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U12
Soccer
Coach's
E-Bay Page
About Me
Nov-24-09 05:32:36 PST
Tailgating
and the "No extra space for tailgating" Admonition on all
Parking Passes
(Cash, Blue, Red, Green, Orange, and Purple Lots) Ignore the admonition printed on the parking
passes! Everyone
still does tailgating and noone pays any attention to the "no extra
space" rule, including Redskins lot attendants, security, etc. In
fact, many people still bring massive grills and portable picnic tables
with bunches of lounge chairs.
Parking
Passes in General
Cash lots stink, if you can avoid them -- then avoid
them. They
are
quite a distance from the stadium and taking a shuttle bus from the
Cash lots is a headache. After the Cash lots, how big of a
difference are
the different colored prepaid parking passes (Blue, Red,
Green, Orange, and Purple Lots)? Not much if you arrive close to game
time. Your parking will be slow and you won't be that
close. If you are able to arrive 1 1/2 hours or more before game
time, then that will be the biggest determinant in getting a desirable
spot. In which case I would say that you would do OK with Blue, Red,
Green, or Orange and it would not be worth a large price premium
between these passes. The exception is Purple; if you want to be
truly next to the stadium this is the pass to get. I suspect you
will pay a lot for it. I started with a "White - Cash Lot Pass", then got
upgraded to a "Blue Lot", and for the 2004 season got upgraded to a
"Red Lot" pass. I have parked in Cash, Blue, Red, Green, and
Orange, but never in Purple. Purple is not worth it to me, I'd
rather walk a few minutes than pay the huge mark-up on a Purple
pass. In addition, I will never park in the
Cash Lots nor will I send a friend there; it's not worth the large
amount of time and aggravation.
No Food or Drink Brought Into Stadium Rule Pay strict attention to this
rule! They will thoroughly check all your bags, purses, jackets,
and frisk your body to verify that you are not bringing in anything
edible or drinkable. They will perform this check no matter which
entrance you use (regular entrance gates or club/suite level
entrances). They will frisk men, women and children and they will
not miss a single person. I know this is quite insulting, but
they have gotten more and more thorough and obnoxious on this issue
over the past several seasons. Clearly they want to force you to
purchase their overpriced/low quality/no choice food and
drink.
Seating Areas Over the years, and after trading tickets with friends
or being invited
to join others, I've now sat in virtually every seating area possible,
including
suites, club seats (300's section), dream seats (single and double
digit
sections), lower level (100's sections), lower level (200's sections),
and upper level
(400's sections). My evaluation:
1 Suites -- if you get invited to attend a game in a suite this is the best bargain because you aren't paying anything! The view is good, but you are further from the field than sitting in a club seat, and you feel a bit removed from the atmosphere and excitement of a game because you are within a boxed room. Well, its free. By the way, the Redskins converted some of the suites to "club loge" seats because they couldn't sell them as suites. I haven't sat in one of the club loge seats yet, but I suspect I would get the same feeling as being in a suite, except it wouldn't be free! 2 Club Seats (300's Section) -- perhaps half the people that I know that have leased these seats have regretted it because they eventually think they have overpaid and they can't get out of the long-term lease. I remember when they were first offered for sale at the opening of "Jack Kent Cooke" stadium, now FexEx Field. The lowest 10-year lease price was a bit over $900 per year for 10 years for endzone top row seats, increasing to somewhat over $3,000 per year for 10 years for midfield seats. Prices have certainly increased beyond this over the seasons, perhaps roughly doubling for the lowest price seats. The 2004 season saw the "official face value" of club seats range from $235 to $390 per seat per game, depending on section. Every year the Redskins make a very aggressive attempt to get existing "regular" season ticket holders to "upgrade" to club seats. The positives: good view of the field; much cleaner and nicer bathrooms; nicely panelled interior corridors with plenty of food stalls and big screen televisions; short food and drink lines; and slightly more seat room than regular burgundy seats. The not so positive: advertised "waiter/waitress service at your seat" is non-existent and they should stop claiming this; the food in the corridors is not as upscale as they claim (but they do charge you much more than the regular vendors in other parts of the stadium -- $10 for a regular burger, $7 for a large fry!), the seat owners have probably paid at least $200 per ticket per game, and thus you probably are paying more than that plus parking. I think this is not a very good deal if you have to pay so much: the amenities just don't match the price! However, if you are able to pick up some last-minute seats at a lower price (let's say $300 for TWO seats AND a parking pass), then this is pretty good. 3 Dream Seats (single and double digit sections) -- free low-grade food (hot dogs, peanuts, soda), no view; not worth it. You're so low to the field that you can't see anything except the plays that happen right in front of you. These two rows of seats were placed in the stadium a couple years after it was already finished, and they simply don't work. The original designers already figured out the lowest acceptable sight lines, but in an attempt to build more revenues, the Redskins installed two lower rows in front of the former lowest acceptable sightline. I won't sit there again -- not fun if you are trying to watch a game. However, if you like watching and taking pictures of cheerleaders and not the game then these might be the seats for you. You will pay a lot for the privilege. 4 Lower Level (100's Sections) -- one of my favorite places to sit is in the lower level 100's section, roughly around row 10, between the 40 yard lines. Good sight lines, and yet you are not so low that you have zero perspective on the action. Be careful not to sit in rows 1 through 5 for the same reason that you want to avoid the Dream Seats. You will pay a fortune for the first several rows, and then when you go to the game you will be very disappointed with the field perspective! If you can get row 10 seats for the $300 that I mentioned for club seats, then you are doing well. 5 Lower Level (200's Sections) -- be VERY careful about getting these seats -- most of them have obstructed views! This is another one of those cases where the Redskins are trying to jam seats into the stadium where they don't belong. Before the start of the 2004 season they completed the 200 section underneath the club section overhang, and they offered them as an "upgrade" for existing season ticket holders. Phewwwwww, I'm glad I didn't bite on that marketing ploy. One "slight" problem -- the stadium was not originally designed to have seats under the club overhang; the interior corridor is supposed to be there. Thus, there are columns throughout this section that obstruct the view of major parts of the field, plus the overhang prevents you from seeing passes, kicks, punts, bloops in the air, etc. They do have television monitors throughout this section suspended from the overhang and columns so you don't miss the action, but if you wanted to watch the game on TV, why not watch at home for free? There are a few acceptable seats in this section: they are the ones at the very front of section 200 between the columns. I believe section 200 seats should be the lowest value seats in the stadium; if you take these seats make sure you pay the lowest price of all available seats for that game on ebay. The exception would be the seats at the front of the section. 6 Upper Level (400's Sections) -- well, this is where I think the best deal is. Sight lines are great. You can't miss any of the action no matter where you sit, and the prices tend to be the lowest on ebay. I have chosen not to upgrade to club (terrible price compared to amenities), and also not to upgrade to section 200 (lousy view). As the seasons have passed the Redskins have also given me the opportunity to shift my seats within section 400, and I think I am settling into my favorite view -- corner endzone. There is a good reason ESPN and the other major networks choose this sight line for televising the games, it gives you the best perspective of the game! You get a great feel for plays as they develop, especially passing plays. Redskins Season Tickets If you're curious about how I got my Redskins tickets that I list, this is the place to look... After 12 years on the Redskins waiting list I was surprised by a mailing from the Redskins indicating it was my turn to get season tickets! I think the construction of FedEx Field vastly accelerated the time it took to get to the front of the waiting list. This is how I got my first 4 seats together. Now my whole family could go. It's interesting that most historic season ticket holders could only get 2 season tickets up until FedEx Field was finished. Probably not very fair. The Redskins then provided an opportunity for historic season ticket holders to be more fairly treated and offered them a chance to get 4 more season tickets, but not necessarily seated together with their original two or among the 4 new seats. When they did this, they actually offered the same opportunity to new season ticket holders (I only had my seats for 1 season -- so lucky!!!). When I called the Redskins office to find out what sort of seats I could get -- they found that some previous season ticket holders vacated the four seats immediately in front of my original four. Wowwweeeee!!! I jumped on the opportunity, and thus now have 8 seats together so that my family and special friends can all go to a game!!! I have yet to see anyone else on even a single game basis (except for professional ticket resellers) who have 8 seats together. Some people have 6 together, but they are usually at the very top of the stadium. I also finally got two on-site parking passes, much better than remote parking. We can't go to every game, and in fact now that my children are more absorbed into playing sports than watching sports, we go to a select few Redskins games. Those games that we don't go to, I put on e-bay. The Redskins now say that their season ticket waiting list is 90,000 persons long. It was 40,000 persons long when I first signed up many years ago, but that was before the new stadium was built. The new stadium added approximately 30,000 seats over old RFK stadium, so it helped a lot! I'm still surprised at the attrition rate of season ticket holders. If each season ticket holder acquired 2 seats when the stadium was finished that would reduce the list by 15,000 names (30,000 seats), which means 25,000 people (50,000 seats) would have to give up their seats over a 12-year period so that I could get my seats. Hmmm ... roughly 2,000 persons (4,000 seats) a year giving up their season tickets. I guess in most businesses that would be a fantastic customer retention rate, but I don't know how that compares to other teams in the NFL.  View From My
Season Ticket Seats
Hobby
I've
been coaching youth soccer for 7 years now, and it's tremendous
fun. It's so rewarding to see the children enjoy themselves and
also develop their skills starting at 5 years old (or less). If
you'd like to get involved in one of your children's activities and
have a lot of fun, try coaching a soccer team or two!
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