LittleHurt05

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 02:36 PM) Their season ticket bases are extremely high. A lot of that is corporate, also its not an 81 game committment but a 41 game committment. The Bears is a 10 game committment with pre season. There is also a larger pool for those teams, as many people loyal to the Cubs won't go to a Sox game if it were free. You don't get buses from Iowa at Sox games on a Wednesday afternoon. In fact, one article I read had a Cubs official saying 40% of their attendance was tourists. So maybe that's the main problem. A small fan base, not pricing. Opening a new ballpark & winning the World Series both expanded that fanbase for a while, but now it's back to it's core again. I don't think it's as simple as high prices.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 02:11 PM) The Sox average more customers per game than the Blackhawks and Bulls. Comparing them to the Bears with 8 home dates isn't fair. Plus those 3 are the only teams in town in their respective sports. If ticket brokers owned the same number of season tickets for the Cubs as they do for the Sox, their attendance would be far less, but we all know there are more Cubs fans in the area than Sox fans. The Sox are drawing from a fairly small pool compared to the others except probably the Blackhawks, but if they go a few seasons without the playoffs, their attendance will be dismal. People will come, but pricing is a problem. If you compare those teams to other teams in the same leagues, they all are among the highest in average ticket price and attendance. It doesn't appear that the economy & high ticket prices have had an effect on them. Other NHL/NBA/NFL/MLB teams have much lower ticket prices, yet also have attendance issues. If the economy in Chicago is so bad, why don't any of the other teams have issues like the White Sox?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 01:30 PM) Great post. I think the Sox would be thrilled in this economy to have a fan like you go to "a handful" of games a year. It's funny, everyone keeps blaming the economy and high ticket prices. Yet every other sports team in Chicago has relatively high ticket prices and seems to be enjoying tons of success at the gate. The Cubs did have a decrease, but even with a 100 loss team, they were still top 10 in attendance. Apparently, White Sox fans are the only ones affected by the economy.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 11:55 AM) They'd still have to agree to take salary cuts of 25% across the board. From what I can gather on Twitter, it sounds like the NHL is willing to pay back any money lost on current contracts. The payments would just be deferred over time. Either way, it's nice to see them actually negotiating for once

Actual news on the labor front. The owners were originally looking to reduce the players share of revenue from 57% to 46%, which the players obviously balked it. Today the owners proposed a 50-50 split, contingent on an 82-game season starting Nov. 2. Obviously there are other factors in the negotiations, but sounds like the owners are starting budge a little bit. Players union is on the clock.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) and the awful Raiders gave them all they could handle. I think I might put the Giants as the second best team for two reasons, defending champs and the way they manhandled the 9ers. The issue with the Giants is that they are so damn inconsistent. Go to San Fran and destroy the 49ers, but lose at home to Dallas and almost lose at home to Tampa. While they are defending champions, they were one Tony Romo overthrow away from not making the playoffs. Last year they got swept by the Grossman-led Redskins, yet won in Foxboro. Such a tough team to figure out, but better than any other when they are on their game.

In the same league, two weeks ago I lost by .04 points. This week I won by .04 points. Wow.

QUOTE (Paint it Black @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 05:13 PM) Since every team I wanted to win lost in the Division Series, so now I'm just watching for drama. My uncle lives in Detroit and asked if I would drive to Detroit for a World Series game and purchase my ticket on one condition - I root for the Tigers at the game. I can't turn this opportunity down. Am I a bad White Sox fan? A true White Sox fan would show up in Tigers apparel, then as soon as the 1st pitch is thrown, you rip off the Tigers gear and be wearing Cardinals/Giants stuff underneath. You are already in the stadium, what's your uncle gonna do, kick you out?

QUOTE (ewokpelts @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 05:32 PM) minor league baseball will NOT hurt the major league product. just ask the red sox. That's also the franchise with the longest sellout streak in baseball, so it might not be the best example to compare to.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 03:54 PM) Plus you run the risk of competing with yourself. Exactly. All these new fans will be used to paying minor league prices for baseball, they may not want to suddenly pay more for the MLB team.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 02:40 PM) Eric Decker needs to score me 5 points, thats all. Come on buddy I need Jacob Tamme to score less than 5, so go Decker!

QUOTE (SOXOBAMA @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 12:11 PM) My rankings for this week 1 Atlanta 6-0 2 Bears 4-1 3 Houston 5-1 4 Ravens 5-1 5 Giants 4-2 Being the only undefeated team kind of puts them at #1 by default, but considering that 4 of their first 6 games were vs. the AFC West, the Falcons will have to do a little more to impress me.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) So Youk at $10 million a season, or Arod at $10 million a season? More like: So Youk at $10 million a season until 2013/2014 or ARod at $10 million a season until 2017?

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 10:30 AM) Oh ok, that Mellon guy. I didn't fully understand what was happening in those scenes. It seemed like they were discussing whether or not prohibition was/is a fiscally responsible amendment and deciding on whether to appeal it or not? And I assume that all the bootlegging people want to keep it a law, so they can continue to make bank off it illegally? Or is that not close? I think that sounds about right. For the money they are spending to enforce & prosecute the law, the amount of people convicted has been minimal. And Mellon mentioned that bribery is a big reason for that too. So they may think about appealing it, and of course this would destroy the bootleggers main source of income if it became legal again.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 06:43 AM) Yankees lineup making Adam Dunn look like a contact hitter. And now they get to face Justin Verlander. Tigers pitchers not named Jose Valverde have given up 0 ER (1 unearned) in their past 41 innings pitched

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 09:32 PM) I thought one reason that they put dynamic ticket pricing in was to lower prices as games got near and demand wasn't there. Clearly that didn't happen. Only thing they did was those deals, but dynamic pricing should bring down all prices. That's how I thought it would work, that the pricing would fluctuate depending on the demand. Obviously that wasn't the case, judging by all the empty seats at the Cubs & Yankees series, while the prices stayed high up to first pitch.

Wow, that ending scene with Gyp Rosetti.

Nick Swisher is "hurt" by jeers from NYY Bleacher Creatures

QUOTE (2nd_city_saint787 @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 07:53 PM) Thats pretty extreme, I didn't know there was such a thing! I'm in that next year fa sho! lol It's fun, way more high scoring, so you can get crazy weeks, like 200+ points. It isn't very mainstream though, probably because of the NCAA's "amateur" status. I play on CBS Sportsline, which is the only main site that has a platform for it, and even they have very limited analysis. ESPN & Yahoo have no analysis for it.

Benched RGIII in both leagues cause of the concussion. Stafford & Big Ben held tight with him points wise until that 76-yard run. Oh well. My NCAA fantasy QB did score 71 points last night, so at least I got that going for me.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 07:02 PM) Good to see AJ in the studio. How does the 'most hated player in the league' get a broadcasting job again? The same way that Ozzie gets broadcasting jobs

The 7th best team in the AL is probably gonna advance to the World Series.

In Cano's last 9 regular season games, he went 24-for-39 (.615) with 7 doubles & 3 HR. So far in the postseason he is 2-for-28 (.071) with two doubles.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 11:38 AM) The Yankees not selling out postseason games and the Sox attendance problems have a lot in common. Both teams have old cores that their fans have tired of. In other words, it's time to find good young players. It's also the fifth straight day with a game and three of the previous games went to extra innings. Their $200 million lineup is not hitting, at least 3 regulars are getting booed every time they come up. I think the fanbase is just over it at the current moment. QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 01:34 PM) Maybe New Yorkers hate the Yankees, but I'd think people would want to go to ALCS games in the Big Apple. To have that many empty seats, row after row of empty seats, to me is all about money. There were hundreds of tickets on StubHub available for $25 or less today. If it was just about the money, all those tickets would be scooped up in a second.

14,505 people at the Horizon last night for Wolves/IceHogs