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Article IndexIndianapolis Colts ownership apparently took advantage of the 1986 federal tax code revisions, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, which allowed an owner to get as much as 92 percent of the revenues generated in a municipally funded stadium. Colts owner Jim Irsay has Indianapolis and Indiana politicians over a barrel with his lease and the situation was complicated by the fact the stadium is a money loser and the shortfall was solved by laying off municipal workers and raising taxes.
Under federal law, municipalities can take as little as eight cents on the dollar from revenues generated in a stadium to pay down the debt accrued from stadium or arena construction depending on the agreement between a team owner and municipality.
The in-stadium experience is probably going to cost customers more and more money as someone has to pay for wireless technology and better scoreboards. But price hikes are not just limited to NFL in-stadium customers. In Hamilton County, Ohio, the Cincinnati Bengals stadium is a chronic money loser and every year it seems Hamilton County officials have to find new revenue sources beyond the traditional tax hikes and municipal firings to pay off the debt on the facility which was exacerbated by the Bengals ownership being able to take as much as 92 percent of stadium revenues thanks to the Reagan-era tax code reform.
There is a reason for slumping NFL attendance. It is the high price of tickets. The economic meltdown in 2008 during the Bush era is still lingering with an awfully slow recovery. People don't have tens of thousands of dollars to throw at the NFL as the league is finding out in Santa Clara, California with the new San Francisco 49ers stadium being built and the grumbling about the cost of personal seat liscenses and game day tickets. That is the real reason NFL attendance has dropped. It has nothing to do with technology. Just ask the guy I know who started his season ticket subscription in the late 1970s and gave it up when he got the bill for his new prime piece of real estate in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The cost of tickets is too damn high.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business. “He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition" is available at www.bickley.com and Amazon.
http://www.freeonfire.com/air-max-2012
I don't know what Saints tickets are going for now but, whatever they are, they're well out of this struggling writer's limited means. I'm always hearing complaints from people about how much they're paying for game day tickets but, the point is, they're STILL paying. It's the same people who bitch about the cost of a day at the JazzFest going up from $25 a day four or five years ago to over $60 today, but that hasn't stopped them from going. Or the ones who bitch about the ever-increasing cost of joining a Carnival krewe (sometimes into the thousands of dollars) just so they can have one day of fun when they parade during Mardi Gras, yet they still pay. When people want to do something bad enough they'll find a way to do it and they'll find the money that makes it possible.
The only language the NFL is ever going to understand -- or the JazzFest people or the Carnival krewes -- is when enough people have decided they've had enough and they're going to boycott these events en masse. And, as you and I know, that day will probably never come. Why? They want to have their fun and they'll pay whatever price it takes to partake of their guilty pleasures. C'est le vie.