can to make the experience as brutally frustrating and painful as they can.
This brings me back to Pitt on the field. If Pitt stumbles in Utah. If they can’t beat Miami on Thursday night. Suddenly they are 1-2. They are out of the rankings and the next game is FIU? What happens then?
Fans still pissed about the extra barriers to tailgating. To getting to their seats. To simply trying to get to the stadium. For what? A team that appears to be failing to meet expectations?
Pitt has sold a lot of tickets this year. Expectations are high. If they don’t meet those expectations and you toss in the complete fuck up that is this parking situation, what happens to those ticket sales in 2011?
I’m not trying to be negative or look for the doomsday scenario. It just looks like this is set up to put even more pressure on the football team. Whether they realized it or not.
The tailgating is at least as important as the game to us old farts, and they just took half of the fun away.
I had Jets (and Devils apply here also) season tickets last year and it was beautiful. They built a full on train station 100 yards from old Giants stadium and literally ten feet from the new stadium. I could watch pregame or the 1PM games at the bar by my town’s train station and smuggle some roadies aboard the train, safely arriving at the stadium 40 minutes later. After the game I just immediately hop back on the train and go home. No walking, no warming the car up, no traffic, no drunk drivers, no tolls. Not to mention that the drunk Jets train was a hilarious bizarro reflection of my morning commute to the city.
I live in NC now hoping that Pitt will join the ACC putting me less than an hour away from 4 opponents. No parking troubles down here. If they have anything, its space.
It’ll just take more coordination and headaches on the part of the large groups. but it’s worth it. Hey, everyone loves to complain about the atmosphere down there, and the athletic department is trying to do something about it right?
But come on people, I might drive up from South Carolina for a game, that’s like 900 miles roundtrip. Surely we can overcome parking.
Hmmm, maybe a little extortion re: my donations to the University’s other schools rather than the Athletic Dept is in order.
The subway tunnel isn’t opened yet and won’t be available for football traffic until the 2012 season. I hate that thing. The construction has been screwing up downtown traffic flow for years. Then again, the “renovation” of Point State Park has been going on forever as well.
Tailgating is being phased out in order to make those who are going to the game spend their money at the nearby bars and restauraunts.
I tried calling down there, and they won’t give you much help. All they said is next year try to specify which lot you wish to be in or if you are with a large group, have everybody specify that when they order their tickets next year.
As for the scattering this year there isn’t anything they can or will do about it.
i’ve been relocated to green 23 this year and feel like i’ve been exiled. this will make it as difficult as possible to get to and to leave the stadium. i’m willing to trade passes with someone in a red or blue surface lot. any takers?
i was told that the stadium lost 800 parking spaces this year and that the cut off for preferred parking was the donor number. was told it was 3100. i know there needs to be a cutoff point, but that doesn’t make me feel better at 3111.
Last year, I ordered a few extra ND tickets in addition to my season ticket, and was told that I had them reserved (this was in early Sept; the ame was in Nov.) I called in 3rd week of Oct and was told I had to call to confirm (even though they had my visa card number.) This was like the Seinfeld episode when he told the car rental girl that “no, I on’t think you know what reservation means” I finally ot my tickets but wouldn’t have if I hadn’t called.
I can just see Pederson and some of his intern-flunkies (maybe including Jamie H) sitting around concocting this rediculous scheme.
Chas mentioned why this may not necessarily be a great idea; instead of a tailgate party consisting of 2-3 cars right next to each other, with 10 people, this idea attempts to force that same 10 person tailgate to one single parking space – right between two other 10 person tailgates in the spaces right next to them. Might make for more telegenic tailgating, but very crowded – the likelyhood of being forced to listen to yet another mix tape of old skool rap cranked up to 11 is almost a mathematical certainty.
Now it could be that some people actually want that experience. And there has been quite a lot of inactivity in some of the most prime tailgating lots in the past, as many people choose not to tailgate at all…and may prefer to be as far away from it as possible.
So why not ask fans their preferences? Set aside a lot, we’ll call it the “Spirit Lot” or “Steve Pederson Memorial Tailgate lot”, where tailgaters are assured ahead of time that they can only have one parking pass, and the rest of the people in their group will have to park elsewhere and walk. Promise them the cheerleaders and dance team will make a pre-game visit, maybe Pitt greats from years gone by will stop by as well to meet-and-greet. There will be so much tailgating per square foot they’ll have to wipe it off their faces once game time comes around.
Set aside another lot as the “Family Lot” or the “Alcohol Free” lot, where those who don’t really want to tailgate can congregate – maybe even make that a parking garage where open flame and bottles are banned?
Then, the rest of us can have the chance to request to be in a lot with all of our friends, even if it isn’t all that close to the stadium.
Last year they stopped the cash entry because of construction of the 2nd hotel in what was the footprint of Red 6. So we were down to those two spots and for the sake of not having to move equipment (tables, coolers, extra propane, etc) we ended up renting a U-Haul van for each game, extended our prep time an hour to get all said stuff in the van and an hour afterwards to clean up, split up the stuff and head home.
We knew the Rooneys were tarting up the North Shore with another Ampitheater, so we planned ahead, made sure our ticket orders for our seats each included 1 parking pass item, and that our top donors did the ordering. On top of that we more than doubled our donations. End result: We didn’t slip on our Blue 10 passes where we can’t cook, but our surface passes are now down to one 7g pass.
There’s talk of grilling down there and delivering the food to the roof of the deck, but at this point I’m about fed up.
It’s enough of an insult that all of these Ticket pick-up, fan “appreciation”, kickoff luncheons and everything else are scheduled during the week that nobody from out of town can realistically attend, but the russian roulette with where your $90 is going to screw you for parking has got to stop.
First come first serve it and jack up the surface lot parking passes. Push those that just arrive before kickoff to the parking decks and declare a tailgate lot like Patrick said.
I also noticed that the “Family Tailgate” is now a “Family block party”, I guess they’re preparing for the time when there won’t be any surface lots left.
Any readers get corporate packages? I wonder where they stuck their parking passes at? With the sheer volume of tickets in our group it may be easier to show up as a “Corporate partner” just to at least get the tickets in the same lot every year.
Event Title: Pitt vs. Utah Game Watch in New Jersey
Date: Sep 2, 2010
Time: 8:00PM – 11:00PM ET
Location: Fox and Hound Restaurant & Sports Bar at the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, NJ
link to foxandhound.com
Description: Join the New Jersey Pitt Alumni Club for a game watch as the Pitt Panthers kick off the 2010 Football Season.
Fox and Hound Restaurant & Sports Bar
near Macy’s at the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, NJ
The location is only minutes from major NJ routes: Route 1, Garden State Parkway, 287 and the Turnpike.
A room is reserved with wide-screen HD tv. If 15 or more Pitt Fans attend, then a sampling of free snacks will be provided by the Fox and Hound. So BE SURE TO RSVP so we can guarantee our number and provide great snacks for everyone!
Cash Bar
RSVP by email to: newjerseypittalumniclub@gmail.com
I am amazed at what some of you think Pitt should do about this. If Mark Nordenburg called you on the telephone and told you all of the above? Some of you wouldn’t bitch & moan? Yeah, right.
Maybe they could work towards an on-campus stadium but the real outrage should be directed at the Rooneys and the sweetheart deal they got to develop all of that prime property between the stadiums.
They really should designate one lot as a first come/first serve cash lot. That would accomodate all of us early starters. Or they could sell season passes per each lot and when they sell out, they sell out. They can set the prices and get their money, just like Alco does for the Steelers games.
Just saying that I don’t think that Pitt is the one pushing this agenda and that the outrage should be leveled at the Rooneys/City.
I have been in Red5 for the last couple of years and I can say for certain that tailgating is allowed. They seem to be somewhat lax on the enforcement of bottles but do discourage the grilling/open flames. But there are plenty of chairs and tables set up…
It’s on the same side of the street as Firewaters, but it’s like a block or so towards Allegheny Mall.
Or what use to be Allegheny Mall. Can’t remember the name of it, but it’s a great little local place that doesn’t rip you off for drinks.
I hear it’s great! 😉
Last year (Navy) we got hosed because of construction and the 10 people at the Pirates game, we ended up behind some store by the green lots. Not a bad walk, just a boring tailgate.
I’ll need to do some research for my next trip out, most likely 2011.
Good luck to everyone…
