BakoSaint

There are different perspectives to look at this. I won't argue that New Orleans is a popular tourist destination. But its also very popular with a lot of international tourists who don't care about football. For domestic tourists who do care about football, its not a given that they will buy tickets for enough money that scalpers profit. Thats why season tickets were not sold out in the Ditka and Haslett years. It's not that New Orleans was not an attractive travel destination, its that watching Heath Shuler, Danny Wuerffel, Aaron Brooks, Kerry Collins, or Todd Bouman was not how tourists wanted to spend their time in New Orleans. And if they did decide to catch the game, they were looking for a bargain, not getting into a frenzy to bid up to $500 for the once in a lifetime chance to see Danny Wuerffel light up his home field. Sean Payton and Drew Brees made a Saints road game compelling.

Now lets say the Steelers come to New Orleans a year or two down the road. Will some Pittsburgh fans decide that makes a good trip? Perhaps. But if the Saints are in the gutter and Derek Carr is looking like Colts Matt Ryan, that will make it less compelling. They will be less likely to go to the game, and less likely to be willing to pay a lot for the ticket. And even if 2/3rds will still want to go, removing 1/3rd of the bidders on StubHub might cut the market for the tickets drastically. And also you will have less Saints fans bidding on those tickets too. Inventories will soar, prices will fall, and tickets will sell for less than they used to, and fans will get used to paying less.

But Pittsburgh is a good team so even if a ticket sells for $300 not $500 the scalpers may still make money on that game. The problem is, making money in total with all the games. Scalpers have to buy all the tickets, and it used to be that all the tickets features Drew Brees. Now some of the tickets are Carr vs Mayfield or Carr vs Ridder. And they have to buy 1-2 preseason games where the tickets are hard to give away. And then if we are in Ditka/Haslett mode with DA, how many Atlanta, Carolina, and Tampa fans are going to want to come to New Orleans and pay top dollar for tickets to watch a crappy game? If the Saints are bad, and especially if other division teams are bad too which is the case now, scalpers stand to lose money on a lot of games. Sure, they might make money on a few big games, but not as much money if the Saints are bad, the games are less compelling, and you dont have locals without season tickets bidding for those games too. But then they may lose money on a lot of games too with preseason, meaningless week 16-17 games, boring division matchups between two bad teams that play here every year, etc.

And stubhub etc take high fees. To make money on tickets you really need to be able to sell like 4+ tickets a year for twice what you paid and at least sell everything but preason for face value or better. It's very possible for scalpers to lose a lot of money reselling tickets if they have expensive tickets for a bad team without a marquee star. Many ticket holders may be scalpers, much of the waiting list may be scalpers, and they will all flee if they start losing money. So actually, scalpers are a big reason season tickets could fall off a cliff and not be sold out.

I got season tickets when I lived in New Orleans and didn't want to give them up when I moved away so I know how it is. I sold many tickets for awhile so I could afford to keep the season tickets and go to a few games. But over time it got harder. Certain sections can be underpriced and amount to printing money when the team is good, but then price adjustments can come out of the blue and double the price of an underpriced ticket. I am not sure of the exact figures but it seems like a lot of ticket selling sites take a lot of the money, or list your ticket for more than you actually get so if you list for $150 they may show the ticket as $175. And if its a bad game, its hard to break even. And preseason it can be hard to give away or sell for $20. Its also a hassle to list the tickets. Some scalpers may already be losing money, but being close enough to breaking even that they are holding on with the memories of past profits. If we keep DA and the team really gets in the gutter, they may take big losses and drop out.

The Pelicans also play in New Orleans. Tourism is very similar around their adjacent stadiums. But the Pelicans don't sell out, because they don't have a reputation as a marquee franchise with a marquee star everyone wants to see. If the Saints keep losing and Pelicans start winning, the scalpers will get Pelicans season tickets.

Ultimately the best thing we can do to have more home support is win. Our fans will show up and be loud is we win and a few road fans wont matter. If we lose, less of our fans will show up, and we will be like the Washington Generals for road fans to watch their team destroy, even if those road fans happen to get their tickets even cheaper directly from the box office because we are not sold out. We can't not be a tourist destination, but lots of other teams play in good tourist destinations too, and many of them win.

For an example of how scalpers can lose money, look at the Panthers at Saints game on 12/10. Plenty of upper level tickets starting at $35. Plenty of plaza tickets starting at $100. Figure Stubhub is taking at least 15%. And the lowest priced tickets are priced to sell whille higher price are holding out hope for increased demand. Probably more likely demand plummets the way the two teams are playing and prices fall further.