Packers fans are tax payers. It’s the second time they’ve sold non-stock stock in 14 years. It’s not a mandatory tax, but it’s still money from fans.

The Eagles are planning to make $60-100 million dollar improvements to their stadium, and are going to pay for it. No tax money, no fan donations. Not only are they owned by a “billionaire asshole,” but they’re not asking the fans to show that they’re true loyal fans by donating money to their billion-dollar franchise. I am not saying they need to be privately owned, but their business model of being a publically owned organization has drawbacks if they’re asking fans for $65 million when they’re a very popular billion-dollar franchise in the very popular NFL.

Having been responsible for the sports marketing and promotions side of a AA level team, I can say – unequivocally – that I would have never seriously passed this along to my General Manager or ownership.

If I were to have passed it along, I would have only done so preceded by a clear warning that there is some Superfan conspiring to usurp our team identity in a misguided ill-conceived attempt to gain some sort of fantasized VIP access to the team.

Believe it or not . . . this sort of stuff is more common than you think. Except rarely does someone follow through and take it upon themselves to actually spend thousands of dollars on building a website and producing videos – let alone attain the cooperation of the target organization – all the while obviously being deceptive about the fact that there is some bizarro paid membership component which somehow had slipped through the discussion cracks until launch of said nutty website concept.

So glad I downloaded them before he had a chance to take them down! I’m thinking they need to go into the file-sharing ether in perpetuity.

The use of MLB trademarks in the screen shots combined the Pirates president’s video tell me the Pirates and/or ownership was much more involved then they are letting on. How can you let your organization presidents film a video for a website without following up on what exactly the use was and purpose of the web site? The Pirates organization can say they don’t have a direct tie to the web site if an owner has one on the side. Without the direct connection the team has plausible deniability if the thing blew up.

- Fan approaches Pirates about an idea for collecting fan data, and offers to provide it to them. Fan asks for team involvement for the video and small kickbacks to give the site credibility. Team isn’t purchasing the information provided, so they don’t see the harm.
- Fan then launches website and charges ridiculous sums of money for fans to offer their opinions. Team most likely had no prior knowledge of Fan’s intent to charge money (or at least this much of it) since that obviously comes off as a terrible idea.
- Team frantically tries to sever ties with greedy Fan.

There is so much greatly awful about this video! Not the least of which is the poor schmuck they’ve in a firefighter costume enthusiastically boasting about how he is a “real fan”!

Mr. Coonelly should fire whomever it was in the marketing and promotions department that didn’t realize that Mike Lasday is a Class 5 Clinger.

Check this delusional introduction that Lasday has on his YouTube page – the same account he posted the Coonelly vid to:

And that my friends is a quintessential illustration of the downside of fandom.

The money spent on website and video production should have been better spent on a few visits to top notch psychiatrist.

http://deadspin.com/5932990/fan-of-the-pittsburgh-pirates-prove-it-by-paying-them-money-to-join-their-stupid-fan-club

My favorite part is the tweet questions to Fan Adviser: “Hey, Fan Adviser, ever seen seen a grown man naked?”

And as for all those insane prices for parking, hotels and concessions, the bulk of it barely covers the extra cost of administration, police and traffic control, not to mention that the teams get their healthy cut. For A-Rod to get his $30 million a year, it must come out of the pockets of thousands of people, voluntarily or otherwise. And spare me on all the “jobs” that appear to be created. They are low paying irradic part time positions that will not pay a living wage or support a family in any respect. They are essentially worthless. An economist released a study a few years back and showed that a simple factory employing 500 full time employees in lieu of a sports stadium in the same location strengthens the local economic stability of the area more than any professional sports stadium would. The $300 million dollars stolen from Pennsylvania taxpayers–or any state’s taxpayers–to build arenas barely used 100 times per year represents a mockery of the long term well-being of any society forced to tolerate it.

Call the front office and tell them to STOP hoarding cash, sign premier free agents, invest in a better scouting system, and WIN. For the love of God – just WIN.

My only hope is that this was actually really cheap and therefore they didn’t do the necessary leg work to see what they were getting… and hey if they cut the network shortly after the season then this will be like Matt Morris all over again!

The state of Pennsylvania sure could use that money now. And I might add this was done not by the democrats, but by a republican governor Tom “Duct Tape” Ridge and a republican state senate.

But since I’m a Pirates fan, I just find this slightly concerning that they’ll actually take advice from fans.

This sounds similar to Green Bay’s non-stock stock in that the organization wants a good amount of money but gives the fan next to nothing in return while trumping it up as some proof of being a passionate fan.

No, they’re not – the website says ‘The Fan Advisor Network is by fans for fans so it does not seek nor accept any funding from leagues, teams or players’.

Look, I don’t get it either, but this post implies that this is a Pirate organizational business venture. Its all weird, and I don’t understand their motive or benefit, but the wording is misleading here.

If there is ”Extremely limited availability’ for a Gold membership, that’s not exactly freeing up cash for the Pirates to go sign Cole Hamels…