Link: Access is Utmost
Mike Vaccaro writes that cutting access to games might be the biggest faux pas that any sports team in the modern era can make.
You can do just about anything to a fan, and they will take it. You can raise ticket prices. You can make lunkheaded trades. You can make awful choices in free agency. You can fire a popular manager, retain an unpopular GM, lose year after year.
Do all of that, the fans will forgive you, eventually.
But don’t even think of making the games disappear.
That’s a line in the sand no team and no team owner wants to cross. Just floating the word “blackout” this week caused so many spasms of outrage that all the wattage in all of talk radio couldn’t contain it all, all the bandwidth couldn’t keep the angry e-mails from jamming inboxes. You can hose fans. You can gouge them. You can taunt them.
But you better be available.
6 Responses to Link: Access is Utmost
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Rich K says:
If the JETS ever shut out the ticketLESS fans0 I think within two years there would be a HUGE drop off in interest in team.
ANY move like a blackout of metro NY/NJ would be like a major F U to the fans & the fans would respond in kind.
OR
IF this ever happened-don’t be surprised if you found an NFL package on the INTERNET of ALL GAMES and fans would watch games that way. With the SIZE of HD Screens & the developmet of 3D- you might find MORE people saying F U LOL and stayin home. There’s a reson my bar b Q grill is right outside my TV room!!! -
miketaliaferro says:
As we said earlier…
Blackout equals irrelevance.
Period.
Jets Nation would be more like Jets County.
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joe c from CT says:
You its the off season when we are talking stupid stuff like this.
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Charlie D says:
Guys,
I don’t think Mr, Johnson would allow the games to be blacked-out. I would not stop my loyalty as a Jet fan. Remember the NFL is a business. I completely understand the outrage from fans. The one thing I can’t live without is NFL football, quote Joe Biningo from The Fan. Go Jets!!! -
Jimbo says:
No way the games will be blacked out, because it would cause so much negative publicity and backlash. It’d be all over ESPN and every sports show in the New York area. But…..I really do hope that the Jets don’t sell out their PSLs and are forced to sell individual tickets. Sorry Woody, people don’t want to pay more to sit in the upper deck in the new stadium than they paid to sit in the lower deck in the old stadium.
And yes, you can stop sending me brochures every month about how you miss me and how the new stadium won’t be the same cause I’m not buying roughly $20,000 worth of PSLs.
I found this link from the coward, Mike Lombardi, that Revis is seeking $20 mil per year. Is this clown just trying to stir the pot?? I can see $15mil per year, but anything more than that handcuffs a franchise.
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/Sunday-at-the-Post-7875.html