Fan Mistreatment in Sports

Never before have sports fans felt so powerless. It has become increasingly difficult for us, as longtime devotees, to remain fans with the sports industry spiraling out of control and taking its supporters for granted.

As loyal fans, we commit ourselves to a team, purchase tickets to the games, buy the merchandise, pay for parking and concessions, and what do we get in return? The team owners threaten to leave town if we don't pay for a new stadium with our tax dollars, the players leave for bigger salaries, the owners and players feud to the point of a strike or lockout, and ticket prices go up year after year.

The sports industry powers that be expect us to love our teams, but feel no need to love us back. League commissioners, owners, players, agents, media, marketers, advertisers and goods & apparel companies are all betting on our growing addiction for sports to continue. They're expecting the "sports drug" to keep the blue collar, diehard fans hooked, while catering to the corporate white collar fans that can afford to drop money on luxury suites and private seat license (PSL) scams.

For sports fans, greed and over-reaching have become what to expect out of the sports industry. Why don't we hold them to a higher standard of integrity? Because through the despair, fans have developed a sense of apathy and indifference over the years. This is precisely the response that the tycoons of the sports industry prefer. It transforms sports fans into ideal consumers of the industry's commercially marketed excitement while assuring them that fans won't interfere with the sports business by offering or demanding solutions.

Why this apathy among sports fans? Politicians refuse to question the intentions of billionaire team owners when they insist that the taxpayers provide them with hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate welfare and tax breaks. And the media refrain from providing us with reports about the sports industry that might cause anger or resentment among sports fans. So, if no one else cares about how the sports industry manipulates fans and taxpayers, why should we? Why bother?

It is precisely because those entities that are in place to look out for us and inform us have neglected their obligations to the public interest, that we need to take the responsibility ourselves. Make no mistake about it, sports got away from the fans. And if we truly are sports fans, it is not our loyalty to the industry that will save sports, but our willingness to hold those in power accountable for their actions and to demand the return of integrity to sports.

As fans, it is our responsibility to convince the sports authorities that we are integral to the survival of spectator sports. We must demand the reform of the greed and excesses that the sports industry has produced, and urge our government and media to take notice the concerns of fans and taxpayers regarding the sports business.

If we continue our indifference toward the fleecing of sports fans, the problems will only get worse. When fans are manipulated and abused, the sports industry may profit from its irresponsibility, but the sports themselves suffer and will continue to deteriorate unless the consumers have a voice.

A few examples regarding the problems with fan mistreatment in sports:

Absence of fan input in league discussions and decision-making:

When league officials get together to discuss rules changes and other things that effect the games, fans should always be represented at these meetings. To this point, that has never been the case, but business interests are far too influential in sports these days, even regarding rules changes. With sports fan representatives at official league meetings, the business interests would be held in check while the concerns of sports fans are heard.

Excessive cost of stadium and arena seats, concessions and parking:

Attending games has become such an exclusive privilege that, for most, it has become either a once-a-year treat, or a corporate perk. In the new stadiums and arenas especially, the team owners have decided to cater to the corporate white collar fans that can afford to drop money on luxury suites and private seat license (PSL) scams.

Built on the backs of the taxpayers that may not be able to afford to attend a game anymore, the new "mallparks" with the fancy retro facade could actually be obsolete in just a few years. These stadiums depend on extremely high-priced tickets and huge luxury box fees to be successful. Without a period, like the 1990s, of intense wealth gathering by those at the top of the economic ladder, the necessary revenues to support such stadiums may not materialize in the future. The luster is beginning to wear off of this elitism, the "sports drug" is wearing off and the fans are beginning to organize.

Increased use of private/personal seat license (PSL) scams:

A relatively new revenue source for team owners is the PSL, usually short for private or personal seat licenses. PSLs force fans to pay a fixed fee to obtain the privilege of purchasing season tickets. A ticket to buy a ticket!

In the past, teams typically allowed season ticket holders to automatically renew their tickets each year, and that fan's position was lost only if season tickets were not renewed. Now, in an increasing number of stadiums, season ticket holders must pay the PSL fees, which are typically quite expensive, before being given the privilege to pay for the tickets. PSLs don't even confer extra benefits to their customers beyond that of the endangered general season ticket holder.

This is nothing but another scam that takes advantage of sports fans. One more wedge that drives the diehard fans away from the game in favor of a more affluent audience. Just to fatten the wallets of the owners.

League commissioners' focusing on increasing the wealth of team owners:

The commissioners of the major sports leagues have neglected their jobs with the leagues in favor of multiplying the wealth of the respective team owners by convincing cities and states to give taxpayer money for new revenue generating stadiums. The most prominent example being Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Selig has taken on the job of drum-beater for any and all baseball franchise owners claiming that they need a new stadium to remain competitive.

This scenario has become very repetitive and sickening. Flying from city to city, where there are stadium battles raging, Selig claims that whichever city he is in that day needs a new taxpayer-financed stadium for the team to survive. He then intimidates the government officials, citizens and fans with threats of relocation or contraction of each franchise. It is not the job of the commissioner of a professional sports league to extort money from a host city. It is the commissioner's job to get the economic house in order, preserve the integrity of the game, and work to become better neighbors to the cities that host a team, and fans that attend games.

New stadiums catering to the wealthy, displacing loyal fans to seats farther away:

Lets be honest, these new stadiums aren't really built with the sports fan in mind. With luxury boxes and club seats gaining importance along with the way overblown problem of obstructed view seats, the upper levels of stands at new stadiums have been pushed up and away from the fields. Leaving no overhang, most seats other than the field level bowl are actually much further from the action than the stadiums that they replaced.

Combining this with the cost of taking a family to a game with tickets, parking and concessions, its easy to see that the new stadiums are not really fan-friendly. They're built, on the backs of the taxpayers, for the owners, their business partners and the corporate white-collar folks who shell out big bucks for luxury boxes as a nice place to do business.

Owner and player disputes causing strikes or lockouts:

The inability of owners and players to find common ground on anything, in any major sport, is ridiculous. And who loses because each side wants it all? The fans. Neither the owners nor the players care about any of the things that sports fans care about. They only care about their respective members, their exclusive club.

Sports fans need to be represented at collective bargaining meetings if only to keep each side a little more honest and make them think about what the whole thing is supposed to be about. Maybe then there would be fewer work stoppages. Maybe then the leagues could maintain a loyal fan base instead of alienating everyone over money.

Politicians refusal to question team owners' intentions regarding stadium deals:

Too often, the mayors of our cities and governors of our states fall all over themselves to help out any sports owner that thinks the public should pay for a new stadium. These politicians begin to act even crazier about sports than the craziest sports fan. Before asking any questions as to the motives of team owners when demanding a stadium, our governmental leaders are willing to ignore the many unmet needs for which a city or state is supposed to address, and turn their citizen's tax dollars into corporate welfare for sports franchise owners.

We have come to expect our ethics-resistant politicians to ignore the public interest in favor of the campaign funding and luxury box seats they will receive for their compliance to ownership extortion. This is blatant government-sponsored corporate welfare and for this the city and state leaders who agree to such terms should be relieved of office.

Professional team owners with no loyalty to their city:

The complete disrespect, by team owners, for the cities that host major sports franchises has become notorious and commonplace across the country. The owners, which built the leagues on the trust of the fans, now treat those fans and their cities like it doesn't count -- like nothing ever mattered.

Healthy teams with healthy franchises and a healthy stadium filled with a healthy fan base will even threaten to leave on a whim when given the opportunity to land an even better deal with a new stadium in another city. All it takes is another money-grubbing owner to betray the trust and loyalty of the hometown, and its fans.

Sports media's reluctance to inform fans of the often ugly business of the sports industry:

Often times, controversial business practices by team owners, major sports leagues, apparel companies and sports advertisers are not very well documented by the media. In some cases it may be due to the conflict of interest or the collusion between media companies and sports teams, but mostly it's because that side of sports is often ugly and could have a negative impact on support for a local sports team, or major sports in general.

Since the sports pages, sports radio, and sports news on television are such large money makers for those media companies, some news is frequently kept from the public or toned down for fear of a loss of sports fans and therefore readers, listeners and viewers.

The sports media must do a better job of covering the business of sports as ferociously as it covers the games. They should report how much teams are making and how much they are charging. If owners and management keep hiding the books and the numbers, reporters should go after them and investigate. It's important to know how much the owner of a team makes each year, from sports and their other businesses. Every time the ticket prices go up, or demands are made for corporate welfare and tax breaks, it should be more than a tiny box buried in the corner of the sports section. It should be a big story, with opinions expressed from all sides.

Sports fans deserve to know the truth about the industry they support. But unless fans demand better coverage of the business of sports, the media will continue to ignore their public responsibility and use journalism to make more money instead of to investigate and report the news.