Average Ticket Price For NFL Playoff Games To Drop By 10%

NFL Playoff Pricing Guidelines Reveal 10% Average Increase

BANNING BLACKOUTS: In Detroit, Drew Sharp writes the NFL "should institute a one-year moratorium on local television blackouts." The threat of a blackout "ordinarily spurs home ticket sales. But with escalating ticket prices and a declining economy, it often becomes a choice between buying two ... tickets or paying the gas bill." A blackout ban would "benefit the NFL, liberating the league from an antiquated business model created in the 1950s that doesn't recognize the vast diversity and availability of entertainment options today." An NFL spokesperson said that the NFL is "cognizant of the economic woes befalling the country and their residual impact on the league." But the NFL "insists that its local television blackout policy helps all concerned by promoting ticket sales" (DETROIT FREE PRESS, 11/13).

LEADERSHIP VACUUM: In N.Y., William Rhoden writes, "The need for enlightened leadership [in the NFLPA] was underscored Monday when a jury in San Francisco found in favor of more than 2,000 retired" NFL players in a class-action lawsuit. The trial underlined that late NFLPA Exec Dir Gene Upshaw's "relationship with the commissioner's office was too close." Monday's verdict "confirmed what many retired players had suspected all along." The NFLPA "never pushed hard enough for the kind of security that guaranteed contracts offered" to NBA and MLB players. The NFLPA's new Exec Dir's "priority must be a reconciliation between active and retired players." The players "must make their association whole again" (N.Y. TIMES, 11/13).

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