Not Sporting
I was thinking of taking my family to a Seattle Storm game. I thought it would be good for my 6 year old daughter to see the positive role model of professional female athletes. Especially after this weekend, when during the Formula 1 race she asked me "How come there are no girls in Formula 1?" I replied that girls could race, but there just weren't any right now. After several iterations of "why", I pretty much ran out of any good answers.
So I hit the Storm site, and then went to TicketBastards to look at games. I thought I'd pick a mid-week game in the summer, one at noon, so we could make it a special day to go downtown. Then I asked for 2 tickets. The default is "best seats". Those, my friends, cost $110. You've got to be kidding me.
So I decided to look at the other seats. The upper bowl, way far from the action (especially for a guy with bad eyesight like myself), were $10-$18 bucks. More reasonable. Only problem is, they are either sold out or not yet being sold until all the lower bowl seats are sold out. Not available. Hmmm, what about the lower bowl. $16 tickets? Right behind the basket. Up to $32? In the corner. So or a decent seat is around $55.
There is just way I want to pay this much money for a single basketball game. Playoffs, with something on the line, I might pay for. But when I don't know how well the team is going to play this year, when I need to spend another $10 on parking and another $20 if we want a hot dog and a drink? I just can't justify the expense.
I notice that the Mariners only had 16,102 show up last night at their 45.000+ seat park. They've only broken 30k on 6 out of 20 home games this year. I am hoping that the insane economies of professional sports are starting to collapse, and that revenues, profits, and salaries tumble back to earth. That way, maybe regular people can start enjoying sporting events again.
As for me, I may just take my family out to Wing Dome and watch the game on the large screen with a lot of wings and a pitcher of soda.
So I hit the Storm site, and then went to TicketBastards to look at games. I thought I'd pick a mid-week game in the summer, one at noon, so we could make it a special day to go downtown. Then I asked for 2 tickets. The default is "best seats". Those, my friends, cost $110. You've got to be kidding me.
So I decided to look at the other seats. The upper bowl, way far from the action (especially for a guy with bad eyesight like myself), were $10-$18 bucks. More reasonable. Only problem is, they are either sold out or not yet being sold until all the lower bowl seats are sold out. Not available. Hmmm, what about the lower bowl. $16 tickets? Right behind the basket. Up to $32? In the corner. So or a decent seat is around $55.
There is just way I want to pay this much money for a single basketball game. Playoffs, with something on the line, I might pay for. But when I don't know how well the team is going to play this year, when I need to spend another $10 on parking and another $20 if we want a hot dog and a drink? I just can't justify the expense.
I notice that the Mariners only had 16,102 show up last night at their 45.000+ seat park. They've only broken 30k on 6 out of 20 home games this year. I am hoping that the insane economies of professional sports are starting to collapse, and that revenues, profits, and salaries tumble back to earth. That way, maybe regular people can start enjoying sporting events again.
As for me, I may just take my family out to Wing Dome and watch the game on the large screen with a lot of wings and a pitcher of soda.