Is This Why My Season Tickets Are More Expensive?

There is no denying that a beautiful package helps sell more product that a boring one.  So when my Kings season ticket renewal package arrived and I saw this, I got pretty excited.

Wait until you see what's behind the door....

It's nice being the meat in a Kopitar-Brown sandwich!

I can't lie -- seeing my name on the back of that jersey brought a huge smile to my face.  But then I started thinking -- exactly how much does something like this cost?  It's printed on both sides of heavy, glossy paper in color, with multiple folds.  The outside jacket can be mass produced because the piece personalized with my name is a one page insert, but that one page still has to be individually printed.   An ordinary color copy at Kinko's will set you back about a dollar, so a page like this would cost at least $5 because of the quality of the paper.

In the case of the Kings, they're printing thousands of these things, so they're getting a bulk discount and certainly not paying $1 per page.   But they are also paying a company to print, assemble and mail the whole thing for them, so the entire package still costs a nice chunk of change. 

Why does it matter what it costs?  Because everything that is part of the Kings costs of doing business means someone needs to pay for it.  And one way to recoup the cost of expenses is raising ticket prices.

So as much as I enjoy getting fun mail like this, if given the option to do everything electronically and NOT see an increase in my ticket prices, I'd choose that option.   Because at the end of the day, my decision to purchase season tickets is ultimately dictated by the product on the ice, not the one in my mailbox.

GO KINGS GO!