Glazers Missed An Opportunity
December 5th, 2010
If the music operator at the Bucs game today had the nerve to break out the sacred A-Train whistle after one of LeGarrette Blount’s drag’em-seven-yard runs, the rowdy Bucs crowd would have gone absolutely wild.
The crowd was officially 53,955, per ESPN.com, and on TV it looked like nearly all those seats had a body in them without a heck of a lot of Falcons fans in the house.
Last year, “sellouts” of 61,000 or so were common in the 65,000+ seat Bucs’ home stadium. Club seats, of which there are 12,000, don’t count toward a sold out game for purposes of the television blackout, according to NFL rules. So that means to get today’s showcase game on TV, Team Glazer might only have had to gobble up 8,000 or so tickets.
For Joe, that’s a missed opportunity to grow the Bucs fanbase for years to come. And that saddens Joe.
How many new LeGarrette Blount fans are there right now if the game was televised in the Tampa Bay area? How many re-energized Bucs fans? How many new Bucs fans?
Perhaps the blackout is putting thousands more people in the seats, essentially working as its intended, to drive fans to the stadium. But even so, if Team Glazer had to buy, say, 10,000 Bucs-Falcons tickets at 34 cents on the dollar, as they reportedly did last year to “sell out” every game, that’s a $340,000 price tag to have put today’s exciting game on local TV.
Considering the size of the TV audience, that marketing expenditure would have been well worth it.
Tampa Bay remains a transient community. People are constantly moving in and their fanship has to be cultivated. It’s a lot harder to do that without a game on television.
It’s easy for Joe to tell Team Glazer to cut a check. Hey, it’s Monopoly money to Joe.
But given how profitable the Bucs are, Joe’s just not seeing how Team Glazer didn’t see the value in ensuring the Bucs-Falcons game was on local TV, especially after the game was bumped to 4:15 p.m., when most other stuff going on around town is over and people are parked in front of their TVs.
December 6th, 2010 at 1:06 am
Yeah spending $340,000 is nothing considering the Glazers are billionaires
December 6th, 2010 at 3:31 am
I don’t get it either. This was the one game the Glazers should have made an exception. Throw back uniforms. McKay being honored. Playoff game atmosphere. It truly is about building a brand. This could have given people at home a taste of what they were missing. The Glazers could have even said that this would be one time exception for this year and it would up to the fans on whether you see the Bucs in the next 2 home games. Once again the Glazers went the cheap route. I truly dislike the Glazers.
December 6th, 2010 at 6:07 am
This was by far the least (Falcon fan) attended Falcon’s game I have attended in Tampa.
There were two small sections of them, and in my area of section 311 only 2 were in sight. And they were not vocal.
December 6th, 2010 at 7:21 am
I watched the Fins game and it looked much emptier than the Bucs game.
The Glazers did the same thing with the radio feed.Culverhouse gave it away and the Bucs could be heard pretty much state wide. The Glazers started charging stations for it and all the small AM stations dropped it. Now there is nowhere to hear them on much of the east coast.
December 6th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Scott:
Joe believes beginning next year all NFL radio broadcasts will be streamed online free for Sirius radio subscribers.
December 6th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Next year i will be at both Falcon games home and in Atlanta where I am moving to soon. I have a friend who is a Falcons fan and we will be going together. he said this is the toughest game he has watched the Falcons play this season, we match up very well and we just don’t like each other. He was very worried down 10 and said the Kick off for a TD was a life saver. I myself can’t wait for the next few years of football..
It is going to be fun going to games in Tampa and Atalanta and an occasional game in Charlotte and New Orleans either bucs or falcon depending on winner of Bucs Falcons games. irregardless I will be wearing my Pirate clothes to any game I go to…..