Lrenfro

https://youtu.be/W7DC_Kw-7j8

IJS

Every time I turn around the Hawks are breaking some franchise record.  I am not sure how many we have broken this year.  I just wanted to know if we have broken the record for most broken records. 

I've debated about posting anything about this since I'm a big Hawks fan and I don't want to intentionally dissuade people from going to the games to support our players. I'm not really posting this to vent (well, maybe a little), but I'm more curious to see if anyone else has had a similar experience. Perhaps others have had something like this happen which might help explain (somewhat) why season ticket purchases are down (?) even without the Race-gate debacle with Ferry & Levenson.

 

I've never purchased season tickets before but I've been a Hawks fan for a long time and have had a good time taking business partners and the family to games recently. Plus, I'm in the "desired demographic" so I figured, eh, why not? (Desired demographic = young 30's white guy, family with kids, not afraid to go downtown, good job with disposable income, etc.) Besides, I wanted the ticket salesmen to quit calling and emailing me all the damn time, so to shut him up I met up with him to hear his pitch.

 

So I went down with my wife and we were talking with Ticketguy (and his ticket salesman mentor) about a half-season ticket package, 2 seats each game for 21 games plus a pre-season game, lower bowl in the section I like to sit in. He says it's several thousand bucks, but they can finance it. It will be $X per month. I can pick the games - the seats for the games I don't choose will go just be sold on the regular market. I just need to call my rep once the schedule comes out and pick the games. I can write off a certain portion of it as a business expense. If I can't make a game then I have the option of selling the tickets on their ticket exchange or I can just sell them myself. I was also told that I "can never lose the value of my ticket because if can't make it to a game, we can just swap them for another game." I get all sorts of discounts at restaurants and shops in the arena. I can cancel anytime. Blah blah blah - Super-friendly, glad-hands kind of sales pitch. We come to an agreement and he says if I sign this document (labeled "invoice"), he'll write up the terms of everything we talked about and email me over the contract. Man, I'm pumped at this point.

 

What I actually get emailed is a copy of the "invoice" sent to me, stating that a different amount is going to be charged to my credit card each month. (Different by roughly $100.) Furthermore, the only other page he sends me - "the contract" - is simply a list of restrictions that hadn't been discussed with me, and some of which were 100% contrary to what I was told in person. Like I was told in person that I could sell the tickets myself if I wanted to (like on Craigslist or whatever), but the "contract" I'd supposedly agreed to said that I couldn't. It was basically a shoddy, single-page, boiler plate language that I have to abide by their rules, they can auto-renew my purchase next year, their liability is limited, I assume risks, they can change my seat, etc etc.

 

So I tell Ticketman, "Hey, what's with you charging me a different amount? And what's with you telling me things differently from what's in this 'contract'? And why didn't you show this to me up front instead of saying you'd send it to me in an email? It's not like you had to change anything on it; it's just boilerplate legalese. It doesn't even say how many games I can go to in this plan. And how come a multi-million dollar organization like the Hawks can't have a better contract than this? And what about the promises you made to me about the ticket exchanges, never losing the value of my tickets, the restaurant discounts, etc.? I've agreed to drop several thousand bucks here - why is this so one-sided?"

 

Ticketman comes back and swears that the increased price is what he told me. The ticket exchange is not a part of the package I bought. He's really sorry, but he'll let his bosses know that I didn't like the contract.

 

So, I'm like "WTF???"

 

Then, the schedule comes out, and as I'm picking out which home games I want to go to, I get an email TELLING ME which games I can go to. Apparently I can't choose them either.

 

Now, my wife looks for any excuse to disagree with me that she can. But I ran all of this stuff by her and even she said, "But he said you could exchange the tickets."  ... "But he said you were going to be charged a lot less than that each month." ... "But he definitely said you could pick the games!"

 

I know for a fact that Ticketguy said I could pick the games because I've got a son who lives up on the north side and it's quite a haul and I'd never agree to a set schedule because I've got to drive up to have dinner with him at least once a week, plus other very regular scheduled obligations related to family and work.

 

The whole experience has been a nightmare.

 

Is this just my very bad experience or is there a pattern / some kind of scam? Is it just the severe incompetence of my lone Ticketguy (well, and his trainer/mentor who was there with us the whole time), or is this a broader thing? The vast discrepancy in the terms I was told in person versus what came out later just seem too stark to be a one-time deal or just an accident. Maybe I just got the absolutely wrong pitch by Ticketguy for the package I was interested in, but so much about this experience has felt like a fraudulent, misrepresented, bad juju kind of thing. Maybe it is just another example of REALLY REALLY POOR team management allowing doofus Ticketguy to say whatever he wants and having vague one-sided boilerplate "contracts," but it all just stunk.

 

Word to the wise: insist on getting everything in writing before you buy, and if you buy, pay with a credit card so you can dispute it if they try a switcheroo.

Actually I had a similar experience albeit a more positive outcome.  

I must say I don't fit the Desired demographic = young 30's white guy, family with kids, not afraid to go downtown, good job with disposable income, etc.  I am a black male 43 family with kids I take my sons to the game for father son time I have a good job with disposable income.  I am not sure if I am too old or being black excludes me from the desired demographic.  My brother also fitting the a for mentioned description shared this experience with me. 

My brother and I purchased full season tickets.   I also purchased a half season package for the same season for two seats in a different section.   The reason why was because my brother and I would not attend every game together, when I let him use my seat I would use my half season seats to go to the game with my son or my wife.   

Now to my experience.   I too was made many promises like I would be given extra tickets when I wanted to bring my son to the game with my brother.  Or if we both wanted to bring a date we would be given extra tickets maybe not in our seats but the tickets would come at no extra price.   Of course these were handshake deals part of his sales pitch.   I was told that if I did not use my tickets I could use them for another game.   I was told that I could choose my games on my half season tickets.  

No comes the time to cash in on my promises, my handshake deals.   When I ask for tickets to bring my son and wife to the game I get a memory loss as should be expected on a handshake deal.   Each time I tried to cash in on my promises I had to renegotiate the terms and the results were less than standard I was promised.  When it came to extra tickets it would be to the least popular game meaning I could not choose which game.   No I knew it would not be a Miami or Laker game but at least let me choose the day.   

when it came to my half season tickets I found out that my choosing games came as a coin toss or a take turn pick for lake of a better description with another purchaser.   Meaning to pick my games I had to take a turn then he took a turn then I until all of the games were gone.   luckily the other guy was not prepared and I got all the games I wanted except for one.  Mainly because I only had one criteria, and that was to have weekend games as apposed to him trying to pick popular games.   I just did not like the promise of picking my games as if it was just that.  Tell me up front that I have to pick with someone else. 

Like I said all of my promises were met I just did not want to pull teeth to get it done.   Atop of that he asked me for other favors in exchange for originally promised favors.   

in summation I think I will adopt the idea pre-purchasing my seats at the beginning of the season. The only benefit I really saw from the season tickets was having tickets for the preseason and playoff games.   That was 3 seasons ago and I have not been incited from the barrage of calls to purchase season tickets again.  I just go to the games that fit my schedule.   Since I am a Hawks fan it does not really matter who the opponent is anyway.   

Usually, when someone says, "There's one thing I've learned" you can pretty well knowthat they haven't learned anything.Therefore, one thing I've learned, posters here on Hawksquawk this off season are eithermore positive or more negetive about this present Hawk team than at any time that I havebeen on here. That's a long time!There seems to be very little middle ground. Some posters believe that the moves by theowners / front office means that we will have an exciting, competetive team, filled with thetype players that aren't afraid to bang, hit the floor for the ball and have a pretty good IQand the size necessary to carry out the overall plan.Other posters believe that we have one player, Horford, which is good enough to competein the NBA. Without him, Hawks would be lucky to win 20 games. None of the draft picks,with the exception of Dennis the Menance, are worthy of being called an NBA player andwas a wasted move. That Dennis is years away from being a true PG, as opposed to Jeff,who can't play a decent PG, ever.Where are the middle of the road posters? There are a few here but most seem to be oneextreme or the other. Either the Hawks are very good or very, very bad.

The problem with being a middle of the road person. Is you really don't have much to dispute. You agree and disagree with both sides. Each year I feel the same way. I want an exciting , strong effort at winning the title. You could look at stats all day but at the end of the day if the heart is not there, the drive, the team work, the desire to win; if you don't have a healthy team you won't make it. But on the upside you could be a mediocor team on paper but you have the desire to win. You have the drive to play 48 min as a team night in and night out. You play exciting basketball, you are going to accomplish something. You will have my full support no matter how far you go in the post season.

Whatever happened to Slim Stouda? I was really happy when we drafted him cuz I used to watch him at Arizona all the time. Thought he would be much better than he was. With that 3 he had he should have lasted as a journeyman in the league. Ah well.

He went to SA got hurt then to the D league. That was it. I had hope for him. I guess I have just been hoping for one, any one of our draft pic's to turn into something for us. I was such a Huge Josh fan (both smoove and Chills) because of that. I was even a Marvin fan for a short while.

Man talk about a ghost, you haven't posted in a while have you? And aren't you wearing Speedy's jersey there in that pic? Forgive me but I can't remember who's jersey that was.

yeah it has been a while since I posted. I am on here almost everyday. I am usually at work so I don't log in unless I want to post. That is a Salim Stoudamire jearsy. I guess I need to take a pic in an Al horford Jearsy. He seems to be the only one to stick around. Non of the other jearsy's that I own are relevent anymore. Accept for, of course #21.

I just don't wanna deal with any more Speedy errummm Craig claxtons.

JT for me. I heard that there was confusion with the coach giving direction and some players demanding the ball. I think with JT having one director and one directive he would be much more effective, confident, agressive and willing to do more. I have loved watching him grow and I believe that we have not seen all there is to see yet.

Why, was he pitchy or off key or something?

Hendu and Crawford scrubs ?

I am going to have to agree with Salim with honorable mentions of Al Henderson, Chris Crawford and Ken "coach can I at least sit on the bench?"Norman

I became a season ticket holder for the first time this season thinking that a repeat of last year would be the worst that we would do. You are asking me if I would be happy with what I consider the worst that we could do...... I have to give a strong no. Anything other than superseding last years performance would be considered sub-par by me and a disappointment in becoming a season ticket holder.

:pleasantry:

First quarter = Sleepwalk.

(We shouldn't even mention intimidastion, but - - -)

Horford said they were doing a lot of strutting and trash talk. This backfired.

It motivated Horford and all the Hawks. - - Lesson. Don't try to verbally abuse

these Hawks.

Boozer attempted to take Horford out of the game with a very hard foul. Zaza

stepped in and restored order. This looked like a deliberate attempt to do

bodily harm to our center. That wasn't called, as a lot of stuff wasn't.

Bulls = The top team in the NBA right now!

So, what does this make the Hawks?

Bulls are a good team. No doubt about that. They had a good thing going.

Then, too much physical abuse and too much mouth which they couldn't

back up.

Team effort on defense. Everyone doing their part. Superman may be the

center on that Florida team but our own Clark Kent ain't bad either!!

GREAT EMOTIONAL WIN FOR US!!

:kingchris:

Oh yeah I forgot about that. I was at the game so it was kinda hard to tell what happened. But it looked to me like boozer tried to stomp AL. Then Al kicked him. What happened on that play?

Honestly Joe played OK the first 4 games of the first series but after that he was hideous. Seeing how killer he is now versus how awful he was at the end of last season through the start of this year gives me some hope that it was the elbow. I know some will argue that Joe has always struggled against good defenses but that doesn't explain way he experienced such a severe drop off in production after game 4 of round one.

I wish you could add one more option "Coaching".

The team collapsed and quit on Woody. There was a substantial risk that they tuned him out so that even a Woody 2.0 with a fresh voice would be a significantly better coaching hire at this stage in the game.

This makes to most sense to me yet AHF As PO'd as Woody had me most of the season. I don't think we really saw woody's potential. It is hard to coach when people don't listen to you. Yes that is his fault too. I just think he made a bad choice in befriending the players, it came back to haunt him in the end. It kept him from making the right decisions when it came to sitting JS down and putting an elbow in his neck for doing stupid stuff. It kept him from taking people out of the game when they needed to be taken out. It seemed to be no repercussions for wrong doings by the players. I think if he had the respect of the players and himself he would have been able to make better decisions. He then would have had the opportunity to become a better coach.

Who's going? Where ya sitting?

Also, post here if you have extra tickets or if you are looking for tickets.

I dont have tickets yet, but dont think I will miss this one :)

I'm in 118 row K. Been to 20 games plus game 2,5 and now 7 of the series.

If you fee like explaining your selection feel free, otherwise please vote that way I know whether to keep it or drop it. Thanks as always for your input!

Edit - here is the Hawks icon

I would not mind if you brought the background players and logo out just a little. It is a little difficult to see. Otherwise I like it.

Our offense is a mess indeed. If the Hawks can't get out on the break then they're cooked.

As the team is constituted right now Flip Murray is the only guy that can take the heat off Joe because he can dribble drive. But once again we're back to playground basketball with little to no direction.

I guess that's why we don't get out in the open court and run. MW is trying to keep the 7 men that he plays from being tired. I wonder if he knows that if you mix in your other players you could rest your 7 men from time to time. I mean whats wrong with putting Law in with 4 starters. It would not hurt us that bad and it would give someone some much needed rest.

I am not a Facebook or Myspace Junkie so I may be a little confused about the terminology But here goes my suggestion. I noticed two things on Facebook. One there are a lot of Hawks fans out there looking for places to talk about the hawks. How many of them are failure with Hawksquawk I don't know. To there are always things to become fans of. I.e The hawks, Atlanta. Which both have an abundant amount of fans. I was wondering if it is a way to make Hawksquawk something to become a fan of on Facebook and/or Myspace. So that when I join all of my friends and friends of friends that are hawks fans will see this and join. Just another way to promote Hawksquawk. Especially this summer. After this series there will be a lot of new people trying to find ways to talk about the Hawks and jump on the bandwagon. Just let me know so I can link it to my Facebook some kind of way.

I think his insurance pays for most of his contract, we save a lot of money by not playing him opposed to playing him and having to pay most of it. I may be wrong though.

My question is this. Will he qualify for the Playoffs or Offs as he puts it on tweeter. And will his salary only matter for the two games + the Offs. If so I think we can afford his salary for 15 games. Yes I know wishful thinking on the 15 games but hey we can all wish.

For those that were at the Boston series last year. You all know that the fans of atlanta were louder than any city in the country. we will be back for the playoffs!

Now that's what I am waiting for. It amazes me that we are not having sell out games so late in the season. A guaranteed playoff spot. High potential for home court advantage yet when I go to the games I can move down to the empty seats below me during 3rd qrtr. Whats the deal.

I have 4 tickets to the Orlando game sec 308/L/9-12. I am willing to take any offer worth my time to take them downtown to will call. Even the barter system. Just PM me with an offer.

I want to continue to encourage everyone to click the links when people posts stories about the Hawks from larger media sites on the web, even if you read the article here first.

While the coverage is far from perfect, it won't get better if they don't know we're out there...

I did not know that. I will do that from this point fwd. By the way how does it help when we click the link?

50.6% from the line is absolutely horrible. For any player. I haven't shot one in 5 years and I could hit 7/10.

I am sure you know this is not a fair statement right? I mean if I go out on the court right now and make 10 for 10 would that make me better than all of the NBA players? Lets give the man credit for something. He runs the floor, Hard. He gets beat up in the lane ( they are not fouling him on Jump shots). He is probably tired buy the time he gets to the line. Outside of him taking his 20 sec I am sure it is pretty hard to calm down and focus at the line. Probably in practice he can hit "7/10" Bit translates in a game a little different.

Maybe, just maybe we might try to establish a half court game with Smoove, Marvin, and Horf.

I am just glad that woody will have to learn to use other players. This is the reason you play your other players during the season. So that they will be ready to step up for games like this. But since they have a lot of DNP's it makes you worry about games like this.