Comments...
Don't ask me why, but the comments have been jacked since yesterday. We apologize. Some of you thought firewalls had done you in; another reader was certain we had banned him. I assure you that none of that is the case. It's all on MVN. My apologies. Hopefully, they'll fix it ASAP. You can always email your thoughts on Westside Rob's problem to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I'll add them on here. I hoped to do a post on the Pacers, ahem, 'situation' today, but I want to wait until the comment feature is fixed.
Willy Duer writes:
I think/hope that Demond's part 3 listed above is what happened.
Just about everyone got screwed when the new building opened, it's just a question of to what degree. They put in more club seats, which pushed people in the best non-club seats 10+ yards towards the edges, which starts a ripple effect around the whole building. Add in that the place is just bigger and even the equivalent seats aren't necessarily as good as at the dome. It sucks that that happened but I don't think they were out of order at all a year ago, especially given that Megan even tried to put him in touch with Larry Hall. (Rob, did you call him? How did that go? I'd be absolutely shocked if you weren't treated very well by him.)
Nobody will argue that it wasn't a reasonable decision to drop the seats this year, but I think it's a bit of a stretch to suggest they owe you anything. Sure, a better employee should've been friendlier and said more, but Demond is right - these people are cold calling through a long list, probably hearing a combination of sob stories and angry fans, and aren't exactly all smiles. I don't condone that, but I also don't think it's appropriate to say that the entire operations team isn't very good. The Colts family is full of fine people in every department. Saying they're no good is as ridiculous as someone saying all Colts fans are idiots because they read something BBS wrote on a bad day.
Shake writes:
Got something for the resident nerds (the few nerdier than me).
KSK's Watchmen-NFL post. My knowledge of Watchmen is limited to seeing an interview with the guy that played Dr. Manhattan (Dr. Manninghattan in the post) and I still really enjoyed it.
Really nice pair of FO references in it too.
(like always with KSK it's obscene and in places mean-spirited, you've been warned)
Rob writes:
Guys, thanks for posting my letter. I agree I had long ago given up on getting a resolution, but a little courtesy would have been nice. Like "Hey thanks for buying those season tickets all those years we were a bunch of suck-holes". I didn't make this decision based on economics, but more on value. The seats weren't worth what the Colts required for them. The Luke is a nice stadium and if you have good seats a great stadium. I'm still glad the city built it. You can bet though that 10 years from now when the Colts suck (like the Pacers do now), and Irsay comes begging for the city to re-negotiate his lease I won't be sympathetic.
To Demond's point about business
and corporations: I would say being a business owner myself, who demands that
everyone on my staff always put the customer first (often to our own detriment),
that business are failing today more so because they've put their short term
bottom lines ahead of what was ultimately in the corporations best long term
interests. It is a big part of why the economy is a mess, and I only hope that
we learn the lessons of this from this mess we are in.
Thanks, it's helped having this blog to "vent" to.
He continues with a response to Willy:
Yes we did call Larry and he gave us the same "Sorry about your luck" response. In fact he was probably colder and stated well we have 20,000 people waiting for your seat if you don't like it. Besides, I'm not making the judgment that I am based on a single phone call. It was the "last straw" in a long line of events in this whole saga. As a business owner I know that if my customers are not happy because of the actions or in-action of my staff it's ultimately my responsibility, so I think it is fair to say that this situation is reflective of the whole Admin of the Colts, and ultimately on Irsay himself.
In fact my company makes a large portion of our revenue on this same kind of subscription based service. When we do have cancellations we always are on the phone with every one of them(no matter what price they are paying for the service) trying to figure out what we could do if anything to change their decision, and most of all to let them know we care and that we would love to have them come back if circumstances change. That's good business. I realize that Supply and Demand for the Colts is currently making that unnecessary but most of us remember when almost every home game was blacked out and Irsay would go on TV begging fans to buy tickets so they could get the games on the air. Did we owe him something then?
IF they don't owe me anything then I guess I owe them nothing either, which also should settle the Pacer issue as well since we owe them nothing. The Simons evidently don't know how to manage their Sports team, and either signed a bad deal or just cooking the books to make it look that way.
I think I've been very fair and judicious in what I've said publicly about the Colts organization. In fact it's far more sedate than what I've said privately. If people think I'm whining or being unfair in my judgment, so be it, your welcome to your opinion just as I am. But you can bet 10 years from now when Colts stink again and blackouts are running rampant, that the Colts pleas will fall on my "deaf ears".
Links:
Via Kuharsky, this guy says the Colts will get a fourth round pick for losing Jake Scott. Sure wish we would have signed him over Lilja. Who knew?
