Now with patented YankeeNets applicator
The Royal Shaft
Five Ways to Screw Two Fans - You Do The Math!
Hey Nets fans - now there's an easy way to feel like you're part of the bush-league atmosphere that pervades the Nets' organization. All you have to do is follow the five handy steps below, and you too can be as mistreated as we were: to the boiling point, where you want to shout "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" How did we get shafted? Let me count the ways.
1) The First Lie of 2000
Champagne first got the basketball jones back in 1997, and decided to become a Nets fan with a 10 game, upper-deck package. As you can recall, this was the year of the playoffs (three games and out vs. the Jordan-led Bulls); good feelings abounded and much joy was had. Champagne re-upped for the 1998-1999 season, moving to more hospitable lower-level seats in section 125. He then decided that he needed a sabbatical, so he sat out the entire 1999 - 2000 season while living in England, but passed the "rights" to his seat to his friend Mike. Upon his return from across the pond, Champy was informed that his previously $65 per seat tickets were now "bumped up" to $80 per ticket - this despite the Nets' pledge that there would be no price increase for the upcoming 2000 - 2001 season. The seating chart as posted on the Nets website was innaccurate and made it seem as though these were actually $65 seats. In order for Champagne to buy tickets at last year's price, he had to move outward, one section further away from the half-court line. Bush-league at best, an omen of bad things to come.
2) The Unpardonable Sin
Joe and Champagne attend game 14 vs the Jazz. The season is still young, and the Nets haven't completely fallen apart at this stage. It was so long ago that Kevin Ollie was still on the team. Anyway, Joe's pumped, he leaves work early and drives down to East Rutherford. He arrives at the arena at 6:30, a full hour before game time. AND EVERY PARKING LOT AROUND THE ARENA IS BLOCKED OFF. Joe is forced to park across the street at Giants Stadium and either walk the rickety covered pedestrian bridge that crosses Rt. 120, or find a shuttle bus and hitch a ride. The game has an announced attendance of 12,204, and perhaps 3/4 of these people attended in the flesh. Joe fumes as he views the half-empty RESERVED parking lot on the long, slow walk back to his car. No big deal, right? Well, it is when you want to go the hell home after a tough loss. There is no excuse for such blatant mismanagement. Screwed again.
3) The Bait and Switch
Champagne has tickets to a game in the package that we can't attend. Policy is that you can trade in your tickets to other select games free of charge. Of course, those games are for the Wiz, Griz, Nuggs or Hawks. Since so much bad basketball has occurred, Champagne calls his account pimp and asks if he can have another game instead. After all, he's made the big-time investment and it's going sour. So the YankeeNet Mack tells Champy to write in and request a game he'd like to see. We both agree that Philly, nearer to the court, would be great. Pimpy writes, sorry, no can do, but hey, here are two tickets each to these four crappy games – two of which we already had. Oh yeah – and I'll sell you Philly tickets for half-price! Things turns ugly when Champagne later gets an email from this account guy asking if he would like to buy a block of Yankee tickets as well. Champagne, popping off, asks to be removed from any email contact with the Nets, citing the massive disrespect. The excuse given in the guy's reply was that Champs never gave him a list of alternative games to choose from. He never had a chance! This is the point where we know we will not return as ticket holders next season.
4) I'm Not Authorized To Help You, Sir. But Have a Nice Day
Turns out, for a Hawks game we're attending, we have four tickets (yes, we got them in ticket exchanges), but they are in two different sections. We attend along with another one of Joe's friends (wow, has it been incredibly difficult to find ANYONE willing to take a FREE ticket off our hands this season - neither family, friends, or strangers), and head to the ticket booth to switch the two sets for one set of four, all together in one location. Now, understand that this game was against Atlanta, so there are maybe 7500 fans (about 1000 of which actually paid) at in attendance, most of them schoolchildren (and the annoyingly loud Shabazz HS marching band in the upper deck) and other people looking to get in out of the weather and kill a few hours. We are told that, because they are comp tickets, there is nothing she can do for us. I ask if we can pay the difference between the $65 dollar seats and the $80 seats so we can get an upgrade, and again we are told that because they are comp seats "they have no value," and there is nothing they can do. We paid $65 each for the tickets we traded in for this miserable Hawks game. So yes, I'm sorry, the tickets had a value. Helluva way to treat a package holder, coming from a 22 - 46 team (as of the writing of this screed, March 17th), don't you think?
5) When is Lower Level Seating NOT Lower Level Seating?
And now, the Bucks game. You remember, day of the "blizzard to end all blizzards"? That turned out to be three days of waiting for four inches of snow? Well, the Nets played the night The Mega Nor'Easter was supposed to pound the metropolitan area. Few went; the folks that did were moved to the lower level (all those empty seats on TV would look bad). It was later announced that anyone holding tickets who couldn't make it could exchange them for a select number of games, which were given. Champagne and I settled on the Rockets game April 1, and were set to exchange our tickets when we re-read the email notice. Tickets could be exchanged for UPPER LEVEL tickets to any game listed, or LOWER LEVEL for games against the Wiz or Grizz (which, by the way, we already had WORTHLESS PILES OF from previous exchanges). Believing that the exchange of lower level tickets for the upper levels ones 1 to 1 was highly unfair, Champagne wrote a letter in protest, giving a list of games he'd prefer to attend as well. Shockingly, the Nets came through - with two lower level, $80 seats behind the basket for a Celtics game. OK, all's well that end's well, but why did we have to jump through hoops to get what we should have had coming to us anyway? Not exactly fan-friendly. Score 1 (if you don't count all the bad basketball) for us.
We could also bitch that no account exec ever comes to our section and gives us those little "care packages" full of hats and pens and pads and whatever to kiss our asses...but that might sound petty. I guess if we don't pay $150 for a seat, well, hey, you're replaceable.
We don't revel in bashing either the team or the organization, but we're going to tell it like it is, good or bad. That's why this website exists. The YankeeNets need to stop applying the "royal shaft" on us and start facing up to the fact that a Nets game is an overpriced and underwhelming experience. Let's tell them we've run out of patience. Demand to know why ticket prices will go up yet again. Send Joe your true-life experiences, and we'll post them for all to see. We're not going to take it any more.
Archive | Backlash | Bio | Calendar | Champagne's Blog | Diatribe | Game x Game | History | Home | Joe Netsfan's Blog | Media | Opponents | Players | Playoffs | Search | Specials
© 2001 Shawn Belschwender and Michael Kozlowski
