A quick glance at Ticketmaster on Wednesday afternoon showed the face-value prices for the Packers playoff game ranged from $313 and $102, not counting Ticketmaster fees. If you've attended a NFL game, you know that the cost doesn't end with tickets. Parking is outrageously and insultingly high at most NFL games. Concessions aren't cheap either. NFL teams have gouged and gouged and gouged, and maybe there's a breaking point.I haven't been to a game in years but my sister still goes to Jets games at Metlife Stadium and she told me that parking requires some kind of permit that runs into the hundreds of dollars - extra if you want to show up early and tailgate. Beers inside the stadium are $12. Twelve dollars!
NASCAR allows spectators to bring in their own drinks but that still hasn't stemmed the tide, which is obvious from all the empty seats in the stands during races.
2 comments:
I'll add two more problems beyond the outrageous pricing.
First, as I understand it, spectators attending games now have to subject themselves to near TSA levels of idiocy getting through the gates. Metal detectors and pat downs are barely tolerable when I need to submit to them to get to work in a secure site, I'd be hard pressed to think of an entertainment venue I'd enjoy enough to put up with them.
Second, the quality of the product they're selling is declining as the costs are increasing, and never has that been more apparent than this post season. At least one of the teams playing in the wildcard round, and arguably two, are only in the playoffs because they got help from the refs in the season finale. If you follow football you have to know how overzealous Steelers fans are. Is there any chance at all that the Bengals game wouldn't be sold out if they were playing the Steelers instead of a Chargers team that needed overtime and two blatantly blown calls to beat the Chiefs backups? Bengals-Chargers is going to be about as entertaining as Auburn-Western Carolina, and the only reason it's going to be on TV this weekend is because that's the match-up the refs wanted. And how fired up is anybody but a diehard Packer fan going to be to sit in the snow and watch a team that squeaked in on a questionable fumble return TD?
I'll be curious to see if they actually sell out the Superbowl which will be played at the previously maligned MetLife Stadium.
In New Jersey.
In February.
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