flgreen Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 New York Fans, Unite! Posted: 05/ 9/11 01:40 PM ET Yankees fans and Mets fans, unite! Giants fans and Jets fans, stand together! Knicks fans and Nets fans, make some noise! It's time for all sports fans to get off the sidelines and into the game. We've been fouled, blind-sided, leg-whipped, and hip-checked for too long. For years, sports team owners and leagues have played on our loyalties and preyed on our wallets, forcing even the most marginal fan to subsidize sports stadiums and arenas that then enable them to charge us ever-higher prices for tickets to games. Not only do they charge outrageous prices for the tickets, owners black-out games and deny us the best-quality broadcasts that we already pay for on our cable TV bills, threaten to relocate teams if their demands aren't met, and even shut down and lockout their leagues to get their point across. Consider the New Meadowlands, where the owners of the Jets and Giants received tax breaks, debt retirement, road improvements and rail links. In return, the Jets and Giants raised average ticket prices 32 percent and 26 percent, respectively, in 2010. Compare that the NFL average of a 4.5 percent increase in 2010. Then there are the personal seat licenses required to buy season tickets, which can cost up to $30,000 for Jets games and $20,000 for Giants games. Oh, and by the way, there may not be a 2011 NFL season unless owners' demands of players are met. Never mind that countless workers and businesses in and around NFL stadiums will be adversely affected the longer the lockout drags on. Yankees Stadium received over $1 billion public subsidies and yet the average cost of a Yankees ticket this season is $52, which is second highest in the majors and $25 more than the national average. The land was free, too. Many South Bronx parks and recreation areas were leveled for the new stadium and replacement ballfields were promised. Three years later, there are still no ballfields for youth baseball teams. And in Madison Square Garden, Knicks owner Jim Dolan has raised ticket prices 49 percent for 2011-12 even while the stadium (also owned by Dolan) receives property tax exemptions worth over $10 million per year from taxpayers. Further, Dolan and Cablevision are illegally screening some Knicks and Rangers fans, withholding MSG HD from fans who don't want to use Cablevision, but would rather use other carriers like Verizon or DISH. The Federal Communications Commission last year declared that practices like what Dolan and Cablevision are doing to sports fans are a violation of federal law, but the FCC still won't step in and fix the situation for fans. Of course, that may not even matter, because if Dolan and the other NBA owners don't get their way, there may not be 2011-12 season. Yet another lockout looms on the horizon for sports fans. Right now, our system socializes the costs of sports while it privatizes the profits. It's time for the gravy train to stop. In March, Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh (D-Manhattan) and several co-sponsors introduced the "Public Benefits for Professional Facilities Act." The legislation would, among other things, condition future stadium spending on providing affordable tickets to the public. At least 7 percent of tickets in a stadium receiving some sort of public financing or support would have to be available at prices that all the members of a community can afford. The legislation is a great start. Affordable tickets are the least we should expect of owners, teams and leagues who ask us to help pay for their stadiums. Fans should be able to see our teams play on television without having to worry about blackouts, or not getting the type of broadcasts we pay good money for. And we absolutely should not have to continue paying for access to sports via season-ticket deposits of seat licenses despite owner-imposed work stoppages. All fans can agree on these things. But things won't change until we get off our feet and do what we do best -- make some noise. If we all join together, we will be heard. Join us at SportsFans.org. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetsFanInDenver Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Its called having you cake and eating it too. Its an art really. And that art has been perfected and sold as free market capitalism! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxman Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Not sure how getting the govt to regulate ticket prices is really going to impact much. The entire upper bowl is already reasonably priced with no PSL. That is more than 7% of the seats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flgreen Posted May 9, 2011 Author Share Posted May 9, 2011 Not sure how getting the govt to regulate ticket prices is really going to impact much. The entire upper bowl is already reasonably priced with no PSL. That is more than 7% of the seats. This is the Huffington Post. They want the Government to regulate when you can fart so it doesn’t up set the ozone layer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slats Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Outside of the $55 I pay for my JI premium membership, I don't spend any money on sports. These people are all scumbags. If it's true about the ballfields promised/not delivered in the Bronx, that's particularly horrendous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
war ensemble Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 (edited) These people are all scumbags. If it's true about the ballfields promised/not delivered in the Bronx, that's particularly horrendous. They've got a bunch of new stuff already up, with more to come. Those ballfields they said weren't delivered are the ones directly on the spot of the old Yankee Stadium, which are set to open very soon (the only delay at this point is waiting for the sod and all that to stick or whatever--the rest is pretty much done). They've got a new skatepark which I see from the subway--I'm surprised people actually use it though. They've been late and missed several deadlines, but they're almost done now. Most of the natural fields were replaced with synthetic turf and all that--they're much nicer than what used to be in that area. Edited May 9, 2011 by war ensemble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
faba Posted May 9, 2011 Share Posted May 9, 2011 Keep politics out of sports-concentrate on the budgets and economy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
war ensemble Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 Keep politics out of sports-concentrate on the budgets and economy. Ideally, you should go one way or the other. If you're going to fund new stadiums, you need to have some control over the prices--otherwise you're enabling consumers to be price gouged to line the pockets of a probable billionaire. Unless, of course, you feel pouring that money into a private company will provide more valuable benefits, where some control over the investment isn't necessary. On the other hand, you can completely refuse to fund these stadiums and leave consumers to make up the cost. Ticket prices would be purely regulated by supply and demand as in free market capitalism, but that seems to be where we're at anyways. So... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greeniemeanie Posted May 10, 2011 Share Posted May 10, 2011 Ideally, you should go one way or the other. If you're going to fund new stadiums, you need to have some control over the prices--otherwise you're enabling consumers to be price gouged to line the pockets of a probable billionaire. Unless, of course, you feel pouring that money into a private company will provide more valuable benefits, where some control over the investment isn't necessary. On the other hand, you can completely refuse to fund these stadiums and leave consumers to make up the cost. Ticket prices would be purely regulated by supply and demand as in free market capitalism, but that seems to be where we're at anyways. So... Keynesian economics vs. Austrian economics. You simply can't have a semi regulated market coexist with free market principles. As soon as money is taken from one group (i.e. taxes and subsidies) and given to another, the entire foundation of the very rules that make the free market work, go right out the window. Unfortunately, most people don't understand that the free market doesn't need to be regulated. It regulates itself. However, the measures that are required to exist for the free market to regulate itself disappear as soon as the smallest bit of regulation is artificially introduced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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