[RndTbl] On forcing people to get Google accounts

[Trevor Cordes]

On 2022-11-05 Mark Jenkins wrote:
> 
> First, Ticketmaster and the Blue Bombers have made it very irritating
> to attend a football or soccer game without a smartphone running the
> proprietary Ticketmaster, "Blue Bomber" (a ticketmaster whitelabel) or
> Google Pay apps. I imagine True North (Jets/Moose) with Ticketmaster
> has done the same thing at their venue.
> 
> I believe it's possible to stand in a long customer service line on
> game day for a printed ticket, but I've just bent over and just used a
> casual (not day to day) smartphone to avoid that.

Great, detailed reply, I really appreciated it.  I just wanted to chime
in on the Bombers thing:

1. You don't need the Bomber app to get in to games @IGF (nor Mosaic
either).  They have a normal web page, also just a rebranded TM site.
The best way to reach it is through the blue bombers season ticket
"portal".  Then the usual "my events", etc.  Shows the exact same
mobile ticket with the moving line.  I'm pretty sure that portal works
for any TM account holder: you don't have to be a Bomber STH.

So that's really great for not being forced into an app, which is just
a glorified html wrapper anyhow.

I'm going to the GC in a few days and I was able to access my GC
tickets through the Riders' portal.  Weird, but it won't show up in my
Bomber nor vanilla TM methods of access.  But this proves that
(probably) all CFL venues are accessible without an app.

2. I remember reading you can get printed tickets and I think that
includes getting them all ahead of time (if you're STH) for a set fee.
I don't know if it's a per-ticket fee (probably is) or a
per-batch/season fee.  But it wasn't much, compared to what you'll
spend on a ST.

3. I've personally gone to games this year with older friends or
game-day buddies who couldn't get their ticket to show on their phones.
I couldn't help them as I went through the gate first.  So we had to
yell back and forth through the gates like something out of a WWII
movie as they are told to leave, and walk off to the ticket office to
waste 30 mins of their life and miss kickoff.  The staff are under
instructions not to help people with their phones.

None of these new things take into account the elderly and
technophobes.  Just having the web site or app ask for the user/pass
again right when they are at the gate vs when they loaded it at home is
enough to make it impossible for many people.

For STHs there is no reason they can't still mail out 1 ticket +
lanyard for the whole year like they used to, if a fan requests it.
Only a small percentage would require it.