“Your wait is nearly over,” says the Washington Redskins in an email inviting me to take a survey to find the perfect seats for me.
Hog Heaven dropped the family season tickets after 48 years after sensing we were funding management incompetence that made the team impervious to improvement at the top. Five years later, it’s as if the team is saying all is forgiven.
And see? We have a real GM now and he has so far avoided the team’s past dumb mistakes.
That’s not impressive. My grandmother could do that and she’s dead.
The mailing comes a few days after the team sat with season ticket holders in a forum on their in-stadium experience. Team president Bruce Allen told those fans that the next stadium would be a more intimate experience than cavernous FedEx Field.
That tells me the Redskins are planning for a smaller stadium. That would solve several problems. The season ticket holders say that all those fans from opposing teams are annoying. Jack Kent Cooke built his stadium to accommodate all comers. What did they expect?
But large stadiums also mean heavy traffic, long lines at gates, restrooms and concession stands. The Redskins don’t provide fans anything to enjoy before or after the game, unless you have tickets to exclusive corporate suites on the Joe Gibbs Club Level.
I hate the Gibbs Level when I am not in it. It widens the distance of upper bowl seats from the field. You get a better view of the field on your home big screen than from those seats.
That’s why Hog Heaven is not all in on season tickets unless:
- The Redskins prove we have a 50-50 chance to win a home game.
- They offer me lower bowl seats comparable to what I held before.
The ‘Skins were 4-4 at home last year. I’m waiting to hear about lower bowl seating.
Yes, but where?
Allen offered no hints on the location of the next stadium. DC is my hometown. I would love to see the next home of the Redskins to be in Washington.
The Nation’s Capital may be the most reviled place in America because of all those out-of-towners the rest of America elects to send there. Don’t blame District residents. They have no say because they have no Congressional voice. (A non-voting delegate is not a voice.) That Constitutional oversight should have been fixed a century ago.
The ONE DC institution with a worldwide reputation that has represented the DC is The Washington Redskins. (Yeah yeah yeah, Wizards, Capitals, Nationals, blah blah blah.) Their 1997 departure from the District left a gaping hole in the spirits of DC residents.
That should have erased from DC leaders any sense that they are entitled to have the team there. I’m not sure that they’ve learned that lesson to go by the hissy fits they have over the team name. I think DC is going to blow it again.
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