Greed is the word

Monday, February 14 2011

NFL fans want their football, want it every fall and winter, and they're willing to do almost anything to get it, including accept a measure of pain. This article was written by Monte Poole and appeared in The San Jose Mercury News.

Cheerfully aware of this craving, those peddling the game consistently take advantage of these fans, in a classic case of the greedy few exploiting the needy masses.

But the NFL's bully fleecing routine went too far last week at the Super Bowl. By practically defrauding a particularly hardy and devoted group of its followers, the league exposed the cold truth about itself.

It unintentionally let ordinary folks see it for the soulless, heartless machine it really is.

This projects badly in any case, but it's made worse by the timing. The kings who run the league are facing a labor battle in which they want to take money from employees -- the highly trained and heavily muscled gladiators busting up their bodies to earn good salaries, provide owners with great profits and deliver entertainment to fans.

Fans don't want to take sides on the labor issue. They simply want their annual "fix." They crave it so strongly that they'll stretch their budgets to grotesque proportions to financially support their teams.

More than 1,200 such paid a minimum of $600 each for tickets to Super Bowl XLV -- as well as airline tickets and hotels -- only to arrive at Cowboys Stadium last Sunday and be told their seats were unsafe, after which they were sent to watch the game from some place else.


Some were directed to folding chairs in a crowded room at field level, with a view of the backs of players and coaches standing along the sideline.

Others were led to bars, with the NFL offering to cover the cost of food and beverages.

None was pleased with the experience, though, so the NFL has spent the past week choking and coughing on an overdose of richly deserved comeuppance. It offered triple-value refunds and tickets to the next Super Bowl. Then it offered tickets to a future Super Bowl of the fan's choice, as well as paid airfare and accommodations.

I found these proposals perversely satisfying, like watching drug dealers bowing before junkies in hopes of making amends.

But the proposals weren't and aren't enough. When folks paying for the experience of a lifetime wound up receiving the fiasco they'll never forget, they got furious. Their fury led to venting, which led to a $5 million class action lawsuit.

The battered fan syndrome in the NFL has reached its tipping point.

The NFL Players Association has not issued a statement regarding this matter. It shouldn't. It doesn't need to. It's an innocent bystander.

Yet the NFLPA is nonetheless pleased that the league damaged itself by giving the very accurate appearance that its owners, led the Cowboys' Jerry Jones, are driven first and last by ego and profit, and that league's Park Avenue office, where sits the desk of commissioner Roger Goodell, is in lockstep.

The NFL says its desire to increase the schedule from 16 games to 18 is for the fan. Do you, the fan, believe this? It's certainly not for the players, who pay a steep physical price. That's why 82 percent of them rejected the idea in a recent Sports Illustrated poll.

The 18-game schedule is a highway to shorter careers. It's for the league and its bottomless pockets. It's a brazen attempt to grab more revenue from tickets and TV. It's about boundless greed, compounded by unmitigated arrogance.

A few years ago, when Americans were addicted to buying homes, at any price, developers built more homes and banks made them "easier'' to buy. The market was hot, the marketers capitalized and, in the end, millions of buyers were exploited.

The backlash has been fierce, with the consumer absorbing most of the punishment.

We're now hooked on football, particularly the NFL. It's more than twice as popular as MLB, nearly four times more popular than the NBA, according to a 2010 Harris Poll.

Super Bowl XLV, naturally, set another record for TV viewership and now is the latest football game to become the most-watched TV show in history.

The NFL is hotter than ever, and its owners are shameless in their attempts to capitalize. They want to give us more games, make them "easier'' to access.

Those feeding our addiction to the NFL would be wise to consider showing themselves as somehow more decent than the common drug dealer or the white-collar thieves who used economic con games to steal the trust and dreams of so many Americans.

In the wake of this Super Bowl ticket mess, the owners and the commissioner look incredibly selfish -- so much so that if there is no football in 2011, they'll end up choking on an overdose of well-deserved blame.