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The Philadelphia Union are changing ticket prices to fall more in line with other soccer stadiums throughout the USA, according to an email sent out to season ticket holders today.
Non-River End endline season tickets will fall in price and corner seats throughout the stadium will have raised costs, starting next season. For current season ticket holders in sections 101, 113, 114, 120, 121 and 133, a grandfathered price of $342 will be offered for the same seats in 2012. New season ticket holders will pay $414 for the non-endline corner sections.
Additionally, sections 114 and 120 will be reclassified as endline sections, meaning that after 2012 they will be included under the endline season ticket prices. All non-River End endline season ticket holders will also be grandfathered in at $342 and will be $342 for new season ticket holders in 2012.
The reasoning behind the ticket increase is an upgrade to seating in the corner sections. Here is the official statement from the Union:
When the stadium was being designed, seating in the Corner areas was supposed to be a fixed, non-tilting, plastic seat. For this reason seats in the Corner areas were set at a lower price than those in the Endline area which had the higher quality seat. After pricing was announced and fans were making payments, it was brought to our attention that we had an opportunity to upgrade the seats in the Corner areas to the more comfortable tilt-backed seats that are in place today. So we did what we thought was best for our fans and moved forward with the higher quality seat even though it affected the way we priced our seating chart. At that point we felt it was not fair to make any changes since fans were already in payment plans so we kept the prices.
The Union's ticket staff confirmed over the phone that the image seen above is the proper pricing chart for the affected sections.