Who loves ya, baby?
The NFL loves ya. “It’s all about the fans,” said Roger Goodell, appearing on NFL Network and before a roomful of Packers fans in Wisconsin. Must be an NFL swing state.
Here, the NFL’s two teams have created a new, every-August diversion: a reality game no-show, perhaps borrowed from the “The $20,000 Pyramid Scheme.”
It goes something like this:
Jets or Giants season tickets holder, having purchased a PSL occupancy of four decent seats for $20,000 each — a total of $80,000 — now has to pay roughly $800 per ticket (or more) per game, or $3,200, for the four tickets, including two must-buy exhibition games at full, regular-season face value.
So come August, such ticket holders are desperate to dump exhibition-game tickets that, if they bought four PSLs, come out to $6,400 for just the tickets to two audition/rehearsal games. (Divide the total in half for those who bought only two PSLs.)
Consequently, message boards begin to carry the “Dirge of the Suckers:”
“Who needs two?” “Who needs four?” “Price negotiable.”
The PSL owner is asking, oh, $150 per exhibition game ticket, but, as the date nears, will settle for, say, $75 per.
In the end, the fan-embracing NFL now forces its new best customers — those willing to be soaked dry — to be further bludgeoned by selling a ticket with a face value of $800 for 75 bucks. If they can get it. And for tickets to two games per team.
Now, every August, a Jets or Giants PSL/ticket holder spending, say, $800 per ticket per game for 10 games — two of which, 20 percent, don’t count — will be lucky to recoup $150 for their expenditure of $1,600 per seat. Sweet!
Yet, as Commissioner Goodell also claims, “PSLs are good investments.”
Who loves ya, baby?
The NBA loves ya, baby. Last week it announced it has chosen Ticketmaster as its “First Comprehensive Ticketing Site.”
Great. The NBA made a deal with a company long scorned for holding tickets at ransom, for tacking on outrageous “processing” and “convenience” fees and for having been successfully sued for fleecing millions of customers.
Wasn’t it the Doobie Brothers?
“Without love, where would ya be right now?”
No need for speed on Little League pitches
At Some point, a few years back, there must have been a meeting between Little League and ESPN authorities during which someone said, “What if we put a speed gun on the pitchers during the World Series?”
And at that point, one of the adults in the room must have wisely said, “No, remember these are kids, 12-year-olds.”
But, if such a protest were made, it was ignored or dismissed. And then these adults moved on to the next matter.
* You like numbers? How much? Before yesterday’s Yankees-Indians game on YES was two batters old, John Flaherty and Michael Kay combined to give these, in order, on Cleveland starter Ubaldo Jimenez:
This season he’s 9-12 with a 5.59 ERA. He’s not nearly as good as he was with Colorado in 2010, when he was 19-8 with a 2.88 ERA. He’s 1-5 with an 8.27 ERA since the All-Star break. He’s 5-3 with a 3.39 ERA at home.
In his first 11 starts this season, he averaged 5.3 strikeouts per nine innings. In his last 14 starts, he has averaged 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings. This season, he is 2-6 with a 6.39 ERA during day games.
It might have kept going — they never got to his career numbers in August weekend day games at home vs. the AL East — had Nick Swisher, the game’s second batter, not singled.
* NFL Network’s “America’s Game,” on Sept. 4, the night before the Giants’ opener against the Cowboys, will air NFL Films’ full-length feature on last season’s champion Giants. Cool!
Not so cool Part 1: It airs at 10 on a Tuesday night. Say good night, Junior.
Not so cool Part 2: Alec Baldwin narrates. Baldwin and the company he endorses in TV ads, Capital One — recently fined $210 million for false advertising — are still having fun with the fact he was thrown off a commercial flight for not complying with FAA instructions.
Mike sure to audible for Eli
Great news for Eli Manning! Mike Francesa has consented to have him on his show every week, during which time Manning can finally get some useful instruction on how to play quarterback.
* Why the current multimedia trashing of the Mets from the same media that in March predicted the Mets would be exactly what they’ve become? If, before the season, one suggested the Mets, come late August, would be 10 games under .500, they’d have been accused of overt optimism/homerism.
* The Graphic of the Week, though not sports-related, was too good to not share. On Friday, during “Bordertown: Laredo” on the Crime & Investigation Network, unseen passengers in an SUV were identified as “Undercover Officers In Disguise.” Oh.
Speaking of graphics, ESPN’s “Bottom Line” will now include a red asterisk to note the scoop for which ESPN is taking credit, is, in fact, an ESPN scoop. Let us know if you see one.
* Neat new baseball/softball instructional site, ClubDiamondNation.com, includes the verbal and video wisdom of Barry Larkin, Tom Glavine and Yankees batting coach Kevin Long.
Steve Albert has signed to call Phoenix Suns telecasts. … Strong point by Michael Kay yesterday: Unless we know exactly what the ejected player or manager said to the ump, there’s no concluding the umpire “over-reacted.”
* The Travers’ spectacular dead heat for the win, the first in the race’s 143 years, televised Saturday on NBC, proved — at least in horse racing — the tie goes to the runners.
* Why, reader Artie Yannaco asks, are Little League World Series players assigned jerseys that carry “I Won’t Cheat” patches, “when it’s the adults who do all the cheating?”
In 1999, when Lance Armstrong won his first Tour de France, anyone who knew where that big-money sport had landed reasonably could figure he wasn’t racing only on his own juices. Just sayin’.
Odd that CBS’ golfcasters Saturday heard the intemperate cracks from the Bethpage gallery. When Tiger Woods very audibly shouts a naughty, they don’t hear a thing.