Neil Best of Newsday has identified the silver bullet that a team can utilize in order to ensure that the three-hour infomercial will air on local television.
His article explaining the dynamic is trapped behind a pay wall, but Best has spoken about the loophole to the folks at JoeBucsFan.com.
"I was not aware of this until this week, frankly, and several prominent, experienced people I know in pro football were not aware of it either," Best said. "But, sure enough, it turns out a team can cut a check for 34 percent of the face value of unsold tickets to cover the visiting team share and, presto, problem solved!"
If that's the case, it puts those breathless efforts to sell remaining tickets via an extension of the 72-hour deadline a little ridiculous. Let's say 5,000 tickets are unsold with 72 hours to go and the home team has finagled a 24-hour extension to sell the seats. And let's also assume the average price of the unsold tickets is $100.
What the fans are never told is that the billion-dollar business facing the banishment of its product from local television can remedy the situation by writing a check to the road team for, under the assumptions made above, $170,000.
