Live or Stay-at-home?
Bill Simmons on why going to sporting events sucks. The leagues need to rethink the stadium experience, it's similar to the problem with movie theaters - staying at home tromps going out. I'd rather attend 1 or 2 games a year, pay more and get *really* good seats or a super high end experience (luxury box). The NFL is especially vulnerable because it's probably the worst live experience around due to the reasons cited below. I would love a couch/lazyboy section with more room, wireless access, plugs for laptops, waitresses, TVs, etc - but down in the stadium seats or an open air box. I'd do that with my buddies once a year in a heartbeat. Of course if you have a good team, it's much easier to get excited about going to the game (cough not the Rams cough). I definitely want to see a Cowboys game this year (my team when STL lost the Cardinals), Jerry Jones understands this problem and is trying to solve it by creating a circus like atmosphere wrapped in a billion dollar stadium.
Door No. 1 (more expensive): Traffic, parking, long walk to stadium, lousy seats, lifeless state-of-the-art arena, TV timeouts, dead crowds, drunk/bitter fans, more TV timeouts, hiked-up concession prices, PDAs with jammed signals as you're searching for scores, even more TV timeouts, long walk to car, even more traffic.
Door No. 2 (less expensive): Sofa, NFL package, HD, fantasy scores online, remote control toggling, gambling, access to scores, seven straight hours of football, cell phone calls, beer and food in fridge, no traffic.
I can see going through Door No. 1 once a year just to remind yourself that going to an NFL game sucks. But eight times a year? Unless you had good seats, or unless this was your only excuse to get out of your house and get plastered, why would you? It's a blue-collar sport with white-collar ticket prices. This blackout trend would have happened whether the economy was suffering or not."
