16 Comments
User's avatar
Matt Cyr's avatar

I love the beautiful game but honestly, cannot stand the cartel that is FIFA. If I had an Andy Jackson left to give and it was down to the NCAA and FIFA, I’d eat the bill.

Jason's avatar

Let trump and Fifa pay for it….

majorfathead's avatar

Interesting, I don't know where I fall on this one. I can see the premium on an overcrowded system but that seems excessive. I guess we will see if the fee gets paid. Disallowing walk upstairs though seems kind of dumb, I'm no expert on hospitality around the stadiums but aren't there hotels nearby that could capitalize on the games? Seems like you're just icing them out. Again im not an expert.

Brendan Dentino's avatar

I’m not sure where I fall either!

Conor Gallogly's avatar

Look at MetLife Stadium on Google Maps. They built it and it’s parking within an urban wetland.

It is connected to the rest of the transit system by a spur and the junction of that spur is a small station.

See this article from when they hosted the Super Bowl.

https://deadspin.com/why-the-super-bowl-transit-nightmare-happened-1514932712/

Gene Whitaker's avatar

Hosting a major sporting event is not hosting a dinner party. You know those you are extending hospitality to.

Your false equivalency is unacceptable. FIFA/NFL/NBA/MLB are multibillion $$ businesses. It is ridiculous to expect taxpayers to pay to further enrich the owners so they can siphon more money sucking from the taxpayer teats. The time to do so is long past.

Brendan Dentino's avatar

I hope you feel better about yourself after criticizing my intellect.

Brendan Dentino's avatar

So we should be welcoming and generous only to people we know?

Gene Whitaker's avatar

You cannot possibly be that dense. Generosity has nothing to do with $B businesses. The consumer is a revenue stream for the business. He/she are not guests. I don’t know any person that charges their houseguests or dinner guests to eat or stay at their house. Unless they are Air BnB and that is also a business.

Gene Whitaker's avatar

Actually I gave you a chance to accept that you used a false equivalency for comparison. You chose to double down on it. If that offended you’d sensibilities that remains all on you.

Peace out.

hopperthedog's avatar

Given that the games there are listed by FIFA as New York/New Jersey, maybe NJ isn’t actually hosting anything.

Marcia Tauber's avatar

These are not “guests”. This is a business transaction and there’s not a single reason the tax payers of the host cities should be footing the bill so FIFA can make millions.

Brendan Dentino's avatar

The point was to explore whether we should consider visitors only through dollars and cents.

zb's avatar

It’s really not so complicated. NJ Transit seats are a scarce public resource and shouldn’t be given away or sold cheaply. If the value of the seats <$98, NJT will lose out as fans choose to drive or skip the game entirely. But if the agency is estimating demand correctly, then a lower price would result in overcrowding.

It’s anyone’s guess whether $98 is exactly the right amount. That’s why business is hard. My guess is that people who spent thousands on airfare, hotel and game tickets will not hesitate to spend another $98 on a train, however much they may grumble.

Brendan Dentino's avatar

The piece contemplates whether we *should* reduce hosting to mere dollar and cents.

zb's avatar

Understood and one reason why we should is that if the price mechanism is not permitted to work you will end up with scarcity.

and I recognize you don’t really come out strongly one way or another here, except I think it is clear from the way you frame things that the state govt of NJ “hosting” 30,000 soccer fans (yes, if we host in the USA we get to call it soccer 🙂) is quite different from me hosting my friends for dinner.