Starting Saturday, more than 70 Tops supermarkets will sell tickets to all 81 of the Blue Jays' home games. It's part of a new marketing agreement between the team and the Amherst-based chain.
Tickets will be sold through the stores' Tickets.com outlets, and ticket buyers who show their Bonus Cards can receive discounts, said Stefanie Zakowicz, a Tops spokeswoman.
The terms of Tops' agreement with Blue Jays were not disclosed. It's the first time that the Blue Jays, who played their first season in 1977, have had a major U.S. marketing agreement.
The team is trying to make it more convenient for local residents to buy tickets, said Paul Allamby, the Blue Jays' senior vice president of marketing and sales.
"What I want is a situation where buying baseball tickets should be as easy as it is for them when they're going to see the Sabres or going to see the Bills," Allamby said.
Fans everywhere could already order tickets over the Internet. But Allamby said he wanted to give Buffalo and Rochester area residents the option of going to a local outlet, buying tickets, and having them in their hands when they leave.
He said he's also hopeful that if fans who go to SkyDome only once a year for a game find it convenient to buy tickets at a Tops store, they might attend another game or two.
The Blue Jays are trying to reverse the steep drop in attendance the team has experienced over the past decade.
In the early 1990s, when the Blue Jays won two World Series titles, the team regularly drew more than 4 million fans a year to SkyDome - an average of about 50,000 fans a game. Last season, the team drew 1.6 million fans, or just over 20,000 per game.
Last fall, the Blue Jays contracted with Cenergy Sports and Entertainment in East Aurora to help attract leisure travelers from the Buffalo and Rochester markets. Cenergy will manage the agreement between the team and Tops.
"For us, it was a matter of, how do we keep the Blue Jays top of mind throughout the summer, and make it convenient for the folks to buy tickets," said John Cimperman, Cenergy's president, and a former Sabres marketing official.
Cimperman said he approached Tops about an agreement because of the Amherst-based chain's market share and number of locations.
Cimperman said his first objective is to build local awareness of the team. In his research, he found some fans had the mistaken impression that Blue Jays tickets were still difficult to come by - something that was true a decade ago, when games often sold out.
The Blue Jays will use the Tops partnership, as well as radio and print advertising, to drum up interest in visiting Toronto and attending ballgames, Cimperman said.
"We know there's a demand for baseball in this market," he said.
Customers who buy tickets at Tops and show their Bonus Cards could save $3 to $4, depending on the ticket they're buying, Zakowicz said. Anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 seats for each game will be available through the supermarket locations.
Allamby said that people who buy Blue Jays tickets over the Internet will have the option of picking them up at a Tops supermarket.
Tops will introduce additional promotions related to the Blue Jays partnership this summer, she said.
This is Tops' second recent partnership with a major league sports team. In 2002, it signed a multiyear agreement with the Buffalo Bills.
Separately, Tops celebrated the grand opening of two supermarkets on Wednesday.
The chain entered the Albion market with a location at 408 West Ave.
And it opened a new location on Route 219 in Springville that replaced a store in the same plaza that had been open for 22 years.
| Contact Information: | ||
|
||
| John Cimperman | |
|
| 716.523.8805 | |
|
| john@cenergysports.com | |
|