Class dismissed.
An epidemic of shameless greed has befallen New York sports. The plan is to pull every dime from every pocket until rich and poor — and all in between — do the last thing that any sport can afford to teach its customers: Learn to live without, learn to watch only from the outside.
As Howard Cosell said upon the passing of George Halas, at 88, “It was inevitable.”
Yankees president Randy Levine recently made with a two-plus-two to reach an astonishing answer: StubHub has caused the fall in home attendance.
That’s like blaming rain on umbrellas.
Levine also said the team is exploring more “fan-friendly alternatives for next year.”
Please. Let us now invoke the John McEnroe scream to a judge: “You can’t be serious!” More fan-friendly? Like what? Unless it’s greatly reduced ticket and concession prices, the Yankees still will be five years too late!
From the day new Yankee Stadium opened, the Yankees stretched and surpassed the limits of logical affordability.
It opened as — and remains — a clip joint, from $11 cups of beer, to $35 parking, to rows and rows of empty, obscenely priced, moat-encircled seats that have created a greed-inverted reality that shows more patrons seated far above and beyond the field than right next to it.
Anyone with a sense of proportion knew that was coming from Day 1, in 2009, not in June of 2012. Entry to new Yankee Stadium has been entirely predicated on price gouging.
The responses from officialdom, including Levine’s, last week, have further solidified the notion that Yankees fans — patrons — must be too stupid to know better.
In April, 2009 Bud Selig, a bean-counter given the comical title of Commissioner by club owners, declared he personally had reviewed the ticket-pricing in new Yankee Stadium to find all “affordable.” Thus, $850 per ticket per game for the third-best seats in the house met with his approval.
But given that he is paid $18 million a year to say such things, what else could he say, “Then try the $600 seats”?
Yankees COO Lonn Trost once tried to explain that so many seats behind home plate only appear to be empty because they belong to those watching the game on big screen TVs in the Legends restaurant.
Yeah, folks spend up to $2,500 per seat so they can travel to Yankee Stadium to watch the game on TV.
Simultaneously, we’re to ignore how Camden Yards swells with Yankees fans when the Yankees play the Orioles in Baltimore. It’s a fraction of the cost, and none of the insult, to attend a Yankees game in Baltimore — and still get a better seat than in Yankee Stadium!
But blame it on StubHub. Originally in the over-face-value scalping biz, it’s now where buyers and sellers can turn for some under- face-value relief. StubHub didn’t do that to the Yankees. The Yankees did that to the Yankees!
The post-Madoff Mets, who should be grateful for every customer, ain’t much better. Johan Santana’s no-hitter served as inspiration to sell “reprinted” tickets to the game for $50 each, “plus shipping and handling,” as if mailing someone a ticket requires lots of both.
Last month, after landing next year’s All-Star Game, the Mets jumped into exploit mode, contacting subscribers to let them know that in return for a $250 non-returnable, right-now fee/interest-free loan, they can buy All-Star tickets — provided they commit to renewing for next season!
Apparently it didn’t dawn on the Mets, either, that Citi Field opened to such expensive good seats that legions of longtime 30 subscribers said, “Get lost.”
Ah, Citi Field, named in exchange for sponsorship money from a company that took a $45 billion federal (taxpayers’) bailout. It’s where a concession stand, just beyond the outfield wall advertising “$5 Subway Foot-Longs,” sold $5 Subway Foot-Longs for $14.
The fleecings are endless, from PSL Stadium to Dolan Garden, which recently sold jacked-up tickets to Rangers playoff games — provided one purchase tickets to WNBA games.
From dubious tack-on “convenience” and “printing” fees, to “facility fees,” to must-buy exhibition games, to selling tickets to Sunday afternoon games that are moved to Sunday nights, to Yankees radiocasts that include a sponsor for the National Anthem, but no National Anthem. . .
But don’t blame it on greed; blame it on StubHub. Yeah, StubHub; that’s the ticket!
Predictably, Francesa’s wrong again
Mike Francesa’s Stanley Cup Final touts met his standard. First, he picked the Devils to win the Cup. After they lost the first three, he said they were kaput. So they won the next two.
But the big, recurring story of the week on WFAN was that Francesa — take note, peons — attended Jim Nantz’s wedding. Here’s hoping he didn’t predict a long, happy marriage.
* The Devils were just one player short of winning it all — Scott Stevens.
* Saturday before the Belmont, an NBC crawl repeatedly read that I’ll Have Another “has retired” — as if it was the horse’s decision! He’s only a 3-year-old; he hardly knows any words.
* Allowing ESPN’s Chris Berman to call golf’s U.S. Open is like giving the Class Clown a jumbo can of Silly String.
* Was Saturday’s Timothy Bradley over Manny Pacquiao another PPV/Vegas rip-off? See for yourself, tomorrow on HBO at 10 p.m
A-Rod’s mark not so ‘grand’
If Sammy Sosa, called to testify before Congress, forgot how to speak English, how can we expect Yankees TV and radio announcers — and other media — to remember that Alex Rodriguez was juiced? Or was that Lou Gehrig?
Ken Singleton’s call on Rodriguez’s homer, Tuesday — “A history-tying grand slam home run!” — moved reader Ken Ferber to this: “So the next time I cross the Delaware in a rowboat, I tie George Washington?”
* When did the obvious become praiseworthy? The Mets, Wednesday, had none out, first and third, when Mike Nickeas hit a bouncer that the third baseman knocked down in front of him. Vinny Rottino, on third, held. “Good base-running by Rottino,” said SNY’s Gary Cohen. Come on, what else made sense?
* Reader Adam Radosti on Game 1 of the NBA finals, which tipped after 9 p.m.: “Fell asleep two minutes into the third quarter. I’m 41, I’ve got work, two kids under 3. Can’t make it anymore.” Get used to it, brother.
* At the close of Monday’s Game 6 telecast, Doc Emrick again left us with this perfect season-closer: “No practice tomorrow.”