On the QT

Wednesday, December 07, 2005


FIESTA BOWL IS WORTH $200 MILLION FOR 2006 GAME

Are you kidding me? We're talking about the Ohio State vs. Notre Dame Game. One game. A friend of mine tried to buy two tickets today. Total cost $1860. For that game. And they weren't like the Suns courtside Nicholson seats either. In case you've forgotten, they run $1500 per seat, per game. Plus, they're only sold in a season ticket package. For $75,000. When they went up for sale, they were sold out in one-hour. I'm guessing there were about 60 to 100 of them.

Where is it going to stop and what does it all mean? For one thing, don't ever NOT support a new stadium/ballpark/arena. If taxpayers dollars are used, don't fret it. In St. Louis, some used to call the Ed, the Taxpayers' Dome. Well, two Super Bowl runs took care of that if you believe anything about the trickle down economic theory. And if you don't, there's still plenty of economic theories that measure the worth of a city and its sports venue in drawing new businesses and population.

I remember Kelly Creel telling me about a couple of Mt. Vernonites with deep pockets who offered to donate $4000 to the MtVHigh Athletic Dept. for 4 front row seats for the Rams state tourney appearance in 1999. Doug turned them down. Of course he was right, but I thought, "Man, that is crazy to pay that much for one game."

But it's all relative. The ticket prices for the Cardinals this season are eye-popping. But, hey, they'll draw 3-3 1/2 million. No matter what. Where does it end?

As for me, I paid $95 per ticket for a recent Suns game, $115 for mcgwire's 62nd homer game, $400 a ticket to the 2002 Super Bowl (upper deck), and, oh man, I ain't even telling you how much I paid for last year's NCAA Championship Game. So I guess I just answered my own question. The sports fan will pay whatever it's worth to him. And there's no logic to it.

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