Sports
ESPN… 2000
Because you asked for it, ESPN is launching another channel. What? You didn’t ask for it? Hmm…
Let’s go over things here:
- ESPN
- ESPN 2
- ESPNEWS
- ESPN Classic
- ESPN Desportes - Although I’m not sure how much the programming is different from normal ESPN in the states; and I don’t know what systems carry it
Throw in ESPN HD and you have another channel possibly on your cable box channel listing. While I don’t have it (yet), HD is the way to go, and to me - this big annoucement was hidden in this article:
Also Tuesday, ESPN announced that ESPN2 HD, the company’s second high-definition service, will launch in January.
Nice. Very nice. More HD never hurt anyone.
To pull another quote from it:
The highest-profile facet of the new initiative will be the ESPNU television network, which will carry approximately 300 games live—primarily Division I football and men’s and women’s basketball—in the first year. The network will also cover baseball, softball, volleyball, lacrosse, hockey, wrestling, spring football and select high school football games.
Perhaps the New Yorker in me calls out - but high school? People out there actually want to watch high school sports on television? Nationally? Hey, if your kid is in the game, or your friend, or some distant relative - cool, but on a national network? That’s just silly.
Hey, I’m not even too big of a college sports fan. I like seeing some football here and there, and I can watch some basketball tourney games, but I do hope, really hope, that they show a good number of hockey games. I doubt it, but I can hope.
I like pro sports. The best of the best. I wonder (read: more hoping) if they’ll move some of their high profile college games off of their main ESPN channels to the ESPNU channel to try and make more cable systems carry it (or perhaps the weight they carry has already forced many cable systems to agree to carry it). I wouldn’t mind less college sports and a bit more pro stuff on ESPN.
Oh, and people need to get together and please ask ESPN to stop becoming the “MTV of sports” (and that’s in no way a compliment).
(raise glasses) So, here’s to the hope that we get at least a little bump up in some quality sports programming. (drink now)
Average Ticket Prices for the NFL in Question?
Eric from Off Wing Opinion isn’t happy about the latest Team Marketing Report press release that all the papers seem to be picking up. He thinks TMR is inflating the prices by including premium and luxury seating. I’m not so sure about that…
While I agree about premium seating areas, which I’m sure are included in the average price - I just doubt luxury boxes are. After all, premium or “club seats” are normally part of the normal seating area. You can walk up to the box office and buy these tickets. Luxury or suite seats you cannot. Why not include a normal seat into the average price? Sure, the teams give you “perks” in these seats - but they’re still just normal seats made available to the general public at normal purchase areas. Luxury seats require long-term commitments and you must go through the team to purchase them; it’s just a different set of rules.
Side-note: It still amazes me that NFL teams not only charge you for the ticket - but a “personal seat license”. Why not just label that “we want more money” on the bill? Ridiculous.
Anyway, AFAIK the average price was usually based upon face value of seats for individual games:
Seat face value x # of seats with that value, then repeat for each value
$54 for an average ticket price simply can’t include luxury boxes, these tickets are way too costly and would hike up this average price a ton IMO.
However - let’s say I’m wrong. What if luxury boxes are included? Does that actually warp the average cost of the game that much? Only way to do this is to take a look at some numbers.
Let’s use the average of $54 stated in the TMR report as a base number since I don’t have the one for specific teams in front of me. I like the Bears, so we’ll use the new Soldier Field as an example.
61,500 capacity x $54 average ticket = $3,321,000
A Google search led me to find out there are 133 “Executive Suites”.
On the Bears’ site, it lists this:
For the 2004 season, Full Season Suites cost between $71,500 - $112,500 per-season. License terms are available for 5, 7 & 10 years. Available Suites include 12 or 20 tickets and 3 or 5 parking passes.
No 2005 numbers were printed, and those numbers are a bit vague. It’ll be rough, but I’ll use averages for each: $92k for the season, 16 tickets. Trying to turn that into per game numbers:
$5750 per ticket per season
$718.75 per ticket per game
16 tickets x 133 suites (assuming they’re sold out) = 2128
2,128 total tickets x $718.75 per ticket per game = $1,529,500
Now let’s combine:
(1,529,500 + 3,321,000) / (61,500 + 2,128)
4,850,500 / 63,628 = about $76
Wowwy. Now, that formula is filled with averages and assumptions - but honestly, even if you use max/min numbers the effect is still the same: a big difference. Now remember - other things are included with a suite ticket (parking passes, food, etc.) - but I’m not looking at average cost per game, simply average ticket price.
The only thing this attempts to proves is that luxury tickets are probably not included in this “average price” of $54 per ticket. As most teams have ticket prices starting at $30 or highers, frankly I think you can use whatever luxury numbers you like and it’ll still show a big enough warp to see that luxury prices are most likely not included.
Of course, we could have just asked TMR - but where’s the fun in that?
What Eric is dead-on about is the whole package. Two programs? Two caps? Is that really the average thing a family does? I’m not too sure. I can maybe buy into the hot dogs and drinks (substitute hot dog with candy or the like and the price is probably similar), but I’m not sure about this whole package being what an average family does. Eating before or after the game is usually part of an all-day event that I think most families would take part of just as much as eating there.
Lastly, I just can’t agree about his Ebay experience - while he may have sold his own tickets cheaply, most tickets on there are above face value for any of the searches I did. Every once in a while you can find a couple of cheap corner seats and hope you get lucky, but it’s not going to be at any big venue for any semi-decent game.
So while I can’t say “family with 2.3 kids and a dog would do this…”, I do think throwing some numbers together can give you a decent scope of what you may be in for. Just remember that you have options and that locale matters a ton.
A Preview of ESPN Broadband
As you all know I’m a hockey nut. ESPN was advertising they were showing all games, however four weren’t on the tv schedule. These four are all on ESPN Broadband.
It pops into a large-ish window and has a SportsCenter/ESPN video game like feel. I think it’s all Flash 7 (which is fine since they’re catering to a broadband/cable audience). The video isn’t clickable or right-clickable, I’m going to assume it’s streaming through Flash 7 rather then integrating another format, but you never know.
They’ve got their pipes going strong as the picture quality is very good. I’m watching Finland beating Sweden 4-3 in the third period right now. Easily the nicest integrated streaming video I’ve ever seen. To be able to see the puck in a small window through a live feed is pretty decent work.
Now, this hasn’t been over-promoted, so hopefully if they boost it more, they’ll keep the bandwidth at this high level, the rare stuttering is the only thing that can bring it down. Even when a live game isn’t on, they have some news clips to watch. Also, after the game is completed, it’s supposed to also be available on demand.
There’s a “free preview” from now until Monday. It will be a service available to certain subscribers of cable or dsl companies. I read how RCN has a deal with them, so this should be included for all RCN subscribers, but I have not read anything about Time Warner NYC (my current provider). Hope they pick this up if they haven’t already; there’s supposedly already some bitterness between ESPN and quite a few cable services due to the high price ESPN charges per subscriber (and some cable systems even wanting to make it a premium channel).