I don't think its that.
I think its just the simple fact that people are not going to spend on snow sports in June and therefore need incentive to do so. I know something about this.
One summer I couldn't afford my NHL season tickets. I put up craigslist adds for insane good deals looking for partners to make payments I couldn't afford. I got tire kickers but none pulled the trigger. There was a lockout and that would have been a shit show if someone helped me make my payments but I couldn't afford them I had no money. I found a broker willing to give me 5 bucks over cost. But he would only pay the team and I wouldn't see a penny until I brought him the tix in September. I told him to fuck off and wasn't really able to pay the bill the shortened season was the only reason I didn't lose my seats (Im poor its a struggle.)
That showed me how worthless hockey tickets are in the summer. And the only way anyone would buy them is if they were buying from the team and therefore had access to playoff tickets and the like or cherry picking games that will surely sell out. Timing is everything. ANd the people who do buy winter sports tickets in the summer are educated consumers expecting the best deal possible.
Vail could sell a shit ton of season passes if people could buy them December 7th up until Christmas. But at that point people will spend money on single day lift tickets so those prospective customers are worthless and told to GTFO. They will only take season pass money when they are not getting 100 bucks a day off suckers. When sucker money is coming in season pass money isn't important. When no sucker money is coming in they'll take the season pass money because they aren't getting a penny of 100 bucks a day sucker money or a penny of food and drink money in the lodges.
They want the sucker money but will take non sucker money in the summer when nothing is flowing in.
Hopefully a vail or squaw CEO reads this and fires the dumbasses who think its a good idea to refuse to dump discounted tickets on liftopia during a shitty winter. And send me a PM if you want a CEO who will raise your bottom line I could raise revenues by 100% if I was put in charge of ticket sales for major mountains and you could fire most of your overpaid asshole upper management. If Squaw was fully open I'd pay 100 bucks a day to ski there instead of driving to Wyoming. But its not. (They are so greedy you can't even get a significant discount on 50-100 group tickets Ive looked into investing in some if I could get the deal that ski shops get and sell them on craigslist you probably have to buy 1,000 to get a real discount and even then they'd put restrictions on the days you could use them.)
