Tuesday, March 31, 2009

What "disposable income"??

About 10 years ago, I put my name on the New York Giants wait list for season tickets. At the time, I was told the list moves at a glacial pace, and that I might not ever be called. Today, I got an e-mail from the Giants offering me a chance to buy personal seat licenses and tickets, but limited to the three most expensive areas in the new stadium. The cheapest seats involved a PSL of $7500 per seat and tickets at $400 per game. So, if I got one seat, the total cost for an eight-game season (not including parking) would be $10,700! Divide by eight home games, and the average cost of going to a Giants game in the Mezzanine Club level (second deck) is $1337.50! And those are the CHEAPEST of the three remaining seating areas. Can you imagine spending that kind of money for a three hours of entertainment sandwiched between three hours of standing still in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Who's got that kind of disposable income these days? Are the Giants oblivious to the fact that we're in the worst economic condition since the Great Depression? I'm still angry that the Giants missed their estimate of how much a new stadium would cost and want the fans to foot the bill with these PSLs. I didn't ask for a new stadium, I didn't authorize a new stadium, and now, because of the price, I won't be going to the new stadium.
And speaking of disposable income, the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy case of swindler Bernard Madoff is selling Madoff's season tickets to Citi Field, in attempt to recover money to reimburse investors who were scammed out of their retirements and more. Madoff paid $80,000 for the pair, in the second row behind home plate. That's an average of nearly $500 a seat over the course of the 81-game home season. Of course, the closest that Madoff now will get to Mets games this year is by sitting close to the 13-inch black-and-white television in the prison "lounge" -- and it's just what he deserves.
-- David Rubinstein