As Globe Life Field sits empty, Texas Rangers season ticket holders grow frustrated
At long last, the Texas Rangers have a new 2020 schedule.
The first one became moot in late April, when the likelihood that all 162 games, 81 of them at home, would be played in a season delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The revised schedule, released earlier this month, is only 60 games, but it would appear to be somewhere for the Rangers’ business-side brain trust to start when attempting to solve a pressing issue — how to accommodate their season ticket holders.
Fans have committed thousands of dollars for season tickets, money the Rangers still haven’t refunded in the vast majority of cases despite the loss of 56 home dates. That’s just shy of 70% of games fans can’t attend.
Meanwhile, some season ticket holders have lost 100% of their patience.
They want to know where their money is, if they can get it back, and why the Rangers have been slow to communicate. Ticket holders were understanding early in the shutdown, but they want answers after four months of uncertainty.
“Their communication to us could be better,” Fort Worth resident Linda Thornton said. “If we want to try to find anything out it’s us having to reach out and ask the questions. Because of COVID-19 we’ve just really not received any information about the direction and what’s going on.”
Thornton said that she and her husband paid more than $12,000 for two seats to all 81 games and parking. Matt Jordan, who lives in Flower Mound, said he paid around $2,000 for 20-game package for two seats and parking.
Both are huge baseball and Rangers fans.
“I’ve been going to games since I was a little kid, 5 years old, out of the original stadium out there,” said Jordan, now in his 50s. “So I want to believe the best in the Rangers, but just like so many other people during this whole thing, not everybody’s going to do what you would do or what you’d hope they would do.”
Thornton hasn’t been shy about her ticket plight, speaking out on Twitter about the lack of communication from the team. A retired communications specialist, she has no issues with her ticket representative but the messaging — or lack thereof — from the team.
The same goes for Jordan, who believes the Rangers should have a better handle on the situation. The four-month pause on the season should have given the Rangers a chance to brainstorm the possible scenarios and convey those to season ticket holders.
“I have never gotten a call from my ticket rep,” Jordan said.
The problem is the Rangers still feel like they don’t have enough answers to pass along.
It’s not as simple as it might seem, especially regarding the uncertainty on if fans will be allowed. The Rangers could make it easy and not allow fans the rest of the season, as a few teams have done, but a team that just implemented furloughs to 12% of its full-time workforce clearly needs whatever ticket revenue it can get.
Only season ticket holders will be permitted into games this season, and the Rangers are still planning to have fans at games this season even though MLB has inserted itself into that decision.
The Rangers were hoping to have fans for their season opener, July 24 against the Colorado Rockies, but MLB isn’t allowing fans until at least the Rangers’ second homestand Aug. 7-12.
Considering the surge in COVID-19 cases, it wouldn’t surprise the Rangers if MLB pushes that back further. In the meantime, they are working on a seating manifest and protocols that would safely allow fans to attend games according to the Reopen Texas plan.
Right now, that’s 50% capacity or around 20,000 fans. All of the season ticket holders would be accommodated, Rangers executive vice president Joe Januszewski said.
Everything has changed and could change again, and one change affects all levels of season ticket holders and the different amenities they have added to their plans.
So, the Rangers have been reluctant to set anything in stone only to have to scrap it and go through a series of steps again and again.
“We’re really just trying to get to a place where we know if we can have fans or not to be able to give them a plan for options regarding how they want to treat the monies they have on account,” Januszewski said. “I can appreciate the frustration. When there’s no new news, it’s hard to reach out and say, ‘There’s no new news right now.’
“But we do feel like we’ve worked as hard as we can to have a good rapport and stay in touch with folks and let them know as soon as were able to roll a plan out that is substantive, we will be in communication.”
Januszewski also has a message for any season ticket holder who feels like the Rangers are holding them or their money hostage: Contact their ticket rep or contact him directly.
“We don’t ignore our season ticket holders,” he said. “They’re our lifeblood.”
The Rangers started issuing refunds to fans holding individual tickets for games that were canceled as each month passed, and will issue refunds to fans who have individual tickets the rest of the season.
Season ticket holders who have encountered financial hardships during the pandemic have also had money returned to them, Januszewski said, and if anyone doesn’t feel safe attending games during a pandemic, they will be accommodated, too.
The Rangers would prefer that fans roll their 2020 ticket outlay into next season, and they are attempting to incentivize fans to do so by offering credits to their accounts that could be used on concessions and elsewhere during games.
Thornton, who is retired, and Jordan, who owns a Mosquito Authority franchise, aren’t hurting for money, but they also weren’t sure they wanted the Rangers to hang onto their money until the 2021 season’s scheduled home opener April 5.
Thornton said that she was offered a 5% credit if she didn’t take a refund. As one of the fans who is concerned about COVID-19, she asked for a refund but was told that to receive a refund would require the permission of a department higher-up and that receiving a refund could affect her “status” with the team.
“Threatening me and then telling me I have to get someone else’s permission to get my money back is very, very poor form and only served to make me angry,” she said.
Ultimately, the Rangers agreed to refund her money.
Jordan said the uncertainty caused by the pandemic might lead him to seek a refund. He isn’t sure what he wants the Rangers to do to convince him to keep his money until 2021.
He won’t do it without incentives.
“Whether it’s by their own choosing or not, they’ve been shut down on putting people in the seats,” Jordan said. “Maybe they’re having to rethink things, but you know they worked on a plan of, ‘What if we can’t put anybody in there?’
“I think their plan is, ‘Let’s just drag our feet on this and try to get people to roll over to next year.’ There are many people that are willing to do that, and you know what, if they sweeten the pot enough on it, I’d be willing to do it.”
But incentives won’t stop his frustration with the Rangers for how he feels like they have handled his situation.
He’s not alone.
The Rangers, though, can’t give any season ticket holders, disgruntled or not, a definitive plan. And that’s frustrating, too.
“It’s a different plan if you have a season with no fans or there’s a season with some fans vs. no season at all,” Januszewski said. “So we’re just trying to be thoughtful, and we’ve been very transparent with our season ticket holders in telling them we don’t have all the answers. We’re waiting on answers and decisions to be made.”
