Never had any desire to pay attention that closely, but thanks for the correction.
LOL. While I understand the sentiment, believe it or not there have been some great games, and even great seasons, "up there".
Posted on 02/04/2005 12:18:38 PM PST by srm913
Bowl runneth over with Super greed $59 hotel room's $259 a night now
DAVE PERKINS
JACKSONVILLE—There are 63 classified advertisements in the local bugle here seeking to buy Super Bowl tickets, including one that reads: "Feb. 10 is my husband's 50th birthday. Can you help make me the wife of the year?''
A call to the number brings a machine taking messages for one Mary Anne and whether or not she gets the tix is going to depend on one thing only: Does Mary Anne have the dough?
Welcome to the event that is the flagship cultural holiday for expense-account U.S.A. Money makes the Super Bowl go. Big money. Deeply gouged money, most of it.
The locals here seem no more adept at shaking down the visiting suckers than any other host city in recent memory. They're certainly no worse at it, either.
Those same classifieds contain a handful of ticket-selling ads, each with a simple detour around state ticket scalping ordinances. They offer tickets, plus other goodies, for plenty. Try six game tickets, plus three nights at a three-bedroom beach condo a half-hour from the stadium for $25,000 (all figures U.S.). Game tickets are either $500 or $600 face value, so figure what someone wants for three nights in that condo. Yowsa.
Earlier in the week, an ad offered two tickets and two rounds of golf on nearby Amelia Island, a swank playground, for $5,000. Other ads offer parking for RVs within walking distance of the stadium at $250 a day. Another wants $150 a day for your RV — but it's six kilometres away.
Almost every real estate ad puts prices around $1,000 a night for a rental condo. There's talk of a mobile home — certainly not unknown here — for $700 a night. Hope it's a double-wide.
The vast majority of rentals will go unrented. Big events attract high rollers and no one need feel sorry for anyone, least of all them. But these bun-throws bring out the greed in people, no question.
Happily, as in things like Olympic Games, most people end up absolutely empty. In Atlanta, for instance, fewer than 9 per cent of rental properties actually were rented out. These people who think they'll turn a quick $50,000 profit for a month tend to get bupkis.
A Toronto native named Jeffrey Alter, who now lives in New Orleans, emails that he has been attending Super Bowls for the better part of 20 years, but has never run into the kind of price gouging going on this week.
He said he made a reservation weeks ago at a local high-end spot, only to be called this week and asked for his fax number, because the beanery needed to fax him a contract. A contract? Yes, agreeing that every member of his party would spend at least $175 on dinner. Plus a credit card number to guarantee it.
Similar stuff is everywhere here. A handful of Canadian reporters hit a beachfront restaurant, familiar from Players Championships past, and had a wonderful dinner. It was difficult to obtain a reservation, yet when they showed up the place was nearly empty and stayed that way.
As of last night, prices were to roughly double and the menu was to shrink.
Parties of both Patriots and Eagles players had been in Sunday and Monday and, anticipating a lot of walk-in traffic, the place wasn't taking many reservations. When the weather turned bad — it has been nothing but — there went the walk-ins.
"We told (management), this is the Super Bowl. Let's have some fun and not try to pluck out our customer's eyeballs,'' said a friendly waiter, who said staff was "ready to take our own lives'' at the missed economic opportunities. "We thought this was going to be our week to make some money,'' he said.
The hoteliers are making it, at least. Jacksonville is a small city — too small to hold a Super Bowl, probably — and there aren't nearly enough available rooms.
Smart folks brought in five luxury cruise ships, charging hundreds of dollars per broom closet per night. Other hotels are juicing the rates unconscionably. One Canadian reporter, staying in a $59-a-night chain hotel, is paying $259 a night this week.
It's like the Masters, U.S. Open or any big event.
Watching the greedy grab for the out-of-town bucks is part of the action, but a city can't complain when it gets bad press for the hold-up.
Yep.
Socialists have always been deathly afraid of the free market.
I doubt a canadian hotel would double their prices for the 20 or 30 people who go to watch the gray cup.
It's called capitalism and a free-market economy, you marroon!
Oh yeah, I'm paying the big bucks to see that. (curling)
Wonderful thing...supply and demand. I will be watching the game on my TV for free. Now what exactly is the problem here?
Obviously, there are reasons I'm not going into business and will never be caught dead taking an economics class.
Exactly. Obviously the idiot that wrote this has never tried to get a discount on a hotel room in Downtown Toronto during Moslon Indy Race Weekend, or during the Caribana Festival (or Gay Pride Week for that matter).
The Toronto Star often can make the NYT look like a right-wing paper, especially on the weekends.
I wasn't sure. Never had any desire to pay attention that closely, but thanks for the correction.
What an absolutely CLUELESS twit he is.
Actually, Jacksonville is the LARGEST city in the lower 48 in area. It is also 15th largest in population in the country.
Never had any desire to pay attention that closely, but thanks for the correction.
If that isn't the peasant, socialist mindset to a "T", I'll kiss your bourgeois butt.
"Miami, which itself is hardly a hamlet."
You should've probably used the Cuban word for 'hamlet' there, to really capture the true spirit of Miami.
"Canada's just p.o.'d because they can't do the same kind of price-gouging at their Lumberjack competitions."
That, and the fact that noone anywhere gives a damn about anything 'Canadain', eh?
Yep. J-ville only had 8,000 hotel rooms, the NFL demanded a minimum of 10,000. So the promoters hired 5 cruise ships to bring up the total to 12,000. Problem solved!
Doug Flutie played up there as well. He is a legend in Boston for his game winning hail mary pass.
Both teams are staying at hotels a one hour bus trip south of J'ville. From what I've read team personnel are not all that impressed. Wait 'till the have the SB in Detroit.
Wimps using brushes to clear the ice in front of the stone. I remember an era when you had short stubby brooms to clear the ice. You could hear the brooms whacking the ice outside the curling rink ... that's when men were men.
NFL = National Football League
CFL = Canadian Farm League
That explains much of the envy, jealousy and animosity we're hearing in this alleged journalistic piece by Perkins.
Hey moron, I can sit at home and watch it on TV for free. You can tell the French have taken over Canada.
At least the NFL is actually playing its championship game. Not like that great Canadian sporting league, the NHL.
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