With the inaugural season quickly closing in, the Sylvan Lake Gulls hit another milestone.
The Gulls, set to play their first year in the Western Canadian Baseball League, went ahead with a season ticket drive on Wednesday, and it’s gone about as good as can be expected.
President and GM of baseball operations Aqil Samuel said the organization sold about 90 per cent of their first batch of club seats in the first two or three hours.
“We’re pretty happy, it was a successful launch,” Samuel said.
“That was really cool, fun to sit here and watch the screen as the orders were coming in. The support, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of November, we’re pretty happy.”
In total, the team will have 882 bucket-style club seats, with a season seat starting at $499 and individual game tickets starting at $22.50.
They will have 4oo seats in the bleachers in the first season, with season tickets starting at $350 and individual games at $15.
Samuel noted that in Phase 2, they will have built-out bleacher seats all that way from the dugout, on the third base and first base side, adding an extra 1,000 or so seats.
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He said the plan going forward is to release flex packs, five or 10-game packages, where fans can pick which games over the summer they want to attend. Those will go on sale Dec. 1.
“It’s a credit system, so they can sit either in the bleachers or the club seats and we’ll let them pick the games closer to the season,” he said.
As of now, the Gulls will play 28 home games, roughly split between midweek and weekend contests.
They are planning on selling 50 per cent of tickets, and depending on COVID-19 measures by the province, will make adjustments closer to when the team takes the field.
“We’re hoping with the way the park is laid out, that there’s some flexibility. We can spread people out. We just didn’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. This initial launch went to plan,” he said.
Still, Samuel said he was once again impressed by the community showing up and getting on board with ticket sales and only hopes they can keep the momentum going ahead of the home opener.
“I’m always telling the ownership group how everybody is excited about it in Sylvan Lake. Just to actually see people start paying for things, that validates it. It was a great feeling,” he said.
As of now, the league plans to open the season on June 11 at the newly built Pogadl Park in Sylvan Lake.