CHICAGO - Having watched his team play and be managed well below what he considers an acceptable level of soccer, Travis Alabaster decided to take out his frustration and anger on the teams front office when asked to renew his season tickets.
I'm going to pay for my ticket but I'm going to really complain about doing so.
"I sure showed the front office a thing or two." Alabaster says, "I got an email from the Fire front office asking me if I wanted to renew my season tickets. I knew they were probably pretty anxious to see what kind of renewal rate they were going to have, so I marked the email as unread and left it in my inbox for a few days."
Just minutes before receiving the email, Alabaster had been ranting on Twitter about how crummy the team was being managed and how it just wasn't worth going to the games anymore. "It's ridiculous. No one seems to be invested emotionally anymore, just financially. Well, I wasn't about to break. I waited until the last day before I had to renew before logging into the system. Even then I put the season ticket renewal in my shopping cart and left it there. I am making my voice heard and I know they are hearing it loud and clear."
We talked with the Chicago Fire's season ticket manager Dick Laurent who informed us that the entire system is automated and that they actually don't collect any metrics regarding ticket renewal until after the season is over. "Whatever kind of personal protest he was making had no impact on us at all, financially or otherwise. His little tantrum was as ineffective as Yallop's ability to bring our team to the playoffs."
We spoke with Alabaster and let him know about Laurent's response to his actions. "Well. Ugh. God. Whatever. Fine." After making a few comments that we were unable to make out, he then spun around in his computer chair and logged into the season ticket renewal site and opened up the shopping cart. He then proceeded to enter his information but paused before finalizing the transaction.
"Hey, get your camera over here. Check this out. I'm going to click the button but I'm going to do it with my middle finger when I do. Go back and tell them that I did this."
Post ticket purchase realization that Hauptman is still in charge.
The Nutmeg News can confirm that Fire ticket manager Dick Laurent said, "I knew that spineless prick would cave" after Mr Alabaster's purchase went through.