Protect Your Wallet from the “Nest”

Many football fans in this country, many living right here in the Phoenix area and around Arizona, can barely afford to take themselves and their family to one game, much less three.  I am included in that group of fans.

As the Arizona Cardinals single-game tickets go on sale this Saturday at ticketmaster.com and all Ticketmaster outlets, the Cards want you to know not every game is available by itself.  They’ve once again unveiled their “Protect the Nest” plan.  I’m here to tell you to protect your wallet because that means you will be purchasing tickets for three games.  That’s $150 minimum for one person.  One person I repeat.

I get what the Cards are doing, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not an idiot.  What I don’t get though is why the Cards feel it necessary to “blackmail” fans into buying tickets to three games if you want to go see the Dallas Cowboys on Christmas night or the San Francisco 49’ers on Monday Night Football on November 29th?  So, in essence, there are no “single-game” tickets available for the Cowchips and Niners.  I think that is wrong.  The Cards will get the support from fans either way, no doubt.  There will be people that can afford those packages.  For huge Cards fans John Doe and his son who are on a limited income or out of a job, they won’t be seeing either the Chips or Niners.  The fact is, there is a chance they won’t even see them on television and that’s the whole point of this package – to make sure people show up for the Raiders game, for the Buccaneers game, for the preseason game against the Texans.  I just call it blackmail.  I call it discriminatory, economically discriminatory.

Sure, I could still find myself at either one of the big games by going to Ebay or Stubhub, but again, that’s not the point.  The point from the Cards perspective is that they are saying they are afraid they won’t sell out those other games and if you want to enjoy them on tv, then we need some of you to dish out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in doing so.  You want to find something to protest people of Arizona?  Stop wasting your time downtown protesting a law that isn’t even going to take effect.  Go protest the “protect”.  Of course neither protest will work, that’s why I don’t waste my time on either, but I do feel it worth my time to express my feelings in writing to the legions of fans who will be with me.  For those of you not with me, and I know you are out there as well, I say congratulations for being rich.  I guess your money will go a long way in deciding whether or not I get to watch the Cards in front of my tv on home game days.