I agree with what's been written so far. It is sad that the home arenas/parks/fields are corporately named. Ultimately much of this cash goes into the players' hands. We all long for the days of Exhibition Stadium, Maple Leaf Gardens, The Montreal Forum ...now we have Rogers Center, The Air Canada Center and the Bell Center. Ticket prices are out of reach, yet players are making more and more money.Owners are putting their own egos and greed ahead of the best interest of the league and the fans, The Blue Jays are owned by Rogers who owns Sportsnet...you think there's going to be fair coverage on that channel? Non stop cheerleading and "cross promotion" is teh name of that game.
The NHL , as the weakest of the 'major' leagues of sports has hit its Armageddon. The NBA is on the brink of a work stoppage next season, Major League Baseball ...well that league continues to devour itself, choking on its own greed.
In the end we, the fans, the consumers, lose. These sports are more than entertainment to us. We are more than a fan base living in a market...these sports represent our dreams, our escape from reality, our passion. Because of our love for these teams - the Leafs, Habs, Yankees, Packers and so on - we continue to shell out big cash for tickets, for sweaters, for big screen plasma tv's so we can watch the game, we know we shouldn't but we can't help ourselves, our passion is leading us. The owners and players in professional sports become wealthy because of our passion, and yes, our blind stupidity....they take advantage of us, they ignore us, they mock us and take us for granted. We as the consumers must learn to rule our wallets with our heads, not our hearts. We must say no. As the NHL heads toward self destruction, we must ignore them when they return,and let them continue their downward spiral. If the NBA,MLB or NFL follow suit we must ignore them as well. Can we do this ? Are we willing to put aside our passion and spend our time and money elsewhere? I hope so.
Rogers Center? Lousy name? Yes. Is it any worse that the hundreds of millions of dollars we got screwed out of building Shydome? Not really.
Thus endeth the rant. :angry:
