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TFC Set To Slash Ticket Prices

  • Frank Doyle's Author profile. Frank Doyle

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Stuck in last place in the MLS, Toronto FC had to do something to keep its already meager fan base.  On Thursday they announced a drastic cut in their season ticket prices.

Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment boss Tom Anselmi told a select group of writers who cover TFC regularly that the team’s season ticket prices would drop to their 2007 rates for next season. “We are resetting all of our pricing back to year one,” Tom Anselmi said. “It represents a pretty healthy rollback. About 90 per cent of our season ticket holders will be seeing like a 20-per-cent rollback. I think about 40-something per cent will be receiving like a 45-per-cent rollback.”

The average price for the red zones at BMO Field will drop from $68 to $53 and the cheap tickets in the south end will move from $19 to $10. We need to take a step backwards as a company and … focus on our core business and get that right,” Anselmi added. “Team, fans, community are the three things … at the core of the business. And so the fan portion of that … is what inspired the thinking on this.”

The reality is that it remains to be seen whether these ticket rollbacks will be enough to keep TFC supporters coming back to BMO Field. Paul Mariner is TFC’s seventh head coach in the club’s six seasons and the squad has yet to advance to the playoffs. Right now they’re riding a 12-match winless run and sit at the bottom of the MLS standings at 5-20-7. Despite the price cut, TFC’s tickets will still be among the most expensive in the MLS.

“We have fans that have basically built this franchise,” Anselmi said. “(TFC fans) changed the league. They set the bar for what this league has become; the bar for expansion; the tone for what supporters are about and can be about in North America.”

Anselmi wouldn’t get into specifics when questioned about possible personnel changes following this season, but did acknowledge that MLSE brass will look into different options. “We’ve got to look at it and decide whether we’ve got the right set of technical skills, the right set of resources and the right leadership,” Anselmi said. “We’ve got to get the right advice and make the right recommendation (to the board).”

Toronto plays its last home game of the season Friday against Montreal before closing out the 2012 schedule next weekend in Columbus.