(11-25-2013 03:34 PM)JunkYardCard Wrote: In a word, it's technology. My two season tickets cost as much as a nice home entertainment system with a 60-inch LED and surround sound, and that's just for one season. I can basically put a damned jumbo-tron in my house for the cost of five years worth of season tickets.
And if I stay at home and watch, I get better replay coverage, the weather is always great because it's indoors, and it's easier to keep up with other games. And I don't have to walk a mile or get stuck in traffic.
I think you are correct in that technology is a major contributing factor but not the only one. The super rich may attend any of our venues and sit in the same luxury they have at home. We call those skyboxes. But everyone else will sit in various open sections of the stadiums, segregated by donation level, and brave the elements, the bad food, lines at the restrooms, difficult parking, and long waits to get in and out of the area. Those people are confronted with the comfort, luxury, and most importantly ....the cost effective measure of simply staying home. So you are right in that technology is playing a major part, but the part it is playing for many is that it makes a decision possible. Do I put my money into tickets and headaches, or into technology that gives me pleasure for the game and for the whole household's entertainment? So in reality it is a budget issue that arises. Americans in droves are cutting back. Their retirement savings has not recovered from 2008, their earning power is being eroded by inflated food costs. Gasoline, while experiencing a hiatus from its high is nevertheless still hovering at over $3 a gallon. Many wage earners have had their hours scaled back, many people have lost jobs, or had to accept lower paying ones, so it is just very hard to justify what in many P5 conferences is a $2,500 dollar layout for 2 season tickets for their college football games. In the SEC at my school it's a $1200 contribution for the right to buy two season books which cost (with shipping and insurance which is not optional) a shade under $500 a book. And in travel for 7 games with food and lodging depending on where in the state you are driving in from and the cost is easily around $3,500 a year for two people. Make that a family of 4 and you double your costs.
It's easy for my wife and I to attend. We live at home and walk to the games. But even I find myself staying at home to watch more games than I attend. I like being able to keep up with other key games, enjoy not having piped in music blaring in my ears throughout the game to the point where I can no longer talk with the people I have sat with for 40 years, put up with the drunk and disorderly (whether ours or theirs), and have to stand in a line for 20 minutes (exaggeration but not by much) to relieve my bladder at half time.
If we had to decide on budget issues like some of my friends have had to do I would definitely opt for staying at home with the entertainment center. Cable television is high. But the cost of our season books are more than twice as expensive as our top tier cable package is for the entire darned year.
So I don't really call this a bubble because the demand for the product has not been saturated. What has been saturated and is in decline is the crappy game day experience replete with all the headaches enumerated for more than double my cost for cable, and easily outpacing the cost of that home entertainment center which will hopefully last us for 7 years instead of being good for only 1 season like the tickets. Throw in the backyard grill and kegerator and I wouldn't care if I ever graced the inside of the stadium again. But, my love, appreciation for the game, and my enjoyment of college sports in general are near an all time high. And if I want to watch carnage and gamble with my money there is always MSNBC and Bloomberg which is a lot rougher than anything I watch on the field or court, and at times actually frightening.