Season ticket holders take priority with new attendance restrictions, says MLSE
Following the announcement from the Ontario government that sports venues would have their capacity capped at 50%, MLSE was forced to make a decision on which ticket holders would be able to attend games and which ticket holders would be refunded for their tickets and out of luck for the live game experience.
The decision that MLSE ultimately came to was that season ticket holders would take priority over those who hold secondary tickets.
"We are fully supportive of the province's direction and the health protocols, whatever they deem necessary as far as our capacities and protocols," MLSE's senior VP of ticket sales Tom McDonald said on Thursday. "Totally supportive."
Since the Leafs and Raptors both share the arena, the issue has an effect on both organizations. In the Raptors' case, season ticket holders make up about 70% of the total ticket sales. For the Leafs, that number is around 85%. McDonald says that the goal at this point is just to divide things up as equally as possible for all season ticket holders, splitting them into two groups.
"The goal here is to do this as fair as we can, but understanding that there's nuances to all of this," McDonald said. "As far as the seat selection with members go, we have divided up the building and have gone section by section, and literally have said one season ticket holder is 'Pack A' and the next one right beside is 'Pack B.'
"Members will get every other game until mid-January."
McDonald is not in an enviable position at the moment, with so many patrons looking for answers that he does not have.
"Like everyone, we're taking this day by day and we'll look to the province for direction," he said. "We put a pause on our (individual ticket) sales for the time being and have mapped this out until mid-January.
"We'll need to re-evaluate as we get closer to those January dates."
Hopefully the number of positive COVID-19 cases in the province will drop to a more manageable level by the time mid-January rolls around.
As unlikely as that sounds, given what we're seeing with the new Omicron variant, holding on to hope is all we really have at this point.
