It's a whole new ballgame.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.

THE GREED GAME in sports has become one of those chicken-and-the-egg quandaries: Has the greed of the players (in the form of outrageous salary demands) made revenue generation a must for franchise owners who hope to field a competitive team while still turning a profit; or, has the greed of the owners in their (highly successful) push for more and more profits motivated the once-undercompensated players merely to seek their fair share of the ever-growing pie? No matter which side of the scenario you lean to, the sports world has become a whole new ballgame.

For example, it was bad enough when all the New Year's college bowl games were renamed after corporations that paid millions to have their emblems attached to these premier gridiron clashes, but it's a real slap when a club owner takes a multi-million-dollar payoff to rename a venue that he doesn't even own. Taxpayers built those arenas and stadiums. If the name is leased or sold to a corporation, the money should go back into the public coffers, not the franchise owners' pockets.

A more direct way that owners pick the pockets of fans is through season-ticket subscriptions. This is a multifaceted ripoff on many levels. First, fans can be charged for a "seat license," a fee that merely "allows" someone to purchase season tickets. The cost of the actual tickets is totally separate. And no club ever goes more than two straight seasons without upping season-ticket prices. In addition, subscribers not only are made to buy ducats for meaningless exhibition games--owners, in a perfect example of doublespeak, insist on calling these contests "pre-season" games--but have to pay for them months before the season starts, in essence giving the clubs an interest-free loan.

It gets better still. Another big, fat check is required during the regular season for playoff tickets, even if a team doesn't ultimately qualify for the post-season. As a final insult, the team will demand full payment for every possible home playoff game, no matter how unlikely (or optimistic) that scenario. For instance, in the National Hockey League, a playoff team must win four consecutive series (each the best four-out-of-seven) to capture the Stanley Cup. After winning the Cup in 1994, the New York Rangers did not make it past the second round the following two seasons (losing eight-of-nine in the process), yet the Broadway Blueshirt management gleefully charged its patrons for 16 home playoff games, with the prices...