Major sign of the slowdown? (And have you noticed, it's not the Bear Bear anymore, or the Lehman watch, nor is it the Credit Crisis or Credit Crunch, it's the "slowdown.") Stadiums are empty and people actually take notice that ticket prices have doubled or even tripled in the last five years.
"We've taken an incredible leap with the pricing of tickets that is going to come back to haunt the major sports," said Michael Cramer, professor of sports management at New York University.
Don't make fun. That program was totally our second choice. (Admittedly, we had been watching Jerry Maguire a lot).
Combine this with the "stadium name curse" (a favorite topic here at Dealbreaker) and the total lack of enthusiasm for smaller, local businesses to put a monochrome logo on the side of a wall for a rotating 30 minutes per game and you have a genuine problem.
"We'll cross our fingers like everyone else and hope that there's some type of economic recovery and any negative impact on our business will be a minimal one," National Hockey League Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told Reuters this month.
Uh, Bill? Just a hint. Hockey's problems have nothing to do with the "slowdown."
Sports face weak corporate spending [Reuters]
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 9:58AM
1st and al gore sux.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:00AM
at 1 keep your pseudo- intellectual political comments to your self. I suspect that you are CLUZO in disguise. This sounds like his dribble.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:02AM
http://tfpoi.com/2008/10/20/peggy-hill-and-cotton-hill-are-running-for-the-white-house/
lol
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:10AM
"Hockey's problems have nothing to do with the 'slowdown.'"
wholeheartedly agree with the above statement.
Posted by prgy , Oct 21, 2008 10:17AM
cluzo is a tool
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:18AM
Took my kid to the circus on Sunday at the Prudential Center. I couln't afford the good seats... Looked like no one else could either. Entire sections were empty.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:23AM
http://tfpoi.com/2008/10/20/peggy-hill-and-cotton-hill-are-running-for-the-white-house/
lol
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:26AM
Wait till the banks stop renewing their luxury box leases.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:47AM
@8, wait until there aren't even enough banks to lease them to begin with...
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 10:50AM
Unbelievable interview this weekend on Bloomberg radio with a MLB Head Office guy who was touting 2008 for MLB and thought that by having a few teams "Hold the Line" or offer "family friendly packages" for 2009 that MLB would be able to weather the Recession (he wouldn't use the R word). Immediately that meant that despite a few holding prices or offering cheaper ticket to crappy games (and increase prices for good games), a majority of teams would raise prices.
My thoughts were that it is a good thing they were able to secure public funding for the "New" Yankee Stadium and Citi ponied up 20 gazillion dollars for the Mets new stade, in the parking lot of Shea and their corporate sponsors are locked up in long term deals or else the interview would have had a completely different tone.
Good luck to him!
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 11:00AM
Uh, Bill? Just a hint. Hockey's problems have nothing to do with the "slowdown."
huh??
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 11:12AM
Too many pucks without a helmet
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 11:12AM
the NHL is doing fine... ex southern US teams (FLA, TB, Carolina, Nashville). Revenues driven by Canadian teams and they always sellout. Potential for stronger C$ moving forward helps too.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 11:25AM
college hockey is more fun to watch anyway
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 11:36AM
I couldn't be happier about this. Hopefully ticket prices will get back to somewhere halfway normal and atheletes and teams will make less money. A family of four attending a regular season (hell, could even be hockey) game with decent seats, food and parking has to lay out almost $400-500. Stupid, just stupid.
Posted by KevinB , Oct 21, 2008 11:55AM
I remember attending Blue Jay games in 1977 - cheap seats were $2, and the most expensive seats were $7. 31 years later, the most expensive seats are $58 - eight times as much. But that's not as ridiculous as Maple Leaf tickets. For one of the least successful teams in the NHL since 1967, the best seats in the house set you back $400. Take a friend, and that's the equivalent of a new HDTV for two and a half hours of entertainment.
But what's sick is they still regularly sell out. The NHL is musing about putting a second team in Toronto - good, they need some competition.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 12:33PM
this just in: Venezuela acquires Argentina in a hostile takeover
Posted by Bulging Bracket , Oct 21, 2008 12:42PM
Firstly, The Leafs don't "regularly sell out". They are ALWAYS sold out, waiting list for season tickets is insane. This is what happens when you have one team in a region of 5-7M hockey crazy people with tons of money.
NHL needs to prune the southern teams, especially the third tier cities (Nashville... ). Teams should only be in areas where people don't panic when it snows or the metro pop is 3M>. And they have to kill Atlanta and Florida teams. Accept that there will never be a national TV deal in the US and focus on keeping the core audience happy.
The rest of the leagues will suffer with the death of naming rights and a recession. People complaining about prices have no business on this site or going to games. It's corporate entertainment and a decent night out. But there's no way for people to be regular fans given the ridiculous number of home games, even if tickets were $7 each.
Posted by KevinB , Oct 21, 2008 12:57PM
I remember attending Blue Jay games in 1977 - cheap seats were $2, and the most expensive seats were $7. 31 years later, the most expensive seats are $58 - eight times as much. But that's not as ridiculous as Maple Leaf tickets. For one of the least successful teams in the NHL since 1967, the best seats in the house set you back $400. Take a friend, and that's the equivalent of a new HDTV for two and a half hours of entertainment.
But what's sick is they still regularly sell out. The NHL is musing about putting a second team in Toronto - good, they need some competition.
Posted by bittergreen , Oct 21, 2008 1:08PM
Hockey's problems are that they have too many people with funny accents commentating during the game. If they could get Joe Buck and Tim McCarver to do their bang-up job on Hockey, the sport would really take-off.
Posted by KevinB , Oct 21, 2008 1:17PM
Sorry about the double post.
@18 - Back in the world series years, the Jays sold out the Skydome for 81 home games. I used to attend 20-30 games a year. Now it's down to two or three. Part of that is due to having two girls, who aren't into baseball, so it's a lot of time to take away from them. But part of it is due to the prices.
Posted by KevinB , Oct 21, 2008 2:22PM
@20 - Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are so biased to the National League, I can't stand to listen to them. They're always raving about how play in the NL is better, despite the fact the AL has won 11 of the past 16 World Series. I hope the Rays kick the Phallusies in the butt.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 2:36PM
@22 - Buck is a smug way-too-confident-in-himself jerk who thinks he knows the "right way" to play sports. Douche. McCarver is just clueless and if I do ever watch a game, it is usually muted. Those two guys are terrible.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 3:06PM
"Accept that there will never be a national TV deal in the US"
They have a national tv deal--it's just with OLN, after Gary "I try to make Bud Selig look good" Bettman decided to break his contract with ESPN for the glories of a Comcast-owned non-basic-elsewhere station.
Having moved from NJ (Devils tickets available at the door) to Montreal (Devils-Canadiens tickets available for C$200 in the nosebleed section, C$500 for anything halfway-decent), I can vouch that hockey is doing fine here.
And the Sun Belt canard seems not to have harmed the no-longer-North Stars. (Florida, btw, thrived under Torrey-as-GM and has s*ck*d since--hard to draw people when you're not playing well in the first place [see Nationals, Washington].)
Hockey may actually survive better BECAUSE it has so little to lose.
Posted by guest , Oct 21, 2008 3:10PM
"Accept that there will never be a national TV deal in the US"
They have a national tv deal--it's just with OLN, after Gary "I try to make Bud Selig look good" Bettman decided to break his contract with ESPN for the glories of a Comcast-owned non-basic-elsewhere station.
Having moved from NJ (Devils tickets available at the door) to Montreal (Devils-Canadiens tickets available for C$200 in the nosebleed section, C$500 for anything halfway-decent), I can vouch that hockey is doing fine here.
And the Sun Belt canard seems not to have harmed the no-longer-North Stars. (Florida, btw, thrived under Torrey-as-GM and has s*ck*d since--hard to draw people when you're not playing well in the first place [see Nationals, Washington].)
Hockey may actually survive better BECAUSE it has so little to lose.