OT: "Nutting to see here. Carry on..."
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Amazing how much apathy, including with me, has set in with this franchise due to the horrendous ownership and management team.
I am a huge baseball fan and at one point was a huge Pirates fan. Probably was my favorite team after Pitt Sports for most of my life.
But I simply don't care anymore. I was angry for years, saying I was boycotting, not attending games, but I would still watch on TV almost every night. I am way past that. I can't tell you the last time I even watched a game. There are some good stories that I am watching from afar like Reynolds going for batting title or Bell going for 40 HRs or Vasquez being lights out good but overall it is simply a pathetic franchise from the Owner who is in bottom 5 owners in all sports to his management team of Coonelly and Hunnington. While Hunnington's hands are tied by ownership, his drafting and development record is simply abysmal overall and that is one area the Pirates have actually spent.
I am a huge baseball fan and at one point was a huge Pirates fan. Probably was my favorite team after Pitt Sports for most of my life.
But I simply don't care anymore. I was angry for years, saying I was boycotting, not attending games, but I would still watch on TV almost every night. I am way past that. I can't tell you the last time I even watched a game. There are some good stories that I am watching from afar like Reynolds going for batting title or Bell going for 40 HRs or Vasquez being lights out good but overall it is simply a pathetic franchise from the Owner who is in bottom 5 owners in all sports to his management team of Coonelly and Hunnington. While Hunnington's hands are tied by ownership, his drafting and development record is simply abysmal overall and that is one area the Pirates have actually spent.
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I hate when people take pre-game photos to make points about attendance. Wait until 30 minutes after the game starts.
He already got his profit. Season tickets sold, TV, ads, league subsidies for keeping his payroll lower than the other teams. Other than not selling as many beers and greasy Sanguillen sandwiches, what's he care if nobody comes? But also remember, they didn't have to open as many concessions, didn't have to pay as many of those feeble old ushers, didn't use as much napkins, TP, etc. Hardly any stadium cleanup either. A couple waves of a garden hose on the stands and you're done. He may actually make MORE money when they know nobody will come.
It's sad. The Pirates were my first sports love. Pitt football my second. Both laughingstocks. Because of leadership willfully not trying.
My high school that I played sports for also has diminished tremendously in decades since, but that is legit, due to economy, population shifts etc. They are plucky and do their best, so I feel sympathy or perhaps empathy there but some respect.
I admire and get caught up in local excitement of the Steelers and Penguins in the years they compete highly, which is frequent due to sports with a good business model but especially because of active engaged management. I feel fortunate from that standpoint to have something sports related to be worth paying attention to, because sports fandom enriches my social life. But neither one ever captured me as a youth as the Pirates first, later Pitt football. Just a darned shame, because for both, the body is there but the mind and soul are unwilling.
My high school that I played sports for also has diminished tremendously in decades since, but that is legit, due to economy, population shifts etc. They are plucky and do their best, so I feel sympathy or perhaps empathy there but some respect.
I admire and get caught up in local excitement of the Steelers and Penguins in the years they compete highly, which is frequent due to sports with a good business model but especially because of active engaged management. I feel fortunate from that standpoint to have something sports related to be worth paying attention to, because sports fandom enriches my social life. But neither one ever captured me as a youth as the Pirates first, later Pitt football. Just a darned shame, because for both, the body is there but the mind and soul are unwilling.
This is probably not true in the short term and it's definitely not true in the long term. They're not going to get the best possible TV deal if they're 20+ games underwater and no one cares to watch them.
Their TV contract is up after this season. What do you think the difference in TV money is between winning 98 games and averaging 30k attendance per game and winning 70 games and averaging 19k attendance per game? Likely millions per year. And that's real money he can't make up by laying off concessions workers.
I did. It looked about the same.
Wait til March. Fan boys will be fantasizing about playoff runs and shouting at anyone that is woke to Nutting.
SMF's point was valid, except in this case. the crowd last night at 7pm was just as bad at 8:30pm. but yes, the pre game pics are misleading, usually.
I refuse to pay for a ticket or concession while Nutting is majority owner. I love the Pirates but I feel I'm enabling mediocrity by watching and supporting. ....so i don't.
Really doesn't look too bad with dark seats.
You have o do what you have to do gut I don't think Nutting will be moved to spend money by fans staying home. He's a billionaire who doesn't give a shit about you or me.
I would think this hasn't continued, but at the All Star break the Pirates' television ratings were up by a pretty good percentage over last year. The Pirates have always been a (relatively) good television draw, even when they suck. Probably because lots of old people watch the games simply out of nostalgia.
Let’s just assume that in 5 years the Pirates are still abysmal, post-Crosby Pens are non-playoff teams, and the post-Big Ben Steelers are a non-playoff contender. Where does that precious Pittsburgh sports dollar go? Be interesting to read attendance threads if that scenario happens.
I am thinking of moving back into city limits and running for mayor. My platform will only have 2 points. 1) get rid of the bike lanes nobody uses. And 2) lock the Pirates out of PNC Park till Nutting sells since the city owns it and MLB could not ignore that, and they would need to at least pressure Nutting to sell. As far as him moving, no city will build a stadium for an owner who literally got kicked out of a city for being a failure. As for lawsuits, I'm no legal expert but I'm sure an argument can be made that the public's trust is/was broken. There was a verbal agreement (regardless of what written contract states) with the tax payers to build a stadium for a more competitive team. Pirates have not held up their end. Yes that would probably lose in court (the battle) but still win with the unbearable pressure on Nutting at that point that will probably lead to him selling (the war)
I expect to win in a landslide.
Yes this was written very tongue and cheek, but it is nice to dream too.
I expect to win in a landslide.
Yes this was written very tongue and cheek, but it is nice to dream too.
I appreciate the tic
But in the east end the bike lanes are regularly used.
Frankly it improved my commute as the flow on negley ave has benefited
Got rid of on street parking
Well that an running on a platform that doesn't condone panhandlers accosting paying customers and then insulting said paid customers when they are offended by the panhandlers.
Cancel this ridiculous "giant cap" boondoggle the current mayor is building over top a freaking interstate so that there is a patch of grass to #occupy between the PPG arena and the US Steel building. Driving concrete columns into concrete roads to pour concrete decks to lay sod for ... nobody to use, because ultimately it's still between a bunch of highways. Oh well, it's only supposed to cost 8 figures and cripple vital traffic for a mere 3 years, while the rest of city crumbles. No biggie.
Yep.... Thought I seen it all with that dope until those comments came out. Seems like a great move for a Mayor to tell the people who actually are spending money in your city establishments to go elsewhere if they don't want to deal with being hounded by multiple drug addicts begging for money. I work Downtown and I RARELY leave my building because of the constant panhandling that occurs. You walk 2 blocks and no fewer than 5 people are asking for money.
I am never in the east end. Good if it is used there. But every time I'm downtown, those lanes are empty. Literally no on using them.
On the topic of bikes and bicyclist (which I am one, try to get out a few times a week) it burns my chaps when I see bicyclist exercising (not commuting ok with that) out on the road, when Montour Trail is 100 yards away. There are 100s of miles to bike for exercise, get the F off the road.
It's a great place for Peduto's homeless buddies to congregate, piss in , crap in, and provides nice cover for them to commit crimes. Maybe our WWF Lieutenant Gov, CroMagnonman and his Brazilean trophy wife can walk around giving all of these people hugs.
I'm all for greenspace in urban environments but this makes no sense. They talk about "connecting" the Hill to downtown. You can literally walk down Center avenue from the heart of the Hill directly into town now. What missing "connection" is this adding to justify the pricetag and huge disruption of traffic?
The scary thing is Peduto (along with Fitzgerald to a certain extent) is probably the most Pitt/UPMC friendly politicians we have. And that's scary since they are both die hard nitwits.
It is such an asinine idea (even bike lanes make a modicum of sense) that it seems like it was dreamt up solely to piss off the likes of, well, me. It has NO discernible merit. If you are hell bent you're gonna do 'something' as 'reparations' for the victims of the Arena development ... regardless of the merits of that (and I agree there WERE victims) ... geez, give em something tangible. Develop a park, civic center, what have you right THERE, replacing the squalor of the many blighted burned out dwellings. Create a branch of CCAC there and give discounted or free courses. Run a friggin subway line up to the Hill (then to Oakland, what a concept, eh). Hell just go door to door with cash, even. But THIS thing ... what a ridiculous, asinine idea.
There is no place to hide money that way. It is straight math. X amount of people getting $X amount of money equals something easy to investigate. But a huge construction project has many places to hide money for kickbacks.
The notion that building the Civic Arena "cut off" the Hill from downtown, thus causing the thriving, prosperous Hill to fall into decay and disrepair, is one of those moronic things that politicians have sold in this town for literally decades to cover up for their own incompetence.
And truly the worst thing is not that the politicians tried to sell it (after all, that's what politicians do), it's that so many people who should know better just went along with it as if it must be so.
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