WASHINGTON -- Washington attorney Judd Gould had Redskins season tickets for 35 years. He enjoyed attending games at RFK Stadium, the club's cozy former home. He did legal work for Jack Kent Cooke, the team's longtime owner who died in 1997.
But after the Redskins moved to FedEx Field nine seasons ago, Gould began to feel alienated by traffic jams, parking hassles and high-decibel stadium advertisements and music. Before this season began, he did what once would have seemed unthinkable: He gave up his four seats.
Gould, 65, is among a group of longtime Redskins supporters who have soured on going to the games for reasons including losing records, increases in ticket and parking prices, Beltway traffic jams and a sense that the game-day experience has been swallowed up by the team's moneymaking initiatives. The disgruntled fans have become more noticeable lately, complaining on the Web or leaving stadium seats empty.
"You get the feeling virtually every printed word or piece of noise [in the stadium] is selling something," said Gould, of Chester in Queen Anne's County. He credited Redskins owner Daniel Snyder for turning the team into the NFL's most affluent in the annual ranking by Forbes magazine. "But," Gould added, "they're always on the leading edge of exploitation."
Bethesda schoolteacher Steve Ragsdale, who gave up a pair of Redskins season tickets this season, said he understands that some of his concerns - about ticket-price increases and "being bombarded with sound" - might exist in other NFL cities. But Ragsdale said Snyder, who charged $10 admission to preseason drills six years ago before rescinding the fee, has seemed to cross a line.
"I got fed up with so many things involved with how [Snyder] markets the team and the way he pulls money out of your pocket," Ragsdale, 48, said. The season tickets had been in his family for 40 years, he said.
In some cases it's the little things getting Redskins fans riled up. An example is the $50-per-envelope fee assessed by FedEx Field "will call" windows to fans leaving tickets for others. "I actually haven't heard of anybody else charging a will-call fee, period, much less fifty dollars. Not very fan-friendly," said Robert Hutcherson, a founder of the advocacy group Fans Voice, which surveys NFL teams on services to spectators.
The will-call fee applies to non-season-ticket holders, the club said. "Our stadium is a season-ticket-only facility, with its operation supported in large part by season-ticket holders," the team said in an e-mailed statement. "Non-season-ticket holders must pay a fee for leaving tickets for others."
The Redskins say their fan base, one of the deepest and wealthiest in professional sports, is not deteriorating and that the team is as committed as ever to fans' comfort.
Turnover remains low
Some things, team officials say, are out of their hands. That includes the Washington Beltway, which can back up for miles on game days. Metro opened a new stop two years ago that is slightly less than a mile from the stadium, but most fans still drive. "The Beltway is the Beltway," said Karl Swanson, a Redskins senior vice president. "The current ownership recognizes that the current stadium is not built in the ideal place. But we didn't build the stadium."
Swanson said Snyder, who generally doesn't grant in-season media interviews, was unavailable to comment.
Although franchise officials say the season-ticket turnover rate is "somewhat" higher than during the RFK days, they say the number of fans abandoning their seats has remained minimal, even after the stadium move.
"It's been between 1 and 2 percent - it's been steady," Swanson said. "So it's 1,000 to 2,000 tickets."
Swanson said that figure doesn't include an unknown number of fans who turn their seats over to others. "My guess is that most people, if they do say, 'That's it, I'm not renewing,' that their family or their friends quickly say, 'Don't cancel them, I'll buy them from you.' So they move into other hands from the same account."
The Redskins began selling out RFK Stadium in the 1960s, when Hall of Fame quarterback Sonny Jurgensen was in his prime. Tickets were status symbols and turnover exceedingly rare, partly because the stadium held only about 56,000 for football compared with 91,000 at FedEx today.
Signs of discontent
Tickets are still prized. The club says thousands of fans joined the season-ticket waiting list in the week that Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs returned to the team in 2004, and that the list now tops 160,000.
But there is evidence, from a variety of sources of disgruntlement, of more fans deciding to stay home. The upper deck for some games, such as the Oct. 15 loss to the Tennessee Titans, had an unusually high number of conspicuously unfilled burgundy seats. A Redskins ticket seems to lack the cachet it once had.
A Washingtonian magazine writer reported in September that "I have heard many ticket holders say they would not renew." Some legal and lobbying firms that once held lotteries to allocate their tickets now cite difficulty in finding people to go to the games.
"Every week the Redskins are home I see e-mails flying around our firm's offices offering up Redskins tickets at face value because their owners don't want to use them," said a Capitol Hill lobbyist who requested anonymity so as not to jeopardize his relationship with the team. "There are still pockets of people I lobby and work with who are Redskin fanatics, but the whole game-day thing gets old. You're basically committing an entire day to see them if you want to avoid traffic."
Seats for recent games went for as little as $49 from ticket brokers, a bargain compared with years past.
Fans' dissatisfaction with sports teams tends to crest when the team isn't playing well. The Redskins this season are suffering from a combination of a 4-9 season on the heels of ticket and parking increases. The club raised parking from $25 to $35 and boosted ticket prices this year by a league high of 17.2 percent, according to the annual Fan Cost Index published by Team Marketing Report in Chicago. The report said the Redskins' average ticket price was $79.13, compared with $62.01 for the Ravens.
"After the prices went up I did hear a lot of grumbling from fellow fans [and rightfully so] and many said that they would not renew," Redskins fan Rick Poch of Glen Burnie said in an e-mail interview. "Some folks said that they simply couldn't afford it anymore. Others stated that the product on the field wasn't worth the money."
But Poch and other fans suggested that the fan core remains intact.
"There's definitely some grousing. It gets louder whenever the team loses a couple of games in a row," said Redskins fan Mark Steven of Woodbridge, Va., who writes a column for extreme- skins.com, a Redskins-linked Web site. But, Steven said, "to die-hard Redskins fans, season tickets are almost like those Golden Tickets in Willie Wonka - you'd give anything to get a pair, and if you ever did, you'd probably die before giving them up."
But others say the gripes are about more than just the team's win-loss record.
Access, noise debated
"The stadium was obviously built very quickly before Jack Kent Cooke died [in 1997]," said season-ticket holder Barry Kemelhor of Rockville. "They built it without a lot of thought as to infrastructure and access. Many of the people who sat with us at RFK say, 'Remember the good old days when we actually enjoyed coming to the stadium?' "
Some of the complaints raise issues existing not just in Washington but also around the NFL. Noise from advertisements and piped-in music, for example, is a frequent debate topic among fans and their teams. "What you really want is to generate crowd noise," Ravens president Dick Cass said. "What you struggle with is how loud should the volume be on the speakers around the stadium. Also, the choice of music is an issue. Not all fans like the same type of music."
Swanson said that players often choose the music themselves, and they like it loud. He also said that the stadium's suburban, Prince George's County setting - the facility wasn't originally within walking distance of Metro - places it at a disadvantage compared with Baltimore's.
Because it is downtown, M&T; Bank Stadium is more accessible than FedEx Field. Ravens officials say many fans travel to the stadium by mass transit and others park in downtown lots and walk. It has 5,000 parking spaces - compared with FedEx Field's 20,000-plus spots - and its capacity of about 70,107 is about 20,000 less than FedEx's, resulting in less traffic.
Allegiance safe
Even if they start winning, Redskins fans with long memories say they won't forget how Snyder charged them to watch training camp at Redskins Park in 2000 and later added obstructed-view stadium seats as part of FedEx's expansion. The club put TV monitors near stadium seats with partially blocked views.
Swanson said Snyder has a creative marketing mind but acknowledges when he is wrong.
"We looked at doing a Redskins-branded soda and Redskins-branded hot dogs, too," Swanson said. "We said that's not right. We're not in the food business."
With Redskins fans grumbling this season, some local sports talk radio hosts have asked callers if they would consider switching their allegiance to the Ravens.
Swanson said he isn't worried about that happening. Any fan who starts rooting for the Ravens, Swanson said, wasn't really a Redskins fan to begin with.
jeff.barker@baltsun.com
Redskins fans' annoyances
Some reasons Redskins fans are giving up their season tickets or not showing up for games:
Team is losing (4-9 entering this weekend).
Tickets are too expensive (average $79.13).
Takes too long to get to FedEx Field because of Beltway traffic.
Parking is too expensive.
Stadium music is too loud.