A funny thing happened while Jeff Sperber was cleaning out his closet, the other day …
But first let’s do some speculative NFL economics. There are 17 teams that to some degree are PSL-dependent, double-whammy Personal Seat License, lend-lease-lose deals. Last season, the number of defaults on PSLs increased. For example, defaults on Falcons’ PSLs last year were over $32 million.
This season, following massive virus-inflicted unemployment, well, the NFL ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Still, when I grow up I want to be just like Roger Goodell, who says anything that’s momentarily convenient — much of it conspicuously untrue — and in exchange is paid roughly $42 million a year while the news media assigned to cover him give him a free pass.
If one of his first assignments was to eliminate about 20 years of wait-listed ticket buyers for Giants and Jets games through the introduction of obscenely expensive must-buy Personal Seat Licenses, he quickly accomplished that vanishing act to pad his bottom line and ingratiate himself to enabling team owners.
You recall Goodell’s confident, bogus claim about PSLs, the “neighborhood protection” hold-ups that force fans to purchase the ”rights” to purchase tickets: “They’re good investments.”
Well, home-bound reader Jeff Sperber last week was cleaning out a closet when he came across his Giants PSL contract. On Page 14 of the 22-page slog, beneath the heading “PSL Purchase,” it reads:
“This PSL is not intended to be an investment and should not be purchased for that reason … when you sign your PSL agreement you are stating, among other things, that you have no expectation of profit.”
Putting two and two together, Sperber is left to conclude that the NFL, under Goodell’s stewardship and salesmanship, conducted and continues to conduct “a multi-billion-dollar scam, no?”
I don’t know how many tens of millions were paid relying on “good investment” boasts, but, yes, it seems as if Goodell was the point man in very large scam that remains in play.
For those cleaning out closets containing Jets PSL agreements, the small print toward the back of the contracts absolves the team and its sales reps and advertising reps of fulfilling any promises made to seal the PSL deals. Only what appears in the contract counts.
Thus, sales reps’ claims to provide Jets PSL holders with first crack at tickets to other PSL Stadium events, such as concerts and college football, no longer apply and never did. It was a con, and unless you scoured the small print, you were had.
This, too, apparently, met with Goodell’s sense of salesmanship, as did Jets radio voice Bob Wischusen’s advertised claims that one had better hurry to purchase Jets PSLs as, “They’re nearly sold out!” That claim was never true and never has been.
Down in Atlanta, PSL stickups last season helped create 10,000 more empty seats per game than the season before — another team, on Goodell’s watch, to have conditioned its steady paying customers to live without. And now with virus-caused massive unemployment and shuttered businesses, those PSL defaults that last season totaled $32 million likely will soar for this season, as well as for the 16 other PSL teams
Meanwhile, the Falcons, in conjunction with their new uniforms — including, naturally, an all-black ensemble — have launched a “Rise up!” campaign. That may be a precursor to the campaigns launched in Fulton County courthouses, called “Pay up!”
Greed kills, and the way I figure it, the NFL’s 17 PSL teams will soon join millions of others in sweating rent. There won’t be any PSL buyers so they’ll be reduced to chasing the moneyless for money.
Expect ratings to determine MLB TV schedule, not fan interest
Well-intentioned and well-reasoned solutions to a greatly reduced MLB season continue to be sent by readers.
But we repeat, none of it will count or even be considered. Only maximizing what can be paid by MLB’s TV networks will be addressed then scheduled.
Fox, ESPN and TBS will be no more eager to show a smaller TV market matchup as a matter of scheduling equity and/or divisional balance than they have been for the past 15 years.
Large TV market games — New York, Chicago and L.A. teams, but not necessarily their fans — will, as usual, be late weekend and prime-time games. Or do you think ESPN is going to pass on late Sunday night Red Sox-Yankees telecasts?
The convenience of large TV market ticket-buyers and their families again will count for nothing. The coronavirus will not create immunity from greed or any greater regard for the diminishing numbers of MLB’s in-park patrons.
Reader Mike Solano: “Forget the old games, FS1 has been playing ‘This Week in Baseball’ from the early 1980s, and its fantastic. Mel Allen announcing, seeing the old ballparks like Tiger Stadium, Comiskey and Candlestick.
“And to top it all off, players actually played hard and ran hard! Every episode shows a bloop hit turned into a double, a gapper turned into a triple.”
In 1980, the 26 MLB teams totaled 1,076 triples. Last season the 30 MLB teams totaled just 785. In his rookie year, 2012, before he became a home plate-poser, Bryce Harper had nine triples. In his past three seasons, he has totaled two. Harmon Killebrew, among the slowest, lumbering runners of his era, in 1961 had 46 HRs — and seven triples.
Riddick rhetoric drops ball
ESPN NFL draft expert Louis Riddick on Thursday, on an eligible wide receiver’s shortcoming: “He needs to be more consistent with his catch point.” Think he means, not drop so many passes?
Ann Branca, beloved widow of Ralph, passed Tuesday of natural causes, accordingly to son-in-law Bobby Valentine. “Mrs. B” was 91.
Mel Kiper Jr., on Sunday, presents ESPN’s 2021 Mock NFL Draft.
Goodell’s edict that draft picks and potential picks wear only NFL-licensed, logo-brandishing clothing is the kind of money-first thing he prioritizes. Next, the commissioner, who lamented that gambling destroys communities and harms kids, will insist that players only wager via NFL-partner gambling sites.
Reader Charles Coleman on Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s one-season suspension: “He could be suspended for a season that isn’t played. Double-secret probation!”
Steiner Collectibles now selling autographed COVID-19-used medical masks worn by pro athletes. One size fits all!
From self-quarantined Des O’Brien, everyone’s favorite restaurateur and post-Prohibition dispenser of spirits, a letter to the editor: “Dear Sir — For God’s sake, open the pubs again before we all become alcoholics!”