By Mike Kays
From a vantage point of knowing March Madness is when you rip your bracket pool entry to shreds in the opening weekend ...
It looks like the NCAA tournament is feeling the tight economy, and for once, it looks like the big cheeses are feeling the pinch.
Missouri, for example, saved about $25,000 by taking 12 fewer people to Boise, Idaho — where its men play Marquette on Sunday — than went to Indianapolis in 2003 for the school’s previous NCAA appearance.
“In 2003, we’re taking the chancellor and three members of the chancellor’s staff, because that’s the right thing to do. We’ve got receptions, and these are our bosses. This year, we only took one member from the chancellor’s staff,” Missouri athletic director Mike Alden told the Associated Press a couple of days ago.
Well, OK, it’s not the chancellor himself, I suppose. After all, I guess after the AIG debacle and sickening bonus money being poured into fatcat pockets from our tax money, why keep the top dog at Mizzou from a freebie?
Complete numbers won’t be available for about three weeks, but an NCAA official who was asked by the AP on Saturday for a ballpark figure said about 85 percent to 90 percent of tickets were sold at most men’s first-round venues — compared to the usual 95 percent.
There’s a cyclical relevance here that seems logical to me but hard for corporate America to figure out. While a decline in revenue is cutting jobs, how is America to get back on track with jobless people not having any money to spend, nor credit for people who have jobs and want to borrow?
With the hurt in Detroit and the automobile industry, sellers of vehicles are trying anything in the pinch — even offering to take the car back if you lose your job and can’t get back on your feet. Nice gesture, even as I wonder what that’s to do for the guy who can’t get the car back he traded in and needs to drive to a job he might get.
It’s a tough world out there now — for the car dealer, for all of us.
But apparently, not for the NFL, where this offseason, from Albert Haynesworth’s $100 million, seven-year deal deal with Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to Owens’ $6.5 milion jackpot in Buffalo, has been almost surreal.
At least the folks in Green Bay are in touch.
“We’re right in the middle of the budget process now and looking at all of our expenses,” Packers president Mark Murphy told the AP last week. “Are there places we can cut back? Do we need to do things the way we’ve done them in the past? Things of that nature. Because I think the combination of the economy and a potential work stoppage, it’s just a smart business decision to look at everything we do.”
Here’s betting a ticket office hack who makes $14,170,000 less next year than Haynesworth will in D.C., will get the first look.
Baseball bonanzas haven’t been as plentiful, although Manny Ramirez cashed in a $45 million, two-year deal with the Dodgers and of course, the Yankees still spend like its Monopoly money. Mark Teixeira will get $180 million over the next eight years to cross the coast from Los Angeles and the Angels to play for Son of Steinbrenner.
Golf is losing tournament events and sponsors, NASCAR has had drivers driving unsponsored cars, but for the most part, sports is still in denial of what you and I are feeling.
My hunch is that guys like Jerry Jones, still in a desperate search for a naming rights deal for his Cowboys palace in Arlington, Texas, and his partner in crime Snyder in D.C. (both ironically, with the Lions, have the longest streaks without a playoff victory in the NFC) know where the AIG trough is. If you think the sports world wouldn’t petition Congress for help in being the great escape for all Americans, here’s a frugal AIG guy I want you to meet.
Mr. Obama, if you’d have asked me, those billions that went to people who already have millions would have been better spent just giving to the working stiffs as a tax credit worth a half-year’s pay.
I even bet Detroit would be moving a lot more cars this way.
