Sitting out of judgement
On Sunday, the Steelers and Packers met on the fields of Dallas to play the greatest game in American football, the Super Bowl. The game that all 16 weeks of regular season and 4 weeks of post-season playoff play all comes down to. The Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, but unfortunately that's not the lingering story that's come out of that match on Sunday. No, the story sticking with us is the fact that many seats sold for the Super Bowl weren't completed and about 400 fans were left without seats. The NFL did what they could, which was to promise them a triple refund on the spot and take them to a concession area with a large bar so they could watch the game from there. Of course, this did not mollify many fans who had spent thousands of dollars on travel, lodging and other expenses to watch the game. Given that face value for these tickets was 800 dollars, these people got $2400 and got to watch the game. Normally, this would be the end of the story except for a few things. Jerry Jones, the owners of the Dallas Cowboys and owner of the stadium where the game was played, apparently knew there was going to be seating trouble but did little about it and sold tickets anyway. The NFL, in further bits of damage control, has released a second option for those disgruntled fans. Of course, those disgruntled fans have started a website to catalog all the problems they had and to organize a lawsuit against Jerry Jones and the Cowboys organization for breach of contract, fraud, breach of good faith and violating Texas’s deceptive trade practices law. Once again, the Super Bowl finds itself being remembered not for the game, but for the legal wrangling after.
To his credit, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has personally called this a failure but has stopped short of smacking Jerry Jones around for promising what he couldn't deliver. He has said there's no excuse, but offered no one to blame under that guise as well. It was Goodell who came up with the latest plan: people who had seats taken away from them can either get a triple refund AND a ticket to next year's Super Bowl (which they can actually resell) OR they can get a ticket and all travel arrangements (hotel, airfare, etc) to any future Super Bowl of their choice. This last option was stated because many fans pointed out they might not care who's in the Super Bowl next year, since it may not be the Steelers or the Packers. Note, the people who choose the "all paid package to any future Super Bowl" option will not get the $2400 refund. The NFL is scrambling like crazy to come out of the other side of all this since this is nothing but bad publicity for them. They can talk about how much they care about people's safety and that's why they didn't open the seats, but the real reason those seats weren't open is greed. Jerry Jones wanted to have a record breaking crowd or HIS Super Bowl so he promised more seats than he had in this brand new stadium. He wanted more ticket sales and to give a little "we do everything bigger here in Texas" crap a new shot in the arm. However, he fucked things up, wasn't able to deliver, knew he wasn't going to be able to make things happen and now people are rightly pissed. While the money for the settlements is going to come out of a shared fun by the NFL, it should come out of Jones' pocket. After all, he was the man in charge of the stadium he was the man in charge of saying how many tickets should be sold and he was the man who stood to gain the most. Of course, that may not happen, but the NFL will take care of this as soon as they can.
The NFL was already skating on thin ice with the possibility of a lock out because of a player led strike over the latest round of union negotiations. The owners want more games per year and some stricter rules about salary and signing bonuses and the players want not to die from concussion and Pugilistic Dementia and like those big ass signing bonuses, despite sometimes not performing on the field (see Deion Sanders with the Redskins and Haynesworth with the Redskins now). The players union is also looking for better retirement benefits/pensions and the owners don't want to pay for all that either. So, these fights have gotten nasty and are so far at an impasse, so a lockout for the season is not so far fetched. Fans hate lockouts. All most people see is millionaires pissing and moaning for more and greedy owners unwilling to give a common sense inch. They will lose fans and the NFL sure as shit doesn't want that. The other thing scaring the NFL right now is how fast that website about the displaced fans went up. It started out as "suesuperbowl.com" and was started by a fan on his phone during the second quarter of the game. They changed the name so as to avoid infringement lawsuits, but while it was happening, people were already being organized. Once upon a time, if you got poor customer service, you would tell about a dozen people over the course of two weeks, or so went the marketing math. In the span of two minutes, they were reaching millions of people and organizing lawsuits. It's the kind of thing that could make any big corporation a little weak in the knees, especially one that's as occasionally public face oriented as the NFL.
While Goodell might be trying to do the right thing here, he's not doing all of this out of the goodness of his heart. In addition to all the lock out problems, the NFL is having some serious credibility issues in terms of its employees. There are still problems with Michael Vick for a lot of fans. While Philadelphia might love him right now and people talk about his "redemption", there are still plenty of fans who will not cheer for the Eagles, and by extension who will not buy their apparel or watch their games. There are problems with Ben Roethlisberger who probably raped a girl in a Florida bathroom. The Rooney family who owns the Steelers famously got rid of Santonio Holmes for his affection for marijuana but did nothing about Big Ben's little head. People are not happy with the NFL right now and screwing over their fans is one sure way to make sure they don't come back. The deal for a seat at any future Super Bowl plus expenses is a good way to cover the trouble people had. That really does sound like a heck of a deal, however, no one should have had to come up with that deal in the first place. They should have respected the fans enough to only sell as many tickets there were real seats. This is not the kind of thing that a company that values its customers does, and yet we accept it as common practice. So now the NFL is scrambling make sure they can connect with the fans.
Otherwise, the fans will give the NFL a bad reception.
So it is written, so do I see it.
To his credit, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has personally called this a failure but has stopped short of smacking Jerry Jones around for promising what he couldn't deliver. He has said there's no excuse, but offered no one to blame under that guise as well. It was Goodell who came up with the latest plan: people who had seats taken away from them can either get a triple refund AND a ticket to next year's Super Bowl (which they can actually resell) OR they can get a ticket and all travel arrangements (hotel, airfare, etc) to any future Super Bowl of their choice. This last option was stated because many fans pointed out they might not care who's in the Super Bowl next year, since it may not be the Steelers or the Packers. Note, the people who choose the "all paid package to any future Super Bowl" option will not get the $2400 refund. The NFL is scrambling like crazy to come out of the other side of all this since this is nothing but bad publicity for them. They can talk about how much they care about people's safety and that's why they didn't open the seats, but the real reason those seats weren't open is greed. Jerry Jones wanted to have a record breaking crowd or HIS Super Bowl so he promised more seats than he had in this brand new stadium. He wanted more ticket sales and to give a little "we do everything bigger here in Texas" crap a new shot in the arm. However, he fucked things up, wasn't able to deliver, knew he wasn't going to be able to make things happen and now people are rightly pissed. While the money for the settlements is going to come out of a shared fun by the NFL, it should come out of Jones' pocket. After all, he was the man in charge of the stadium he was the man in charge of saying how many tickets should be sold and he was the man who stood to gain the most. Of course, that may not happen, but the NFL will take care of this as soon as they can.
The NFL was already skating on thin ice with the possibility of a lock out because of a player led strike over the latest round of union negotiations. The owners want more games per year and some stricter rules about salary and signing bonuses and the players want not to die from concussion and Pugilistic Dementia and like those big ass signing bonuses, despite sometimes not performing on the field (see Deion Sanders with the Redskins and Haynesworth with the Redskins now). The players union is also looking for better retirement benefits/pensions and the owners don't want to pay for all that either. So, these fights have gotten nasty and are so far at an impasse, so a lockout for the season is not so far fetched. Fans hate lockouts. All most people see is millionaires pissing and moaning for more and greedy owners unwilling to give a common sense inch. They will lose fans and the NFL sure as shit doesn't want that. The other thing scaring the NFL right now is how fast that website about the displaced fans went up. It started out as "suesuperbowl.com" and was started by a fan on his phone during the second quarter of the game. They changed the name so as to avoid infringement lawsuits, but while it was happening, people were already being organized. Once upon a time, if you got poor customer service, you would tell about a dozen people over the course of two weeks, or so went the marketing math. In the span of two minutes, they were reaching millions of people and organizing lawsuits. It's the kind of thing that could make any big corporation a little weak in the knees, especially one that's as occasionally public face oriented as the NFL.
While Goodell might be trying to do the right thing here, he's not doing all of this out of the goodness of his heart. In addition to all the lock out problems, the NFL is having some serious credibility issues in terms of its employees. There are still problems with Michael Vick for a lot of fans. While Philadelphia might love him right now and people talk about his "redemption", there are still plenty of fans who will not cheer for the Eagles, and by extension who will not buy their apparel or watch their games. There are problems with Ben Roethlisberger who probably raped a girl in a Florida bathroom. The Rooney family who owns the Steelers famously got rid of Santonio Holmes for his affection for marijuana but did nothing about Big Ben's little head. People are not happy with the NFL right now and screwing over their fans is one sure way to make sure they don't come back. The deal for a seat at any future Super Bowl plus expenses is a good way to cover the trouble people had. That really does sound like a heck of a deal, however, no one should have had to come up with that deal in the first place. They should have respected the fans enough to only sell as many tickets there were real seats. This is not the kind of thing that a company that values its customers does, and yet we accept it as common practice. So now the NFL is scrambling make sure they can connect with the fans.
Otherwise, the fans will give the NFL a bad reception.
So it is written, so do I see it.