Ticketmaster...........the new mafia?

I'm on the soapbox again my friends, this time I dust off my hatred of ticketmaster. I was under the assumption that monopolies in this country were illegal, don't bring up MLB or the NFL, NHL or NBA, while all of these have extremely high barriers to entry they are not necessarily monopolies. Take the AFL it was at one time its own entity was bought by the NFL because the NFL recognized it as a competitor. Pont being if you have the money to create a professional sports league, there is nothing stopping you. That brings me to Ticketmaster who is now in the process of merging with Live Nation, which will give them unilateral control over the entire concert process. Recently tickets for a Bruce Springsteen sold out in 1 minute, consumers were refered to Ticketnow, which is a 2nd hand ticket seller, much like Stubhub. Now let me put this in a real world example, I took my at the time girlfriend to a Yankee game in the Bronx in May of 2007, as we came up out of the subway there was a black kid being lead away in handcuffs, his crime was "scalping two tickets" and I highly doubt the prices on them were that high, the Yankees were playing the Mariners. So how is it Ticketmaster is allowed to drop 10,000 thousand tickets onto a second hand scalping site with no ramifications? Two words. Rich. Whitey. Its a disgusting process, If you are lets say a dad looking to buy 4 tickets to a baseball game to take the kids and the old lady to, you are going to shell out big money for the tickets and money for "convienience fee" how is that convienient for me when I don't have a choice in the matter. I think the government should step in, maybe take sometime off from chasing Bonds and Tejada and help the American consumer. Here is my system for combating this plague of corporate greed. Have two sets of numbers on the tickets, available only to a ticketholder, similar to the serial number used on our currency. Regulate the scalping sights so that if the ticket broker/ seller charges more than 3% above the face value of the ticket the ticket will become null and void, also close delivery charges to no more than $10 to close any possible loop holes. This will force brokers off the ineternet and onto the stadium grounds at which point buying huge lots of tickets will become economically inefficient, because the tickets being available at the stadium by a large number of brokers would create an inelastic price system where the consumer would be in charge. Also we can blame this phenomenom on corporate America, a large buyer of tickets to sporting events, capitalism at it's best, screw the consumer on tickets to see sporting events even though they are the one's paying for the new stadiums with their tax dollars. Shameful. Before you go to bed tonight say your prayers that I don't get accepted to law shool rich whitey, becasue I'm going to come after you like a wolverine with a crack problem.

A-Rod admits to steroid use.............

Let's get it straight folks, A-Rod took steroids, several years ago, before substances were "banned". Before you call into ESPN to bash the A-Rod's, Giambi's, Petit's and others who admitted to using steroids. let's look at a different angle. Could they possibly have become products of their environment's? I think so, take A-Rod for example, if I go out tomorrow and take steroids I still won't be able to hit a Papelbon fastball or a Halladay change-up, let alone hit it 400 feet consistently, for years. I played baseball for 20 years and never hit a home run. So lets quit making federal cases out of these "disgraced" baseball players and focus on the real culprit, which is capitalism. To quote my Dad "no one is going to pay $75.00 a ticket to watch me take inventory at Publix" that was in response to someone saying professional athletes salaries are way too high. MLB is a marketable commodity which generates $17 billion a year, players are under pressure from owners, fans, espn, sports writers and even baseball memorabilia compaines to include jersey's and baseball cards. When I go to see a baseball game I am comfortable with the fact that the worst guy on the field is 6 milllion times better than me. So when there is that kind of pressure players look for an "edge" to stay on top of their game, is steroids the answer probably not. At the same time none of these guys are commiting crimes against society, they are under intense pressure to perform day in and day out or risk getting put out to pasture at 25 with no marketable skills. If ESPN were around when Ruth or Chamberlain played do you think they would talk about their womanizing for 24 hours a day? Under today's microscope people are bound to screw up and makes mistakes, "OMG A-rod took steroids, OMG Phelps is a pothead" Get a job people, this is entertainment not life or death, so take off your white wig and get off your high horse, if you want to be pissed off at someone stand outside your local bank and throw needles at the branch manager when he walks out to his $200,000 Benz that we are paying taxes for him to drive or go to a church and throw small dildo's at the catholic priests when they walk out of their tax shelter/ house of "God". Gimme a break and find a better outlet for your pent up hostilities. Thank you.

Superbowl Write up and thoughts.......

Well, I hit my spread bet of the Cardinals +7 and won my 3 prop bests. Total profits were 77 units, that makes me happy. However, the officiating made me unhappy. I have not seen so many phantom calls since the Steelers-Seahawks Superbowl 2 years ago. The Cardinals had I believe 11 penalties for 116 yards?? Are you serious right now? I will test my hypothesis that referee Terry Macauley had indeed taken the Steelers Money Line. It seemed that everytime the Cardinals had a 3rd down play it was brought back by a phantom hold or "personal foul". Ironically Santonio Holmes was not called for unsportsmanlike conduct after his touchdown celebration. That penalty would have marched off 15 yards in the Cards favor after the kickoff with 35 seconds left. At this point Terry Macualey was sweating bullets getting ready to wash down his cianide pills with some gatorade. Then they don't review the Kurt Warner "fumble"?? It sure looked to me like an incomplete pass. Did anyone else notice Kurt Warner's wife has become attractive? Maybe I had to many freshies but she has had some work done. So it's official now, I dislike the Steelers more than any other team. Also I guess John Madden had the superbowl script with him in the booth as he called the Warner endzone pick right before he threw it, coincidence? Even a professional handicapper like myself couldn't have hit that prop bet. After going all in on my Bodog account I settled down at Gator's Dockside with some friends, and fielded their questions about sports gambling. Some of the questions I had were "I don't understand what does the +7 mean?" "What happens if you lose? Do I need to drive you to an ATM to pay a bookie?" I said you do know what a bookie does right? "Yeah, they pay you" was their response. Other questions I fielded were "Is Billy Vegas really in jail for illegal bookmaking?" Yes. He is. Vegas also has him on probabtion. "Why do you keep saying bye bye money and slamming your beer down as well as your phone?" I always find it amusing watching football with "normies" which is a person who doesn't bet on football, that's OK not everyone likes money!! I liked the Bruce Springsteen halftime show, Springsteen still put on the best concert I have seen to date in my life. Those of you who don't like Springsteen should throw out your Fall Out Boy CD's and board a plane for Baghdad sans IBA. See you next season readers when I will continue my quest of digging into Vegas's coffers!!