The product at the stadium is inferior for many people to the product at home.

When people have a better time at home than at the stadium, the NFL could give the tickets away for free and people still wouldn’t go.

It was different when everyone was huddled around a 14-inch TV set, but that’s no longer the case.

So you have to add something to the experience to make it more enjoyable. I propose ditching bench seating in favor of affordable skyboxes.

That’s a long list.

My best suggestion: Remove bench seating from stadiums, and go 100% open air skyboxes, of varying sizes and service levels and cost.

When you go to a restaurant, you don’t share your table with 20 strangers. Same concept.

With so many people unabashed to be arsecoals these days, a little privacy would go a long way.

The Rams game were much different in Anaheim but too far of a drive for me, but I would still roll.

Give away a ton of stuff at games, like signed jerseys, team signed footballs & helmets, sideline passes, away game trips, access to practices, so much stuff that you are almost guaranteed to win something if you are a season ticket holder.

Make it easier to tailgate. Include a parking pass with every group of 4 Season tickets. Make each ticket good for one free beer or other concession item.

Take away a few tv time-outs, even if you have to change the teams timeouts to 1 minute.

In June, we will still be 2 months away from preseason football, where I am forced to pay for 2 games of worthless football. But hey!!! They give me a bargain, and reduce the price for preseason tickets, right? Oh thats right, they dont. I still have to pay $150 for tickets I cant even give away on a stinking Wednesday or Thursday night.

The couch looks better to me every day. Im a diehard football fan, but Im thinking about watching games in AC/heat this year, for the first time in a long time.

Get rid of TV timeouts and give back millions (If not close to a billion) in ad revenue.

Try again….
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Actually, I was only referring to the post kickoff TV timeout, not all of them. Your reaction was to quick.

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Actually my reaction was appropriate but I do appologize for leaving a word out of my comment. My new comment is “Get rid of SOME TV timeouts and give back millions (if not close to a billion) in ad revenue.

Try again…..
Take into consideration a moderately low scoring game, can we agree that 24-17 would be an “Average” game? That would be a total of 5TD’s and 2 Field goals, add opening game and half kickoffs and you have 9 Kickoffs in the game. 9 commercial breaks times 14 games each week eliminates 126 commercial breaks each week, up to 144 after by weeks are complete. Add in the increased price for playoff games, championship games, and the redonkulous price paid for superbowl ads. How much do you think those 9 breaks cost during the big game?

I do however appologize if it seemed like I was making fun of your idea, I was just saying no, that won’t work try another idea.

And to all who are saying lower ticket prices and food/beer prices will solve the problem keep in mind that most markets sell out every game. The markets that do not sell out still sell far more tickets than small baseball/hockey markets. Baseball teams sell tickets for 10-15 bucks because even at that cost they can’t sell out. You won’t find a Yankee or Red Sox game available for that, you will find an Orioles or Rays game. Lowering the price would just cut into the profit margin and put a little more money in the pockets of the people at the game.

How am I the only one that notices this?

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Not sure why the picture is of the Rams but Robert Kraft is working with Godell on the issue. If you follow the link located in the article it talks about Kraft.

The answer is simple, and it’s been said plenty in the comments: make the live game experience a heck of a lot cheaper and more will come. $60 to fill up your car to go to the stadium, $100 for a ticket, $20 to park, $8 beers, $5 hot chocolate, $4 pretzel, and $5 hot dog adds up to $202. Even if you don’t eat or drink, it’s still $180 to go to a game. If I sit at home, my cost is a six pack ($8) and a frozen pizza ($7) which comes to a grand total of $15 to watch the game on my high-def TV and the only drunken idiot I have to put up with is myself.

Pretty simple, NFL. Lower the cost of the live game experience and I’ll bet my leather couch that ticket sales would dramatically increase. There’s still a lot of people out of work or struggle to make end’s meet that can’t justify $180+ every time they want to watch a live NFL game.

Here’s an average day at your over-priced Factory of Sadness:

Leave the house at 10am and fight traffic
Get downtown and pay $25 to park.

Put on all your layers because is FREEZING outside.

Navigate through the hoard of vulgar drunks walking a mile to the stadium (parking in the lot next door will take you til Monday to get out). Try to shield your 8 year-old from all the new words they’re learning being shouted at someone who decided to wear something supporting another team.

Stop to observe fist-fight to make sure nobody is actually murdered or avoid fist-fight if you have your kid with you.

Walk past vendors selling obscene T-Shirts and shouting all kinds of classy things. Shield your 8 year-old from the one with the Michigan cheerleader “servicing” a Buckeyes player. He sees the “F— Pittsburgh” one instead – lesser of two evils.

Stop by the hot dog cart outside the stadium to actually pay $2 for the same product that costs 3 times that inside.

Stand in a sardine packed line for 20 minutes to get groped and wanded on your way into the stadium.

Arrive at your seats 30 minutes before kickoff to observe 4 losers in the row behind you who are WAY too old to be so drunk that they don’t know where they are. 5 minutes later, the one with the dead eyes is reflexively spitting on the pavement, about to vomit. Observe 40 year-old loser puke into an empty beer cup. A couple chunks land on the poor sap next to you. Tell his friends to get him out of there. The ingrates respond, “like you’ve never been there before.” Ponder pummeling them, but settle on threatening them. Eventually they leave or someone else tells on them.

The game starts. The Browns’ only good player, a dynamic return specialist, watches the opening kickoff bounce past the back of the end-zone (nice rule change, guys).

Eventually you get your appetite back since the puke behind you has been cleaned up. You go get a burger and a beer. $18.

Some a-hole three seats down decides the rules don’t apply to him and lights up a smoke. You’re allergic and he’s perfectly positioned for it to waft right across your nose. You tell him to put it out and he tells you to F yourself. You tell the usher to please put a stop to it and he asks if you talked to the guy. You tell the usher that you did, but it’s not your job to do so.

It’s the 2nd quarter now and you hear a sudden roar. It’s the 16th TV time-out, so you know nothing is happening on the field. Right on schedule, the degenerates in the Dawg Pound are on their 3rd fight of the afternoon. Cue “A-hole chant.”

Toward the end of the first half, the Browns finally get a drive going. McCoy drops back and has a man open deep! The 55 year-old trophy wife down the row decides this would be the perfect time for her 3rd Bloody Mary! You miss the play. Clueless idiots will enter or exit your row during a play 18 more times today.

Half-time! Wait in line to pee for 15 minutes, miss the opening of the 3rd quarter. Skip washing hands because some mouth-breather was going in the sink.

3rd quarter, the other team is up by 3 touchdowns. 70% of the stadium empties. Sit around and watch your terrible team get embarrassed (again). You’ve been doing this for 12 years now, but hey, at least you can put your feet up in the 4th quarter.

In a rare moment of glory, a DB on your team returns an INT for a TD. When he’s at the 50, you miss the rest of the play because trophy wife, who was leaving early, came back because she forgot her scarf. She’s out of your way in time to see him dance around the end zone despite still losing by 21 points.

A drunk idiot runs on the field and gets clobbered by a player then pummeled by security. Biggest cheer (and best tackle) of the day.

Eventually, the game mercifully ends. Observe your home team’s “gridiron warriors” laugh and glad handle with the team that just humiliated them.

Navigate the hoard of bitter, sullen drunks on the way back to the car.

Try to shield your kid from even more creative cheers on the way out.

Try to shield your kid from the skanks from the local Gentleman’s Club passing out free-admission coupons.

Walk past drunk, shoeless 45 year-old who decks a 20 year-old kid for walking past his eyeline. Laugh as his slightly less drunk friend holds him back as the 20 year-old decides if he should just keep walking or mop the floor with the guy.

Sit in traffic for an hour just to get out of downtown because neither your team or your bankrupt city want to pay for more than 2 traffic cops.

Listen to team-sponsored locker room report while you sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Team hired reporter baits players and coaches with hard-hitting questions like “rough day out there today” and “talk about that touchdown” instead of “why don’t you have any professional receivers on your roster?”

Get home at 5:30. Core body temperature back to normal by halftime of the Sunday Night game.

And you wonder why people would rather watch on TV!? I could be next to a warm fireplace, eating pizza and drinking a reasonably priced micro brew for about $15 total instead of forking out hundreds of dollars.

See you Sunday.

Get rid of TV timeouts and give back millions (If not close to a billion) in ad revenue.

Try again….
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Actually, I was only referring to the post kickoff TV timeout, not all of them. Your reaction was to quick.

Anyways I can personally afford my club seats but traffic stinks — I suggest helipads for people such as myself that will usher us above the unwashed masses of to our waiting cars a few miles from the stadium. This will allow us to quickly bypass the scumclass traffic and return to our estates so we can continue to be productive and provide jobs for the rest of you.
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That is funny as hell. Even if you’re serious still perfect.

These stadium experience will be detracted by these fad toys. Go back to a main scoreboard and scores of other NFL games. Get rid of the nuisance fantasy stats.

It’s amazing how EASY the NFL can make the home viewing experience better, but they don’t want to dissuade the paying customer base.

So, you give these extras to those who BUY THE GAME TICKETS. Buy one game, get these “enhanced” game experience options for one road game… better and more camera angles to choose from, a mic’d up option for certain players DURING the game, and a five minute sneak peak at the pregame “pep” talk.

NFL fans are DYING for more of their favorte sport. Give it to them… (if they pay for a ticket that is).

How many obnoxious drunks will be in the stadium with $10 seats and $3 beers?

The way to jazz it up a little is the following:

1) Get some microbrews out there, if I’m going to pay 8 bucks for a can of beer, at least make it a beer with some taste…

2) Come up with some unique foods to each stadium (Target Field does a GREAT job with this)

3) Make the atmosphere a little more kid friendly…I love the rivalries and the heckling of the opposing fans (as long as it doesn’t cross a line see: 49ers vs Raiders), Packer-Viking games are fun for heckling! Just make the players actually ACCESSIBLE to the fans (MLB does a GREAT job with this as well)

4) NFL Teams should be more accommodating to season ticket holders. Private tours of the stadium, free gear, team “meet and greets”, etc

5) Come up with a way to have package deals with hotel/transportation to bring the costs down a bit of the overall trip

Don’t try to mimic the home experience, I won’t pay that money when I get the same stuff at home…can’t meet the players at home, can’t tour the stadium at home, can’t eat the unique foods at home…and DON’T DESTROY MY BUDGET in doing so.

I love watching every Sunday with my group of friends (several teams represented) but going to live games is way more fun. Baltimore, Charlotte and Atlanta are my games this year if the schedule works out. Looking forward to three great weekends.

1. Take Ticketmaster, and other ticket outlets out of the scenario. When tickets go on sale, it’s kind of funny how you can call ticketmaster, and they will say they are sold out. But, you can go on craigslist, and find 50 different adds for a game, and all of them are thru some secondary ticket outlet, and at 5-10 times the cost. That to me, is a huge rip off. How is it these secondary outlets can get their hands on tickets, but yet we can’t? How is it ticketmaster will say there is a 10 ticket maximum, but these secondary outlets have 2000 seats to sell? You can price out a ticket on ticketmaster, and it’s 130 dollar seat, pretty nice location.. Go to that secondary outlet, and it’s 400 dollars. Go figure! Sorry Roger, i’m not going to pay 400 dollars for a seat that won’t be quite as comfy as my couch! Maybe i’d buy that 130 dollar seat from ticketmaster, but not the 400 dollar seat from some other outlet that just “scalps” the tickets anyways!

2. Lower food and beverage costs! I am not in the mood to drop a grand for good seats, food, and beverage to take my wife to a game to watch my crappy vikings lose by 50 to the packers… My couch, coors light, and nacho’s seem to be more comfortable, taste better and are alot cheaper.

3. Parking…. It stinks! not only is it going to be a ton just to go to the game, but parking, and traffic… Then like others have said, sit in line to take a whiz, only to have to walk thru piles of puke, and lakes of urine on the floor because people can’t hold their liquor. Maybe to aid in this, when a person goes thru the gate, give them 4 tickets for a person of legal age to drink. Basically limit them to 1 beer per quarter.. It stinks you would have to do that, but i sure am tired of going to a game, and stepping in puke and urine, and having the bathroom reak! Makes me wonder if half of the people work on mondays or not? Maybe i’m old, but i know if i was in that sort of shape, i wouldn’t function monday… Probably not until wednesday!.

There’s a few things for you to start with Roger…. Maybe give up 9 of your 10 mil in salary to fans! That would be another route….

Force communities to publicly fund their stadiums..

Force people to pay full price fro pre-season garbage!..

Force the markets to sellout those stadiums or else get blacked-out from TV…

And they’re now going to try inventing new ways to get someone to buy tickets for games between two losing teams (which is probably why they’re not selling out).

The market has set a price and owners are going to want to get that and more… that’s why they’re researching cost effective ways to get fans in the stadium and in turn raise prices again.

Also, for those that might not know… TicketMaster owns LiveNation, StubHub and the main broker sites that sell the the street scalpers & ebay brokers. They get fees plus some on each transaction so there’s no interest making changes to any of that as the fan pays it in the end. So if you’re looking to go to a game or concert stay away from those methods of getting a ticket.