Newz Forum: OTHER: Super Bowl venue's, Cheap Super Bowl tickets, Winter Olympics plus more...

Never let it be said that I shy away from any responsibility to bring you public service announcements of great importance. Everyone knows that February is Black History Month but did you know that February is also National Weddings Month and also National An Affair To Remember Month. Hmmm... The third week of February - this year containing Valentine's Day - is National Flirting Week. But here's one I just can't explain. Wednesday February 1, is National Robinson Crusoe Day. Can anyone explain to me why this isn't on a Friday?

Last year, folks in Jacksonville were righteously indignant when people like me said that the town was a dumb place to hold a Super Bowl and that it shouldn't happen there again. Here's something interesting. This year in Detroit, there is grumbling and complaining about the venue, but I haven't heard anyone say that he/she wished they were back in Jacksonville. That sort of puts it in perspective. Even with a balmy stretch of weather in Detroit for late January/early February, there are freezing temperatures and snow flurries, but I haven't read any 'Odes to the Halcyon Days In Jax'. I did hear someone say that the weather report for Detroit one day this week was for snow flurries in the morning with high's in the mid-thirties and a 70% chance of getting mugged. BaDaBing! BaDaBoom!


Here's something that I want to look for during the game on Sunday. Will any fans from Detroit manage to snag tix to the game and sneak in a 'Fire Millen' sign? Now that would be worth a crowd shot by the ABC folks...

Here's why I don't think that sign is going to appear. As I've said before, the Super Bowl crowd is not made up of football fans; corporate suits and sponsor straphangers dominate the crowd; these are not the folks who braved an outdoor game in Pittsburgh in December because it was a football game. They are there because it is where one should be at the time, not because they are passionate about the game in front of them.

The Steelers and the Seahawks got 11,000 tickets a piece for the game. Most of them went to players, coaches, front office folks, suite holders and team corporate sponsors. The fans MIGHT have access to a lottery with 1500 - 2500 tickets in the pool. The league spreads tickets around to other teams and league officialdom and league sponsors and surprisingly enough ticket brokers wind up with huge inventories of tickets that can be resold for as much as $5K per seat. It is important to understand that the Super Bowl is a weeklong party/celebration put on by the NFL for its friends and sponsors and it allows folks with deep pockets to join in - probably because there is a chance that they too can become 'friends and sponsors' some day. But for real fans with typical incomes and asset holdings, this is a TV event only. And between you and me, I'm good with that.

But I really am in a public service mood this morning and so I want to tell you now about a way you may be able to score tickets to next year's Super Bowl at face value (something in the range of $500 a seat). The concept is called 'Fan Forwards' and it is available at www.TheTicketReserve.com. It is an option market and here is how it works. You go to the website and you buy an option on two seats - or four - at Super Bowl XLI in Miami next year tied to a specific team being in the game. If I buy an option on the 49ers to be there, it won't cost much because few folks think they will make it there; if I want to buy an option on the Pats, it will cost more. My option is only valid next year if the team I pick is in the game. Prices will fluctuate during the year and you can sell your option during the year at a profit - if it goes up - or you can sell it at a loss but prevent it from expiring worthless. But if you think you know who will be participating in Super Bowl XLI and you want to go to Miami for the game and you want tix at face value, here is a way for you to get there.

By the way, they also do these kinds of option markets for next year's NFL Conference Finals games, the Final Four, the College Baseball World Series, the World Baseball Classic, the NBA playoffs (all rounds), Arena Bowl XX (in Las Vegas this year) and the NHL Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals if you are interested.

You've probably heard by now that the NFL will no longer have a promotional linkage with Levitra - one of the erectile dysfunction drugs on the market. Frankly, I never thought that was a linkage that made sense from the NFL side of the table except for the money that changed hands, but then I realized that the only thing that really matters here is that lots of money changes hands and that the NFL winds up with all of it at the end of the deal. Now I read that Cialis - another erectile dysfunction drug - will not have any Super Bowl ads this year. Cialis introduced itself to the world via Super Bowl advertising a couple of years ago; I think it was that ad with the man and woman in separate bathtubs looking out over a canyon and holding hands. Not to get too far into the realm of 'too much information', but I rarely find myself in such situations, how about you?

The spokesthing for Cialis said that the company was 'comfortable focusing our efforts and attentions in other areas'. Excuse me, but erectile dysfunction meds need only affect 'one area'. What are they going to try to convince me of next; that I can take Cialis and do push-ups with my nose?

While ticket sales for the Winter Olympic Games are slow and there are multiple hundreds of thousands of tickets still available, the ticket sales for the World Cup in Germany next summer are moving along quite briskly. Over 700,000 fans worldwide have reportedly bought tickets and already 6 million seats have been sold. The latest data I saw for the Winter Olympics - which begin in less than two weeks - was that 710,000 tickets out of a total of just more than 1 million tickets had been sold.

Finally, since I mentioned the idea of getting 'Fire Millen' signs into the game on Sunday, here's a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about Matt Millen:

'Millen plans to host a Super Bowl party this week. No draft beer, though. Instead, draft wide receivers.'

But don't get me wrong, I love sports... ... ...

Curmudgeon

there was a lottery in seattle for the season ticket holders to get super bowl tickets, the lottery was supposed to be weighted in some way to give long time ticket holders more chances to win tickets to the big game, one guy whose family had season tickets for all 30 years wasn't one of the lucky ones, when the story hit the papers 2 great people stepped up, one GAVE him a ticket, another offered him a ticket at face value....there still are some good people in the world

If he needs anothe one maybe he will get lucky and Mike Tice will be around at Super Bowl XL.