The new football fan caste system

Long-time New York Giants and Jets season ticket holders attending exhibition games at the New Meadowlands Stadium this month can be excused for feeling confused. After navigating to their new seats, they may not recognize any of the faces sitting by them, or be able to read the numbers of the players on the field.

Perhaps troubling to New York/New Jersey area football fans may be a sense that their presence at games is no longer about loyalty to their team. A tradition of rewarding long-time fans with the opportunity to occupy the best seats in the house has been severely compromised. In its place, a new caste system based on money – lots of money – has been implemented.

Besides significantly increasing the game prices for all its tickets, particularly the best seats that have been held by its most loyal fans and their families, the Giants charged between $20,000 and $1,000 per seat simply for the privilege of being able to buy season tickets at the new stadium.

The Jets charged up to $30,000 per seat for these “personal seat licenses” that awarded its loyal fans the privilege of obtaining prime season tickets in the new stadium. Unlike the Giants, the Jets did not slap a PSL on upper concourse seats, but informed these fans that their tickets could be revoked at any time for any reason for a refund.

The two football teams are heralding the start of a new era in the New Meadowlands Stadium they share. But, many of its fans may be lamenting the end of an era when nearly all tickets cost approximately the same and the best seats usually occupied by its most loyal fans. Now, these fans may find themselves sitting far away from the action while the location they formerly enjoyed is occupied by a new, wealthier fan.

It remains to be seen whether long-time New York/New Jersey football fans will tolerate the new caste system for long, or simply take advantage of the many opportunities to spend their recreational dollars elsewhere.

The sound of music

In New York City, the streets are filled with the sound of music.
Walking west of 5th Avenue on 46 Street, lunchtime,
the sound of Billy Joel could be heard clearly.
Same songs, same voice, same band.
But it was a different guy, with different musicians,
sounding better than the Piano Man himself probably would today.

Same spot, two weeks earlier,
bunch of guys played music without instruments.
They sang, thumped a beat, kept harmony,
with the help of a tape loop that provided backing music.
But the tape was the same guys thumping a beat,
keeping harmony, with only their mouths as instruments.

East and up a few blocks, a couple days earlier,
a larger ensemble of older guys with a woman,
entertained a lunchtime crowd with…
Jazz? Ragtime? American standards?
Perhaps – but feel-good music, definitely.
Passerby saint who came marching in,
heading west on 51 Street in no hurry,
danced to it with a big smile on his face.

Of course, Lady Gaga also graced midtowners
with her presence of a present of a performance
at Rockefeller Center Plaza earlier in the summer,
as did the window-pane rattling Irish rockers
The Script and others on the NBC Today show.

Last December, a Mexican man on guitar and woman on accordion,
sang a few songs under matching black fedoras on the F train,
collected a few dollars and hopped off at the next stop,
exchanging Christmas cheer with riders.

San Juan Hill, where Amsterdam Houses stand,
was also alive with the sound of music back in the 1960s.
Puerto Rican doo-woopers crooned in harmony for passing neighbors,
even for little boys who listened but pretended not to see.
In midtown today, only the age of the listener is different.