This past Saturday, I attended my first, and probably only, Continental Indoor Football League game.
I’ve written about sports for a living since I was 19, and I’ve seen a lot of bad games. I’ve covered girls basketball games that featured more awkward jump stops than a Stephen Hawking dance marathon. I’ve covered 9-year-old little league games. So it wasn’t the level of play that bothered me. In fact, the Chicago Slaughter, the CIFL hosts in question, fields a pretty good team, thanks in part to the inclusion of several Arena Football League refugees. What bothered me about the game was the price of food at the concession stands.
I know, I sound like a fan. Or worse, like
Peter King in Monday Morning Quarterback.
I was at the arena, in bucolic Hoffman Estates, quite early to set up a later interview with an Ohio University grad now playing with the Slaughter. I then wasted some time at Target and with about an hour until game time, I decided to play it cheap and eschew the nearby Panda Express and its mother lode of orange chicken. I figured I’ll eat whatever the team throws at the media or operations staff. Big mistake.
Now I must point out before I go any further that everyone I met who works for the Slaughter, or the Sears Centre, couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful. And that I also have no problem paying for concessions at a game. I do it all the time when the media dining options are less-than enticing. So early on, not wanting to wait to see if there was going to be food, I got a slice of deep dish pizza for $6. The slice wasn’t cut ballpark-style, like it is at Cubs or Sox games. No, this was the kind of tiny slice you give to your anorexic girlfriend.
I tried to wait for "free" water, but an intern told me someone had changed the combination to wherever the bottles were locked up. So I bought a pop, Royal Crown, to be exact. I ordered the regular for $4.50. “You know it’s 50 cents more for twice the amount,” a concession stand worker told me. I’ve heard that rap before and I didn’t need a jumbo drink. But he wasn’t lying. The drink, for just shy of a fiver, was a legit small. Figuring I could now use these purchases as story fodder, I said the heck with it, and bought a $4 pretzel too.
So I spent $14.50 on a small slice of pizza, a small soft drink and a pretzel. Now let’s assume you want to take your family of four to a Slaughter game, as per the Fan Cost Index formula. So if everyone eats what I ate, that’s $58. There are plenty of seats available, so I’ll assume a family buys four $15 lower side seats. Throw in parking at $10, and you’re spending $128 to take in a minor league football game. An Arizona Diamondbacks game, using different criteria, could cost a family of four just $114, according to our 2009 FCI.
Owned and operated by Ryan Companies and Sears Holding Corp., the Sears Centre opened in 2006 and hosts many big concerts, including Lil Wayne the night before I got there. Levy Restaurants runs the concessions.
Why am I writing about this? To help introduce, for the second week in a row, our new experiential project, the Fan Cost Experience. We are putting together a major research project designed to give fans a voice in our data collection and show teams what fans are buying, not only at their stadiums, but at ballparks and stadiums around the country.
At the bottom of this post, you will find a sample file to fill out and it can be e-mailed, mailed or faxed to us. This survey, which is primarily for baseball, will be released just before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in July.
Please send any information, questions or tips to either jgreenberg@teammarketing.com or tmurray@teammarketing.com. And remember all old FCIs and all TMR issues, from 1988 on, are in the archives. Please check them out on our Web site and call us at 847-509-1010 for more details.
