The NFL Experience: Live vs. Home

There has been a lot of talk recently about a lack of sell-outs in certain markets and how HDTV and soaring ticket costs have made home viewing better than attending a live game. This week Doctor Psych put the NFL to the test by attending the Saints vs. Cowboys game on Thanksgiving.

Background- the last time the good Doc attended a game was 2002. Cowboys vs. Titans back in old Texas Stadium. $59 got you a ticket in the lower end zone corner about 20 rows up. I don’t think there were many HDTVs back then and they probably cost several thousands dollars. The Doc has always wanted to attend a Thanksgiving Day game since watching the Lions and Cowboys host games when he was a kid. Since we aren’t going on vacation this year (too tough with Jr.) it seemed like a good time to splurge on an NFL game.

1. Tickets- This game sold out before individual tickets went on sale through Ticket Master, so DP had to venture into the realm of the ‘secondary market’ to pick up his tickets. For $240/ticket you can get the 50-yard 6th row of the upper deck. I believe these seats had a ticket license fee of $12,000 per seat (which means it cost $12,000 for the right to purchase tickets for 30 years). It’s actually a pretty nice place to watch a game as you have a nice view of the entire field and the giant TV screen in Cowboy Stadium. After StubHub fees, shipping, and tax the final cost was close to $600 total.

Advantage- Home. For $600 you can buy a decent HDTV; which obviously is good for more than one game.

2. Traffic/Parking/Time- Another reason for staying home is the headache of driving to game, waiting in traffic, and parking. Old Texas Stadium could be a mess, so Cowboys Stadium is a big upgrade. Arlington put Cowboys Stadium on the other side of the Texas Rangers Ballpark so there are ample streets and parking (>24,000 spots). The best spots are for season ticket holders, so we showed up an hour early to pay $30 for a spot about 1 mile away from the Stadium. It was a little cold here yesterday, but not a bad way to walk off some of those Thanksgiving Day calories. Luckily, the long walk back to the car made it a breeze to get out. We hit the highway and were back home in 15 minutes. Overall we were out of the house from 1:15 CST to 7:45 CST, so it was 6.5 hours for one game.

Advantage- Home. Even with the improvements traffic sucks and $30 seems like a lot for one spot. Maybe if I were into tailgating I would feel differently.

3. Food- The Cowboys and Yankees teamed up to form a new catering company when they both built their new stadiums. This catering company was supposed to reinvent the quality of stadium food. Well I didn’t see it. I have been to the Stadium twice now (once before for the NBA All-Star game) and there are a few little upgrades (like additional toppings for Hamburgers), but overall the food is still basically the same: hotdogs, pizza, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, pretzels. They did have Frito-pie (sort of like a version of nachos with chili and cheese covering frito-lay chips), but otherwise I was unimpressed. You can expect about a 3-4 fold mark-up on everything. A small bag of chips or candy was $3, pretzel $5, water $5, soda $6, Miller Lite $8.5. I think pizza or BBQ sandwiches were $8-10.

Advantage- Home. I had two beers and a pretzel = $22. The Mrs. had two waters and a Frito-Pie =$18. You can eat pretty well at home for $40.

4. Atmosphere- This is where the live experience should win easily. First of all, Cowboys Stadium is spectacular and the enormous HD screen is everything it is cracked up to be. The screen brings new elements to the game experience like instant replay, so that is a nice perk (although I often found that they did not reply good plays by the Saints which was irritating as a football fan). That being said, Cowboys Stadium is about as sterile and life-less as people have said. I haven’t seen it written, but there is a clear separation of the good seats from the ‘riff-raff’. The best seats are along the sidelines for the first three decks. All of those seats are high end luxury boxes, suites, and ‘team seating’. They have their own entrance (no waiting in line to be patted down like the rest of us), their own food, and their own bathrooms. You can’t even walk around the Stadium; they only allow people with tickets in the hallways along the sidelines so you can’t walk from end to end. The seat licenses for these seats starts around $125,000 for 30 years. As you can imagine the center of the Stadium is filled with really rich, really white people (I don’t know what they do in New York or LA, but in Dallas the rich people go to Cowboy games to show off their wealth). In the general seating sections (end zones and upper deck), I would say it was 50-50 Cowboy and Saint fans (I was sort of expecting this, there are still a lot of displaced NOLA folks from Katrina). I was actually surrounded by Saint fans and they were almost louder than the Cowboy fans. There were some odd moments like when Roy Williams caught a pass for 40 yards then fumbled near the end of the game. First the Cowboy fans went crazy, then all of the Saint fans in my section went crazy and started high-5’ing each other.

Advantage- Game, but its much closer than you would think. The game would probably be much more fun with a group of friends.

5. Intangibles- I had completely forgotten that the Thanksgiving shows get half-time entertainment until I saw Kid Rock during the Detroit. We ended up with Keith Urban. I can’t say I am a big fan of his music but he was alright. We did treated to Jerry Jones greeting Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman on the big screen; which was pretty funny. One odd note was that the AV people at the stadium decided to put images of fake flames, stars, or the silhouettes of people around his image on the screen. I have no idea why, it him look like a Monster Truck rally. We also got a few games during the commercials, but the give-aways were decidedly sad. I think one section got $10 coupons off of groceries and another section got a free double cheeseburger with purchase of a drink. Everyone won ‘three free toppings’ on a Papa John’s pizza, I assume you have to buy the pizza. I should call up and ask for sausage, onions and peppers. Considering how Jerry Jones has licensed the Cowboys logo to every freakin’ company in Dallas, you would think they would have better prizes. They also had a ‘Kiss-Cam’ where the camera panned around the stadium on different couples that were then supposed to kiss. Not nearly as exciting as the ‘Kiss Cam’ at Ranger and Maverick games, the crowd of mostly old white people did not seem to grasp the concept. It did lead to one of the funniest moments of the evening. Right after the ‘Kiss-Cam’ segment was over they put up two little girls probably 4 and 6 years old on the screen. I wasn’t paying attention and I thought they wanted the girls to start making out. Finally, since it was Thanksgiving we got to witness people dressing up as Turkeys and Pilgrims and other crazy characters.

Advantage- Game. Football games are decidedly a good place for people-watching.

Overall- At a final cost of $670 for two people, the game was fun, but a definite splurge. Watching football at home is a much better value, but sometimes its still fun to go to a game. Kind of like a pilgrimage to a religious site.