PPPFFFTTTTT - professional sports is rapidly pricing itself outside the range of the average joe.

/great idea...............................

From Indy, Colts fan. People fell off the bandwagon pretty quick didn't they?

/I'd bet on 3-13 this year

Interest in the vast majority of professional sports is something I simply don't get.

What ever happened to the word 'fewer'?

ComicBookGuy: Interest in the vast majority of professional sports is something I simply don't get.

I didn't either, while I was on acid. Shiat just didn't make any sense.

/thousands of people pay hundreds of dollars to watch grown men play a GAME?
//f that, let's go to the beach

Quantum Apostrophe: Damn it, I demand my homosexual rape fantasy "sport" be televised!!!

You're in a homosexual rape fantasy football league? I'm joining one at work this year. So, do you pick a really troublesome running back with the first pick, or a too-good-to-be-true quarterback type? I've heard you can usually wait a couple rounds before drafting a QB, but I think Matthew Berry may have written something contrary to that...

And I'm sure the Colts' vice-president of ticketing operations would never massage the truth to make management's decision sound like a winner.

Has anyone pointed out the grammatical error in the headline yet?

In New Orleans we define "abusive relationship" a little differently.

coderitr: Has anyone pointed out the grammatical error in the headline yet?



A Gramatica error.

FTFA: "There were three times the number of calls this morning as opposed to the last couple days," Hall said.

I work in ticketing and this happens any time after a major holiday. People talk with their friends and family about things they want to do while hanging out. Ticket manager is just trying to make his boss look good.

Why did this go main page? Not like I think the main page has any sanctity, but i'd rather have comments pertinent to the article as the sports tab would have allowed.

MBooda: In New Orleans we define "abusive relationship" a little differently.

They put a bounty on Goodell?

Strik3r: PPPFFFTTTTT - professional sports is rapidly pricing itself outside the range of the average joe.

/great idea...............................

I get the feeling that the 10's might be the "lost decade" for the NFL. They really are pricing themselves into a corner where the "average joe" won't be able to attend any more.

$60, 80 and 100 to park your car?
$60 for a single nosebleed last-row-of-the-stadium ticket?
$9 for a lukewarm 16oz beer?
$7.50 for a hot dog?

They're Colts fans. It's a business plan based on exploiting the mentally disabled.

jayhawk88: thecpt: Why did this go main page? Not like I think the main page has any sanctity, but i'd rather have comments pertinent to the article as the sports tab would have allowed.

To further my grammatical humiliation?

No that still happens if you go sports page as my greens have told me
Link

I didn't even bother to post a response that its not actually an error.

mjohnson71: Strik3r: PPPFFFTTTTT - professional sports is rapidly pricing itself outside the range of the average joe.

/great idea...............................

I get the feeling that the 10's might be the "lost decade" for the NFL. They really are pricing themselves into a corner where the "average joe" won't be able to attend any more.

$60, 80 and 100 to park your car?
$60 for a single nosebleed last-row-of-the-stadium ticket?
$9 for a lukewarm 16oz beer?
$7.50 for a hot dog?

Yeah and then you have to sit right in front of the reincarnation of Vince Lombardi himself (with seven beers in him) and have him bless you with gems like, "Catch the damn ball!" for three hours while he pounds his chest and then reminds the entire section that "This is our house!"

Didn't some congressman want to push through legislation banning NFL blackouts in cities where public funds were used in building stadiums? I'd use my Google-fu but it's still early.

If you live in a city subject to lots of NFL blackouts, I highly recommend NFL Red Zone. I turn it on Sunday mornings and never turn the channel.

Quantum Apostrophe: Damn it, I demand my homosexual rape fantasy "sport" be televised!!!

You might want to move your homophobia to another thread.

Some cities' fans will buy every available ticket no matter how poor the football team is. Interest in US Ice hockey dropped when games were not routinely aired in broadcast television. By comparison, Canada has a huge hockey following and air some games. Owners want every penny they can get/gouge out of the public..

I'm glad that blackouts aren't something we've had to worry about in Steeler Country for a long, long time.

Hmmm, maybe Manning was right to get away from the Colt's owners

Weidbrewer: I'm glad that blackouts aren't something we've had to worry about in Steeler Country for a long, long time.

Makes up for the 81 times a year PNC Park 1/10ths full.

/Must really suck to be a Pirates fan

IAmRight: redmid17: Congrats farkwads. You look like complete morons over a few hundred grand total and managed to only sell 1000 tickets.

Based on the original article, it says "We're pretty confident that we're going to sell out, so we're not going to lower it."

Now, Irsay is being an assclown with his Twitter feed, but the local media decided to make a story out of something that wasn't a story because they can. Why would they put out a press release to say "business is going to continue as usual because we feel as though we're going to sell games out."

Relax, Fox, neither of the games your network carries (vs Bears, vs Packers) are going to get blacked out. At minimum, visiting fans will show up.

Pretty much THIS.

The article also says that teams that go with the 85% threshold have to up their gate revenue sharing to 50% (from 34%). I'm not sure why the Colts would agree to giving more $ back to the league, when they are well on their way to meeting the higher threshold (and I agree with the commenter who said that it probably had more to do with the July 4th holiday than the Colts' announcement).

6655321: Some cities' fans will buy every available ticket no matter how poor the football team is. Interest in US Ice hockey dropped when games were not routinely aired in broadcast television. By comparison, Canada has a huge hockey following and air some games. Owners want every penny they can get/gouge out of the public..

In the past 15 years, teams have also gotten really smart about building smaller stadiums to keep supply low in the ticket market. People are also more likely to buy season tickets when they know they can probably recoup their money when they resell games they don't want, and it makes the ticket office's job really easy to print/mail out the entire season in June (not to mention the nice cash influx when people renew their tickets six months before the team ever steps on the field).

Painfully, I have observed this firsthand in Chicago (one of the largest cities in the US, with one of the smallest NFL stadiums). Meanwhile my beloved Washington Redskins haven't figured this out (one of the best attendance totals in terms of number of fans, one of the worst in terms of % of stadium that's actually full).

I read this morning that the Bears just increased all tickets by 25% this year. Now the worst seats in the house are over $100 EA.

Screw that. Not only is watching football superior on an HD screen at home, out of principle, fark off.

I'm glad that my dad was able to take me to many games at Soldier Field when I was growing up in the 80's (we didn't have much money).

If I have a kid and I'm still making comparable money to what I make these days, that kid will be lucky to see more than a couple of live NFL games in his childhood. A $400 outing for a dad and son to go to an NFL game is outrageous.

The NHL has some stupid blackout restrictions as well.

I would happily pay for Gamecentre live to watch my local Canucks on my PS3 and finally cut the cable cord, except that it's blacked out by IP Address geo-location and credit card address info.

Hey NHL, please take my goddamn money in exchange for allowing me to watch your content. I could get around the technical hurdles, but I shouldn't farking have to. And you have that nice stipulation that if I'm caught circumventing the blackouts, you can terminate the service without refund.

So, when I finally cut the cord, here are my two options:

1) Legal, easy streaming to my PS3 in high quality. You get paid for your content. I'm not paying for monthly cable anymore. Everybody wins*.

2) Illegal, awkward, low quality streams to a PC hooked to a TV. You don't get paid for your content. Still not paying for cable, but it's almost not worth it because of the streaming headaches. Nobody wins.

Pretty simple choice there.

*Assuming you don't give a shiat about the Cable company or cable sports networks, which I don't.

Mr. Coffee Nerves: I've had Eagles season tickets since 1998. A pair of seats six rows from outside in the upper deck end zone (formerly the 700 Level at the Vet).

My first season tickets were $35 each (face value was $50, but season ticket holders got a discount) and parking was $10.
This season my tickets are $70 each (face value - no more discount) and parking is $25. Shockingly those seats did NOT come with a Personal Seat License for the new stadium, but now that the team owner has divorced AND he's announced improvements to the stadium with an announced cost that would be precisely the amount raised by a $2,000/ticket PSL for the upper deck -- the lower deck seats did have PSLs from day one -- I think the writing on the wall is rather clear.

Jeez: that place is like 8 or 9 years old and it already needs renovation? What are they going to do?

El Brujo: I read this morning that the Bears just increased all tickets by 25% this year. Now the worst seats in the house are over $100 EA.

Screw that. Not only is watching football superior on an HD screen at home, out of principle, fark off.

I'm glad that my dad was able to take me to many games at Soldier Field when I was growing up in the 80's (we didn't have much money).

If I have a kid and I'm still making comparable money to what I make these days, that kid will be lucky to see more than a couple of live NFL games in his childhood. A $400 outing for a dad and son to go to an NFL game is outrageous.

I've still got a ticket stub from an early 80's St. Louis football Cardinal game. Our 3rd row of the upper deck 50 yard line seats are marked $16.50.

mjohnson71: Makes up for the 81 times a year PNC Park 1/10ths full.

/Must really suck to be a Pirates fan


What's a Pirate fan?


\Seriously, though - it's weird to actually have a team this year....but as I keep explaining to people - it's only July.

IAmRight: Nexzus: Assuming you don't give a shiat about the Cable company or cable sports networks, which I don't.

Since the cable companies pay them more than you do, they probably do care.

I'm not so sure about that. From what I understand, the model is the network pays the NHL to broadcast the games, the cable companies pays the network to carry them, and the cable company passes that cost to its customers. The networks make money by selling advertising to a certain number of hockey-watching spectators during a game.

So, my "value" to the NHL for watching 1 game on a cable network would be something like (1 / Total VIewers Per Game) * (Money Paid to NHL for Broadcasting season/82 games broadcasted per year)

/Yeah yeah, aggregates, economies of scale, lots of logical flaws, etc. I'm just annoyed.