The MLB Giants' home sellout streak is "at an MLB-best 240 games heading into a six-game, season-ending homestand," even though "thousands of empty seats can be seen" at AT&T Park, according to Alex Pavlovic of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS. A sellout is official when the club distributes 41,500 tickets, "through a combination of paid tickets and complimentary ones." The rules "say nothing about fans actually showing up," and the Giants claim that they "aren't inflating any numbers." The team will miss the playoffs after winning last year's World Series, and Giants Managing VP/Ticket Sales & Services Russ Stanley said people "just aren't using their tickets." The Giants "typically give out 500 to 600 comp tickets a night, spread among the teams, umpires, scouts, team employees, sponsors and others." Stanley said that "many of those tickets are returned, allowing the Giants to sell them at the last minute." Pavlovic writes that is why a fan "can walk up to AT&T Park at first pitch and find a seat for a 'sold out' game, and why the Giants have continued to push seats through email blasts, Twitter and Facebook even as they announce one sellout after another." This year's paid attendance figures have "ranged from 42,747 to 41,048, with comps always putting the Giants above the needed number of distributed tickets, one set by individual teams and not MLB." The sellout streak is "expected to continue, and the Giants don't see it ending anytime soon." Meanwhile, the team is "testing a program that would allow fans to upgrade their seats during games, filling some of those left empty by season ticket holders who didn't show" (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 9/24).
