Puckdropper wrote:


This is something I don't understand. Why have prices so high so the
teams can only half-fill the ballpark? Lower the ticket and
concession
prices and more people will come. It's basic economics.

It's simple.

It is not the fan in the seat but the TV camera that controls the
franchise, along with box loges that can be rented for thousands of
dollars per season.

There is no better example than Art Modell and the old Cleveland
Browns before they left Cleveland.

The Browns played in Municipal stadium, located right downtown, next
to a freeway, with seating for over 80,000 when configured for
football. (Also home to the Indians before Jacobs field was built)

Season tickets extended between the 30 yard lines.

IOW, at least 50,000 seats were sold for the season before the first
game was played.

Don't think they missed a sell out crowd in at least 30 years.

The only way to obtain season tickets was to have them left to you in
somebody's will when they died.

Talk about loyal fans. The Browns won the championship only once in
Cleveland, with Modell at the helm.

Every season, I made a few $, betting against the Browns.

It was money in the bank.

So what happened?

Modell saw a way to improve the bottom line, and moved a team he had
bought with other people's money, a team he had owned for almost 40
years, to Baltimore.

Baltimore had suckered the locals into paying for a new stadium a few
years earlier, so Modell got what he wanted.

After the Browns left, they demolished Municipal stadium, and suckered
the locals into paying for a new stadium, built on the site of the old
one.

The new Browns owners, got a sweet lease deal, nice new loge boxes.

The fans got screwed.

Here in L/A, the Rams, formerly from Cleveland(they moved from
Cleveland to L/A after the 1945 season), moved to St Louis almost 10
years ago.

The NFL is all bent out of shape.

L/A will not kiss their rear end to get a new team.

There is already more to do in L/A than time to do it.

Who the hell need a bunch of spoiled brats called a football team,
especially on their terms.

Pro sports always had a money side to it, it is just more sleazy now.

Off the box.

Lew