In the latest evidence that the sports in-home viewing experience has possibly trumped the in-stadium one, ticket sales were slow for the first week of the National Football League's marquee stretch of games.Well, yeah. It's a no-brainer. Let's talk about the choice. The only real experience I have with big stadiums is with my beloved LSU Tigers, but I'd rather sit at home than go to the stadium. Why? It's simple.
I have to drive to the stadium, a 100 mile drive, then I have to find a place to park and walk a mile to the stadium, then I have to stand in line with my expensive ticket. If I have nose-bleed seats, I have to crawl up into the top of the stadium, brave the weather, and watch the game through binoculars. If I want something to eat, a hot dog is $5.00 and I'm going to buy one for everyone in my party. It's easy to drop $100.00 on concessions at a Division 1 college ball game. Then, after the game is over, we do the whole thing in reverse, crawl down from the stadium, walk a mile to find the car, then drive home 100 miles. Yeah, I want to do that several times a year.
Or, I can sit home on the couch, or at my local bar, watch the game free-of-charge, and enjoy the company of like-minded friends and family, with magnificent front-row seats and instant replays. The company is great, the seats are magnificent, the climate is controlled, and do you know how many hot dogs I can make for $100.00? It's a no-brainer. I don't care if I ever go into another stadium for a big football game. It's not worth the time, money, nor effort.
Now, if college (and NFL) ball, get the tickets down to $5.00, with a dollor hot dog, I might fhink about going to their overpriced, inconvenient stadiums, but until then, if I want to sit in bleachers, I'll go to the ball park and watch my beloved Bolton high school.
3 comments:
Ditto here, but you left out a factor: the way the NFL is dumbing down the game, a lot of the empty seats can be blamed directly on them. American Football is the world's most popular full-contact spectator sport, but the bonehead NFL is trying to eliminate Full Contact.
I played the game in high school, loved to hit, not run, so I played the O-line. Football shaped my entire way of thinking about conflict, but it won't for future generations. That's a crying shame.
I went to one pro football game, enough for a lifetime. I was sitting with Da Missus, behaving myself when a drunk idiot dumped a $7 beer down the back of my neck. Never again.
The same year I went to a Mariner's game. While waiting for the doors to open a Rent-a-Cop feeling his oats tried to confiscate my new $75 multitool. I told him no. He tried to take it by force, alerting an actual Police Officer who told the RAC to get lost then told me to go in and enjoy the game. With my new $75 multi-tool on my belt. I called the Marinter's ticket office next day to get a refund for the remaining six of my seven ticket package. The Mariners, in a blast of common sense sent me a card listing the "Weapons" prohibited and the procedure for leaving them in the Will Call office to retreive them after the game, and an upgrade to a ten game package. They also said they had hired a security firm that trained their personell. We've never gone to another game. (Sold the tickets to a scalper, legal here)
I have been to a few NFL games in my younger years and I enjoyed them. To old and curmudgeonly for all that crap now. Much for the same reasons you said, not to mention in my state it is illegal to carry my EDC knife and my EDC gun.
You will arrest me if I go naked and that is pretty much the only time I am not armed, so...
Post a Comment