Hockey star tells critical fans to kiss his ass

In My Humble Opinion
41

No they aren’t. The cheapest tickets are $17 and $18 (at least according to their website). But that’s the Cubs. They’ve got relatively small supply and huge demand.

Go to Camden Yards in Baltimore and you can get left field tickets for $9. In Washington, there are several sections between $7-10. In Anaheim, you can get a family of four in for $28 ($9 adult, $5 children). The Dodgers have family packs available which get you 4 tickets, 4 Dodger dogs, and 4 cokes for $48.

Baseball is by far the most family-friendly of the Big 3 sports to attend. It’s not even close, frankly.

Again, absolutely untrue. To get season tickets for the Bengals, for instance, the cheapest I could pay is $740. That’s $440 for the tickets and another $300 for something called a Charter Ownership Agreement. If I want to get season tickets for a family of four, that’s $2,960.

Compare to the Reds. The cheapest season tickets I can get is $770. Not much different. And instead of only getting 8 games, I get 81 games. If I want season tickets for the bleacher section (which is a better view than the nosebleeds for the Bengals), it’ll cost me $560. Which is almost $200 cheaper per person than what the Bengals offer. And again, I’m getting more bang for my buck.

(I chose to compare the Cincinnati teams because they both have new stadiums and both suck donkey balls).

Or compare to the Angels. The cheapest season tickets I can get is $656 for an adult and $328 for a child. For a family of four, that’s $1,968. Or, $1,000 less for the baseball tickets.

I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that the NFL is more fan friendly than MLB.

That’s silly. The market drives prices, not salaries. If the NFL weren’t making as much revenue and had guaranteed contracts then they’d just pay lower salaries.

42

Now it comes out. Nothing that Roenick said is correct, it is all the big bad media ruining his words by taking them out of context. J.R. shifts blame onto media. You know, when the media is constantly taking your words out of context, maybe it isn’t them and maybe it is you. Moron.

43

Yet, adam, nowhere is the full tgranscript of his rant posted.

The press just grabbed onto the “screw the fans” message and sold it that way.

You know and I know that Roenick wasn’t painting with that broad a brush, but most people don’t, because ESPN wants to sell ad space.

And they sold ad space with creative editing.

He has every right to be angry.

44

I don’t care about anything that comes out of Roenicks mouth. I would consider giving him the benefit of the doubt if this was the first time that he claimed his words were taken out of context, but it happens almost every time he opens his fat mouth. I don’t find him to be smart, and I don’t find him to be particularly insiteful with regards to the state of hockey. I do find him to be self absorbed and self important and unable to think things through before he speaks. As with everything YMMV.

45

According to this website, the Fan Cost Index for the MLB is $164.43. While the Fan Cost Index for the NFL is $321.62.

The NFL is just less than twice as expensive per game, looking at the national average, than MLB. I think this is a pretty fair analysis.

Considering that the NFL plays one tenth as many games, I think it’s reasonable to assume that if the NFL had the MLB’s CBA you’d see a dramatic increase in salary costs which would get passed on to the fan.

You cannot say that since MLB games are cheaper that it’s more fan friendly. Sure, being half the cost is a benefit, but when you consider the scarcity of opportunity to go to the NFL games they are doing an admirable job of making it accessable to everyone. Big picture, the NFLs salary cap benefits the fan. That policy is a big reason why the NFL is more popular.

Cheaper != Fan Friendly.

Though, I would argue that dollar for dollar you get alot more for your NFL ticket.

It might be a matter of preference, but I see the salary cap and parity as being the hallmark of looking in the fan’s best interest.

46

I haven’t seen the entire interview, but many of the journalists I’d read and seen have admitted that the quotes are taken dramatically out of context. Michael Wilbon on PTI was especially specific about how misleading it was, thouh he did say that it’s stupid, in whatever context, to bash any fans.

47

I wish I could have heard what Wilbon said. I love PTI and I think that it’s a bit more real WRT commentary than shows that sell snark and prefabricated witticisms.
I also think that one of the reasons WHY the NFL can charge so much for its tickets is because each team only has 8 home games, so they become “events.” The demand is increased because the supply is so low. More NFL games would mean a drop in ticket prices (or, let’s be honest, a reduction in the rate at which the prices increase) as demand became less insane. However, the number of injuries would skyrocket and injure the draw of the product. It’s difficult to compare MLB and the NFL in terms of value EXCEPT in terms of “x number of tickets, hot dogs, programs, beers, big foam fingers.”
As far as Roenick goes, he’s a jock, and well-spoken jocks are few and far between. But he does have a point, as crudely as he may have expressed it.

We have people in this very thread calling it the “strike.” And there are people on the street making a big stink about how they are going to withhold their money (which, it is arguable, they’d never have spent in such a manner in the first place) in protest of something about which they know next to nothing, well, I can see how that might be galling. Jeremy Roenick may not be the right spokesman, but the emotion is certainly valid.

48

Maybe, but some of that stuff is ridiculous. For example, it includes a parking charge for the Red Sox. Most of the fans, from what I could tell, take the subway in. Same with the Yankees or Nationals.

That survey doesn’t have much to do with the reality of going to games.

You say that, but I don’t buy it. When the NBA went to a salary cap, ticket prices didn’t go down. When the NFL was forced to accept free agency without a cap, prices didn’t skyrocket, nor did prices drop or remain static.

In fact, since 1994 when the NFL instituted a salary cap, fan costs increased 78.35% in the NFL. In MLB, they increased 61.51% in the same time span. Salaries are driven by revenue, not the other way around.

You keep saying this but you have yet to prove it. The NFL was already more popular than MLB before the salary cap was ever imposed. The NFL is more popular than MLB because of gambling, its more telegenic nature and its relentless and brilliant marketing strategy (unlike MLB’s relentless and brilliant marketing anti-strategy).

Then what, pray tell, does? Is it the television blackouts the NFL imposes if the fans don’t fill the stands?

I wouldn’t. Unlike baseball, football is better on TV.

Has nothing to do with the fan’s best interest. Has to do with the NFL making sure the players aren’t paid commensurate with their worth to the league. As I pointed out, costs increased at a greater rate than MLB in the NFL over the last decade and MLB has worked far more to grant fans access to the games than the NFL has. In addition to not blacking out games if the stands aren’t filled, MLB has both their premium out-of-market package and MLB.tv - both of which have fewer viewing restrictions than NFL’s Sunday Ticket. Plus it’s cheaper to attend a game, and fans of the team are actually able to attend the World Series since most of the tickets haven’t already been handed out to corporate sponsors and cronies like the Super Bowl.

49

Now you’re just being contrary. First off the MLB parking cost is lower than it is for NFL. Plus is makes up a whopping 5-7% of the total. If you remove ticket cost from the equation it brings the NFL clsoer to the MLB. Also, I’d argue that the MLB is much more condusive to selling consessions. The “one dog, one beer” model ignores the tradition of tailgating versus the tradition of peanuts and cracker jack (not to mention hot dogs and lots of beer). I’d argue that this model is overly favorable to the real MLB experience instead of the NFL one.

In any case, I think it’s a reasonable starting point for the discussion and the impefections aren’t large enough to really influence the point.

It’d be impossible to prove I suppose, but are you arguing that if the NFL got rid of the salary cap that salaries wouldn’t go up? Is it really the market keeping NFL salaries where they are? I doubt it. Yes, NFL owners make more money than they should relative to the players. But they are paupers compared to baseball owners. The Cubs take in $1.1 million per home game in tickets alone. The most the Bears can hope for is $4.2 million. The NFL salary cap is $85 million or so, the Cubs payroll is $87 million. You’re telling me that the NFL owners are the greediest?

Looking at pure increase is costs doesn’t tell the whole story. For every Yankee and Red Sox club who’s payroll is skyrocketing along with ticket costs, you have the Royals and Brewers who don’t even try and compete. This doesn’t happen in the NFL largely due to the cap and CBA. That, fundamentally, is what makes the NFL more fan friendly. Competitive play and league parity. Costs are only one component, and given the nature of the two sports I think the NFL has done a excellent job of keeping costs relative.

Not sure I agree with that. The 80’s were a hell of a good period for both sports. It wasn’t until the 90’s and the salary cap era that we’ve been calling the NFL the true national pastime. It’s something I can’t prove since it’s an opinion, but I don’t think anyone can argue that the NFL has the most parity of any sport. Parity is what makes almost every game competitive and worth watching. That is the most important thing to me as a fan. The salary cap is almost wholly responsible for this parity. I’d still like to see the system tweaked, but it’s a hell of alot better than baseball’s system.
Yes, the NFL does things that aren’t the best for the fans. Some things baseball does are great. But, when talking about the salary cap vs. non-salary cap structure, I find it impossible to grasp how anyone could think that a cap is not fan-friendly.

50

You miss my point. My point is that parking isn’t a cost for most Boston fans when they attend a baseball game, but it is a cost for most Boston fans when they attend a football game. Same with Washington or New York fans.

I’m not saying it’s a whopping part of it, I’m just using it as an example.

Fair enough.

Sure they’d go up. They go up now. Maybe their rate of growth would be a bit higher, but I wouldn’t expect an explosion - especially if guaranteed contracts went with it. In 2004, players in the NFL took about 64% of revenues. Players in MLB took 63% of revenue. Seems that salaries as a % of revenue is somewhat constant between the two leagues.

Remember that salaries wouldn’t really increase for most players. Second and third stringers would still be getting the minimum since they’re generally pretty replaceable, meaning that the general increase would only be for a few superstars. Moreover, I think the fact that every team isn’t right up against the salary cap is evidence that it’s not just the salary cap holding teams back from spending.

The greediest? No way, jose. I think all of the owners are equally greedy. The only reason that MLB doesn’t have a salary cap is because the players won’t let them. Salary caps are just plain good business. They keep costs constant and mitigate risk.

You’re telling me the Cardinals don’t try and compete? Both the Royals and the Brewers try and compete. They’re just really, really, really bad at it. And it has nothing to do with lack of a salary cap, it has to do with greedy owners who’d rather pocket the profit than spend it on the team. If anything, what keeps NFL owners from doing the same is the salary floor.

They were indeed good times for both sports, but it’s also when NFL ratings began to creep past MLB ratings. Baseball ceded a ton of ground to the NFL during the 70s and 80s.

Because, as I’ve pointed out, it’s not the cap that keeps NFL owners from making sure their teams compete. Or at least, pretending to want their teams to compete - it’s the salary floor. Small-market baseball teams that make an honest to goodness effort to compete do so, see Oakland and Minnesota. In fact, take a look back 5 years ago and there are a couple of teams that were considered small market and hopeless back then that are considered large market now, simply because ownership decided they’d rather compete than sit back and collect revenue sharing checks, ie, Anaheim, Philadelphia, Florida, etc.

If there wasn’t a salary floor in the NFL, you’d see a bunch more owners stripping payroll to the bone, collecting their national television deal checks and letting their teams rot. But they can’t. So, since they’ve got to spend the money anyway, may as well try and win.

51

I can’t find final 2004 numbers to back it up, but looking at the salary cap figures going into 2005 here on ESPN.com you see that the majority of teams are awfully close to that cap. This is after many teams have already made their cuts to get in position to sign FAs. I expect that by opening day almost every team is within a million of the cap. No one is within $12 million of the salary floor.

When I’ve been commenting on the “salary cap” I’ve been thinking of it as including the salary floor as well. In the context of my comments in this thread I was not seperating the two concepts. It is true that the salary floor is an equally important component.

I disagree, teams like the Twins and Cardinals should be commended. However, I don’t think you can make the argument that KC and Milwaukee have made much of an effort.

Look at it this way. Without the cap, the Royals have no chance. Even if the owners wanted to win and weren’t being greedy, they have to look at it thinking “we could spend more and still never have a chance”. Basically they are in a lose-lose situation, and they figure if they aren’t going to win as it it, they might as well maximize profits. If a salary cap brought the big guys back into range maybe they’d become motivated to try when it because realistically attainable.

Where did you get those numbers? I’d be curious to see where the distribution is in the MLB.

52

Fair enough. I can’t argue against a salary floor, since I think that is actually the key to greater competitiveness, along with better revenue sharing.

My mistake here. I said the wrong thing - the Cardinals I was referring to were the ones in Arizona. I meant, you’re trying to tell me the Cardinals make an effort? But I failed. :slight_smile:

Maybe, but that goes against the efforts and results of the Twins, A’s and Marlins. KC hasn’t bothered even attempting to follow their model of building up strong farm systems to build up a core and then filling in the rest with low cost players. They haven’t even done a very good job of identifying low cost replacements - although they’re getting better.

Doubtful. Carl Pohlad, the owner of the Twins, refuses to invest more in his successful team. Some owners are just big, fat jerks.

Ooog. I just googled around until I stumbled upon the info. Don’t remember where. But it didn’t give distributions - just the percentage.