Thanks. That is strange the way the media portrayed it - you would think that the string of unbroken sellouts would have been a front-running fact in those articles. Why do you think the stadium would sell out 32 straight games and then have trouble with a huge postseason game last week? It didn't sound like ticket prices were the issue and it took forever to get them sold.
Ticket prices and the team collapsing post clinching the division, coupled with the Arizona frontrunner fanbase that simply expects the Cards to lose until they prove otherwise. Once they proved it, and proved it again in Carolina, the frontrunner fans (doesn't mean casual) jumped on board. It's sad, but we embrace them. They weren't jumping on for wild card week though. We knew for more than a month we'd be hosting the first round, and were pretty sure quite early in the season but I think many fans expected one and done and weren't very excited.
Season ticket holders got their invoice for the playoffs (all potential games) due in early december...the cards were crapping the bed, the Same Ol' Cards mentality was out, and Xmas in a bad economy meant a lot of people did not take the option. They figured we'd have a game and maybe a road game, but no way would they lay money down for an NFC Champ game we'd never get (odds were long on this one). So they figured they'd get Atlanta tickets on the secondary market, and they did. Because really, who is an Atlanta fan in Phoenix? And it's wild card week, nobody's travelling for that.
But then the stars aligned, you guys beat NY and here we are hosting. And all the season ticket holders like me who bit the bullet back in december and paid for the tickets are ecstatic to be using them, while others are paying double face to come, and they ARE paying it because they WANT to be here.
It's a curious little case study of fan perception of a team, economy and "chances" those tickets would be good. I'll be honest, a decision tree on this would have been interesting and given the chances, it might have leaned toward not taking the playoff option. But I couldn't give up my seats for anything in the world...
To clarify, there are about 35,000 absolute DIEHARDS of this team, who sweated and died at sun devil Shhhhole "stadium" that do not fall into that front runner fan category. There are 10s of thousands of others who started coming to the games when we got the new building, and many of them also don't fit into the category. But the MO of this town is a front-runner, fairweather town. That's most of the people we are seeing on TV saying how their favorite player is Antrel Rollie and such. Or wonder how that Lionheart QB is gonna do. But at this point, we don't care..bring 'em in. Big tent!