Re: Lions Blacked Out In Detroit

Why would losing money change anything? Ford Motor company has been hemoraghing money for 10 years.

Re: Lions Blacked Out In Detroit

Actually, because of the revenue sharing setup in the NFL, ticket sales tanking doesn't really lose the Fords that much money. All ticket sales for all teams go into one big pot, and then get split evenly among the 32 teams. So the Lions sucking marginally hurts all 32 franchises.

Under the old CBA, luxury box sales went directly to the team and were not shared, so if it is the Lions' luxury boxes that aren't selling out, then the Fords would take a bigger hit than just low ticket sales. However, I think (but am not sure) under the new CBA, even some of the luxury box sales are shared. This was done with the intent to force the Krafts, Luries, Jones's, etc. to give money to the Wilsons and Irsays of the league, but it also provides even more insulation to owners that run a bad franchise and can't sell out their tickets.

Incidentally, does anyone else think that the "blackout if you don't sellout" rules are a little outdated? They were brought about when the pro sport was young, and competing heavily with college ball and with other pro sports, and when ticket sales were probably much greater than TV revenues, and they wanted to make sure people actually went to the games to fill up the stadium rather than just say "well, I can stay home and watch the game on TV for free".

But now, no team that actually plays a football-like substance (to borrow from TMQ)--i.e. not Detroit--has any trouble filling up their seats. And TV revenues are far, far greater than ticket sales. If teams start regularly getting blackouts, TV revenues could fall and hurt the league far more than a few people in Detroit getting to watch the game at home even when local companies stop springing for luxury boxes. Furthermore, it now creates a vicious cycle. If a team isn't playing well and stops selling out, then it gets blacked out. If it gets blacked out a lot, then local people start following other teams. Then a team's fan base falls, and it's even harder to sell out. And it will see a small decrease in revenue and a big decrease in reputation, which could make it hard to attract free agents and make it even harder to sell out...

Re: Lions Blacked Out In Detroit

You must live in Detroit or somewhere similar if StubHub is cheaper and more plentiful.

I'm originally from Boston, and if you want Patriots tickets, you can be one of the lucky few season ticket holders that actually pays the most expensive ticket face value in the league (or at least they were three years ago when I last lived there...the Jets might be higher now...), or you could go through StubHub and pay 3-5X the face value or more for "bad" upper deck seats. My wife bought me Week 17 tickets for my birthday a couple of years ago, and even though the forcast was for sub-freezing temperatures and icy wind chills, and the Patriots had locked their playoff seed and were actually playing to lose, she still paid over $200 per ticket, because that is what you have to pay to get Patriots tickets. (Yet another reason why I hate bandwagon fans). One of the knocks on Patriots fans is that they're not loud enough or true supporters of the team...it's because all of the true, blue-collar working man's fans, and most of the young college or early 20-something fans, who tend to be the loudest and most fervent supporters, have been priced right out of the stadium.

It got so bad that the Patriots organization actually sued StubHub a year or so ago, on the grounds that they were violating Massachusetts scalping law (which states that tickets may be re-sold freely, but at most for their face value). The NFL didn't help by officially endorsing StubHub shortly thereafter and (I think) shutting down the Krafts' lawsuit...