Greed makes the sports world go 'round.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.

Soaring player salaries and pricey tickets may be the most complained about aspects of the greed game now running rampant in the world of sports, but they are by no means the only ones. When big bucks are at stake, sensibilities seem to go right out the window as everyone tries to hitch a ride on the money train.

First and foremost, there's the new construction craze that's sweeping the nation. It seems every team everywhere is demanding--and getting--a new stadium or arena. The irony is that two of the groups backing these outrageously expensive construction projects--fans and sportswriters--are playing the saps. Fans just love the idea of their hometown team moving into expensive new digs. What they don't seem to realize is that they're getting soaked both coming and going.

Many of these multi-multi-million-dollar projects amount to nothing more than welfare for the rich. State government bureaucrats and their pals at city hall are only too happy to dole out taxpayer subsidies to the fat-cat club owners just so a perfectly good venue can be replaced by a more modern structure filled with luxury boxes for the corporate big boys and sponsors. And since the owner has been so "kind" as to "supply" his fans with a new stadium, he has no other choice than to raise ticket prices. After all, he is "allowing" his customers to enjoy sporting events in the latest state-of-the-art atmosphere.

That "atmosphere," however, especially in the National Hockey League's newest arenas, is one of cold indifference. As many of the hallowed old barns are torn down and replaced with towering behemoths, much of the intimacy has been lost. In Boston's Fleet-Center (no more old Boston Garden), Bruin management happily rents binoculars to those in the "cheap seats"--how's that for a misnomer? The reasonably priced balcony seats that once hovered above the ice have been replaced with receding upper decks that more resemble a football stadium than a hockey rink (with football-like ticket prices to match). As for the sportswriters and other media members who lobbied hard in their columns and commentary that "the loyal fans of this fine city deserve a new arena"--after all, it isn't their money--they have found that the new press box, while modern and spacious and fully equipped, is located up somewhere near the hole in the ozone. Instead of being close to the pulse and energy of the game, they instead are treated to the sight of army ants in helmets who are far, far...