3100 Left

The latest update has the Vikings needing to sell 3,100 more tickets before 3:30 pm CT tomorrow or have the Eagles game be blacked out in the Twin Cities.  The original deadline was 3:30 pm CT today but, obviously, the NFL offered an extension.  As of yesterday there were 8,000 tickets left so I guess there’s still a chance those last 3,100 could sell in the next 24 hours.  All indications are there will be no big corporate ticket-buy so those seats will have to go legitimately.

Plenty of possible explanations for why this fiasco happened in the first place have been put forward, some legit-sounding, some merely entertaining.  The most irritating from a “can’t this organization do even simple things right” stand-point has the Vikings totally flubbing their notification of season ticket holders about certain policy changes.  The big change involved the package season ticket holders were required to buy in order to get playoff seats:  In the past, if you wanted playoff tickets, you had to purchase all the possible home games, and if the team only played one game then whatever remained would be applied to your tickets for the following season.  But the Vikings changed this policy since the last time they were actually in the playoffs – now you can buy a ticket to one playoff game at a time.  Unfortunately, this change was inadequately explained to season ticket holders, many of whom didn’t want to shell out money for that possible second playoff game (a long-shot to happen even if the Vikings do beat the Eagles).  So, basically, the Vikings shot themselves in the foot by not making sure their most diehard fans understood the new rules.  Sounds like serious organizational chaos to me.  Clearly, it isn’t only the coaching staff that sometimes looks like it doesn’t know what it’s doing.