Post by TheShadow on Nov 4, 2005 21:00:17 GMT -5
www1.pressdemocrat.com
By BOB PADECKY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
On Wednesday we had, well, a wolf cloaked in sheep's clothing. The announcement seemed cheery enough: N o more personal seat licenses for seats at Raider home games.
Great, our regional nightmare is over. Kumbaya, everyone. Al Davis said he is dedicated to making Raiders fans happy. Or is he?
Happy fans sell out stadiums. Happy fans are trusting fans, walking down a two-way street - they open up their wallet because, coming toward them, their team doesn't take them for granted as predictable cash cows ready to be milked.
For 10 years, however, Raiders fans have been abused by the knuckleheaded PSL idea. The mess had the aroma of a sewer leak. Announcing the elimination of the dreaded PSL isn't going to guarantee sellouts and clear the air. Raider fans still flinch. Being fleeced for a decade will do that to a person.
With the PSL annually falling short of the $20 million projection, East Bay residents found some of their taxes paying for the ugliest stadium in the NFL. They wanted better schools for their kids, fire and police protection for their neighborhoods.
Making sure Al Davis was happy? Making sure Al Davis was competitive in the market place? That would rate well down on their give-a-hoot list. Add mediocre football teams fraught with friction, and making Al Davis happy in some households would not rank above fixing the neighborhood pothole as a necessary community improvement.
"We want to do it right," Davis said at the press conference at the Coliseum. "We'll give our best efforts to make it work."
If Davis is sincere, he will need to do more than abolishing the obvious, the cancerous PSL. He will have to do something so foreign to his nature, it will stun people.
"It is my unique pleasure today," says Davis in this as-of-now fantastical press conference, "to announce an across-the-board discount season ticket plan. As an acknowledgement of the suffering endured by Raiders fans for the last 10 years, tickets will be reduced 25 percent off the NFL average. Not only that, I will cover any short-ages in the annual $20 million bond debt."
Never happen. Impossible. Ludicrous.
Yes. That's exactly the problem.
It's still about Al. It's always been about Al.
Instead of seriously reaching out into the community, this is what we heard from Davis on Wednesday: I'll give you five years to make me happy, otherwise there's lots of cities out there ready "to raise their hand" to fork over their first-born for a n NFL team.
What a way to attract customers. Sorry about only giving you three playoff teams in the last 10 years. Sorry about the PSLs, the blackouts, the infighting, the Chester McGlockton slackers, the Donald Hollas talents, Joe Bugel blowing his bugle and the Raiders blowing up in the Super Bowl. Too bad.
Show up or I'm outta here.
If Wednesday was any indication on how the Raiders plan to sell tickets and themselves for the next five years, consider them gone. Now.