Sports In The Year 2001

Uh-oh! "You Be the OB! Now!" Excuse me, I have to save the game.

OCTOBER

I used to like to save my annual vacation for those sharp golden days of fall so I could backpack and camp on the north shore of Lake Superior, cooking steaks over campfires and washing them down with bourbon and cold lake water. Such autumn days are somewhat rare in these days of depleted ozone, so come October, my wife and I now rush off for two weeks of hiking and camping—among other things—in Metrodome Universe in Minneapolis.

The Houston Astrodome pioneered the stadium/theme park scheme a few decades ago with Astro World, and now Total Entertainment Environments (TEE) are routine at sports stadiums everywhere. The Metrodome Universe TEE has acres of hotels, shops, theaters, computer game parlors and, of course, Simulated Vacation Centers, which are the main reason people like us spend two full weeks at the Metrodome. They offer an incredible variety of vacation trips—a week in a spaceship, a raft ride down the Amazon, a dogsled run across Antarctica, a voyage through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (our choice).

Nothing at Metrodome Universe costs a great deal—an average of $35. a day per couple for everything. This is because all stadium-related TEE attractions are basically come-ons designed to attract a full-house crowd to the stadium every day.

Fans have become very reluctant to attend games in person. Partly, it is the sheer electronic wonder and fun that staying home offers, but there are other reasons, too. In 1991 it cost a family of four an average of $83 to attend a single baseball game in Chicago. That, plus traffic tangles, late hours and increasing numbers of hooligan drunks in the stands, eventually turned most of the country against entering a stadium. Of course, televised games played against backdrops of empty seats are terrible for the image of any sport. Thus, spectators had to be lured back.

Inexpensive TEE attractions help, but other incentives are needed. Today, the wife and I are going to a Twins-Indians game in the Metrodome, and on Sunday we will attend the Vikings-Bears contest. We will be paid for our appearances at both games—$20 each for baseball, $50 each for football. This is all part of the Professional Spectator Program (PSP). Participants in PSP are not selected at random or on a first-come, first-served basis. There are demographic and aesthetic balances to be maintained. We have to fill out questionnaires on religion, skin color, ethnic roots and what color clothing we will wear to the game before we are accepted and paid our admission fees.

We get the standard pay because we are classified as Average Backdrop Types (ABT). More Colorful Types (MCT)—people with funny slogans scrawled on bed sheets or with war paint on their faces—receive substantially higher fees for attending. A few Super Colorful Types (SCT)—such as a guy in Baltimore who dresses like John the Baptist and an enormously fat green-haired woman who runs onto the field to kiss coach Mike Ditka after every Chicago Bears game—have agents who negotiate their contracts and are paid as much as $5,000 a game.

NOVEMBER 30

The World Series is already over. The Pittsburgh Pirates swept the Kansas City Royals in 11 straight games of the best-of-21 series. With such a short Series held in baseball's two smallest TV markets, Major League Baseball took a bath.