Cold Hard Rants: Recession, Shemecession

To begin, a multiple choice question:

Q: You are a semi-established sporting organisation trying to gain a foothold in a presently untapped, but in your mind, potentially lucrative market. As a way to draw attention to your sport in said market, you decide to hold your grand, end of season awards ceremony, in one of the area’s many hotel and conference centers. Keep in mind, the denizens of this region are not fully aware or appreciative of your sport. The question is thus; what price level would you charge for tickets to your awards ceremony?

A) Bargain basement pricing so you can guarantee a good audience, and garner interest amongst local residents

B) Reasonable priced tickets so you can guarantee that the people in attendance truly want to be there, and will be appreciative of the evening they spend in the grand company of your fine tuned athletes

C) Outrageous pricing, well beyond what any rational person would pay even in your biggest market, never mind a market where most of your players and your sport is completely inconsequential and anonymous.

If you answered C, congratulations because you are Gary Bettman and the commissioner of the NHL!

Earlier this week, tickets went on sale for the NHL awards ceremony being held in Las Vegas. I have already ranted earlier this year about the idiocy of holding the awards in Vegas, but that mistake (in my humble opinion) had already been committed, and now it was up to the NHL to make the best of a bad situation. In typical NHL fashion they have gone and done the exact opposite, instead amplifying that mistake by charging a price so outlandish that I can only think their hope is to have ticket sales be such a disaster that they have to pull the awards from Vegas and move them back to an actual hockey community.

Brace yourself, here is the ticket price. (Just to be sporting I won’t even mention the service charges and additional fees that go along with purchasing a ticket.)

You can get one seat, anywhere in the Pearl Concert Theater at Palms Casino Resort, for the low low price of $504.00 USD.

I repeat, $504.00 USD.

(I will now pause to allow you to catch your breath, stop crying/laughing, and regain your faculties.)

You have to hand it to the NHL. In a time of recession and penny pinching, the NHL continues on, unabated, in their Pollyanna, everything is super-duper, hunky-dory world. Delusional is the best word I can use to describe them. When the United States got their new President they got HOPE. Unfortunately, the NHL is stuck with this:

For Illegal Curve, I am Drew Mindell.

Please note that you can now get more Cold Hard Rants all week long, as I am now Twittering. User name is ColdHardRanter.

Remember to listen to the Illegal Curve.com radio show every Wednesday night from 8-9 PM CST on 92.9 KICK FM in Winnipeg or at www.kick.fm.