The Original Sportsdiva’s Weblog

Is Mitch Albom on crack?

A few years ago I checked out the prices of playoff tix in Detroit. Finals tickets in the lower bowl were $450 each (as a comparison, lower bowl seats in the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia are $250 face, discounted to season ticket holders). Detroit, in case Mitch hasn’t noticed, is one of the most economically depressed areas of the United States. And it isn’t just the recent downturn. The greater Detroit area didn’t really participate fully in that last positive growth of the business cycle.

I have a friend who bought a house in the Detroit area a few years ago. Even three years ago he couldn’t afford to sell that house and relocate because he couldn’t get what he’d payed for it. This wasn’t after the big housing bubble. Now, with the mortgage crisis, $4 gas, and continued hard times for U.S. automakers, who sold their souls and are caught with big gas guzzling SUVs and trucks they can no longer sell enough of, things won’t be getting better in Detroit any time soon.

If the Redwings win the Stanley Cup this year (and really, they look like a team from another, more advanced hockey planet, so I think it likely they will), will anyone be able to afford to come to the parade?

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm and is filed under hockey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.