While bumming around on twitter today, I came across this:
FC Dallas Loves To Rip You Off
Sweet merciful Jesus that is a lot of money! I don’t fly halfway across a continent on short notice to see soccer games on a regular basis, but that $1800 price quote put a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve purchased flights, hotels, and soccer tickets separately before, so based on my concept of how much these things cost, $1800 sounded like at least double what a trip to the MLS Cup final should cost for an FC Dallas fan. Why speculate, though? The internet is a wonderful tool. I have the power to find out exactly how much this trip should cost!
I went to a leading, nationally advertised travel site and entered in my details. Leaving DFW airport on Saturday, returning via Toronto international on Monday. I didn’t enter a hotel preference so I could see a nice wide variety of options. The cheapest flight and hotel combination available came in at just under $700. If you want to stay somewhere nice downtown, it will run you somewhere between $900 and $1100 for your flight and hotel. If you’re feeling super classy, you can fly and stay at the Four Seasons for $1600.
Using great applications like Craigslist, Facebook marketplace, and Ebay, one can probably find a ticket to MLS Cup super cheap, but for the purposes of this exercise, I decided to go a little more legitimate. On StubHub, the cheapest ticket is currently going for $39 with the most expensive going for $500. You can get a top quality ticket in the midfield area for about $150.
Transportation is basically a non-issue, since there must be a couple of bars running drunk bus promotions. If you can’t find one or that isn’t your thing, a taxi shouldn’t run more than $20.
So, if you want a super quality experience (flight with leg room, nice downtown hotel, drunk bus to and from the game, ticket in center midfield,) you can do it for somewhere in the neighborhood of $1100. If you want to do it up on the cheap, you might be able to make the trip for under $900, or roughly half of the price FC Dallas is quoting you.
Unless customers are flying on Clark Hunt’s private jet and staying at the Four Seasons, FC Dallas are ripping them off to a ridiculous extent.
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