Week 8 - Inadequate Seating at Superbowl

Article 8

It's all about the money, honey.  When seats weren't ready for Superbowl attendees, the NFL has made offer, upon offer to reimburse the owners of the tickets.  With an impending NFL lockout on the horizon, author Jane McManus thinks that the NFL will need a certain amount of public support on their side, and after something like what happened at the Super Bowl, that is highly unlikely.  

"If the NFL is going to lock out the players, it needs to have some amount of public sentiment on its side, and it won't get that by looking like a group of arrogant owners who can't address the simplest of unfair situations.  Like a ticket that didn't come with a seat.  The average NFL fan may not be able to identify with wealthy professional athletes in Gucci sunglasses squawking about fair pay, but she can most certainly relate to a Packers fan who gets unceremoniously kicked out of a seat during a once-in-a-lifetime trip to see Aaron Rodgers make Green Bay proud."

Needless to say, none of that happened and it didn't take long for a lawsuit to arise.  The NFL has built itself up in the sports landscape to look like "clear-headed grownups" when compared with the NBA, MLB and NHL. A lockout will harm that. But more importantly, the NFL needs to appear to be a league that is fair and reasonable, whether it is dealing with players or displaced fans.  The NFL has "dealt with the ticket holders by being reactionary in dealing with complaints and lawsuits, when a little foresight and a fair offer could have alleviated a public relations disaster."  The stakes are obviously higher in the case of a lockout.   So once again, I say, "It's all about the money, honey."