You can still find tickets for the much-ballyhooed “last game at the Spectrum” set for Saturday afternoon. It will be the Flyers’ final appearance there against an NHL opponent; they will return on Oct. 7 for a 7:30 p.m. exhibition vs. the Phantoms.

First, the Flyers held back some tickets to enable a couple of their promotions. One is an auction that they are running off their Web site; go to the auction section. There are five packages available that include the tickets to the game, autographed merchandise and a tour of the building.
 
They also are using the lure of the farewell game to sell their full and power play season-ticket packages. Anyone attending a free open house at the Wachovia Center from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday who buys one of those ticket packages will be given a couple tickets to the Flyers-Hurricanes game and, as part of that package, will get to meet a couple of the former team captains who have accepted an invitation to attend Saturday’s game and participate in the ceremonies.

And, of course, some tickets are still clinging to the brokerage web, depending on the price you want to pay. A glance at the Wanamaker Tickets site in Center City found tickets running as high as $115. Packages that include VIP parking passes are, in a few cases, more than three times higher. A spokesman contacted earlier today said that the prices generally are higher than you’d find for a preseason game “because of where it’s being played. Typically speaking, preseason prices, at the Wachovia Center, you wouldn’t get that kind of money for those type of tickets.”

And those prices could still elevate, he said. “It’s early, it’s Wednesday. I’m sure come Friday or Saturday, I’m sure they’ll heat up quite a bit.”

Speaking of tickets, this story by Daniel McGlinn of the Boston Globe provides a real insightful look at the ticket brokerage industry and its impact on most of you out there who would like to buy tickets to a game but don’t have the financial wherewithal. Well, unless you’re good friends with some high-level suit at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

In the piece, McGlinn poses the question of whether tickets brokers are wearing white hats or black hats. Edgar Sworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org, sees more evil than good. “I think it’s a dirty business, and I think consumer are getting screwed,” he says. Brokers, as you might figure, disagree, seeing it as just the free-market system at its finest.

Several representatives from Philadelphia’s MLS franchise, including CEO and operating partner Nick Sakiewicz, stopped by yesterday to say hello and talk about their timetable leading up to their first season in 2010.

This is the team with no logo and no name but with a boisterous fan club called the Sons of Ben that numbers more than 3,000. Safe to say that no other team in any sport in this country has made provisions in its stadium plan for a section that will accommodate its fan club. That area will hold around 2,000 people. Construction should get under way soon on the approximately 18,500-seat stadium that will rise out of Chester’s waterfront.

Ahead for the franchise is the naming of their president and an announcement on their seat pricing later this fall; the coaching staff should be intact and introduced by next spring. Before all of that will be a contest to pick the team name, and you’ll be reading more about that in the next couple of weeks. The team plans to give fans three or four options for names, along with a chance to write in a suggestion. Fans will be able to log into the team site, and likely the site of the party that will partner with the franchise, and cast their vote. Sankiewicz noted that the winner in Seattle turned out to be the write-in pick. 

Look for the contest to last several weeks and the official announcement of the team name to come in November, after the election.

It’s not that Phantoms PR directors Mike Thornton and Brian Smith have that much time on their hands. But you need a few tickets on the clock to come up with the giveaways they’ve done recently, such as a refrigerator and kitchen sink autographed by team members.

So a similar lull one recent day produced a promotion for Oct. 18 that’s timely and inventive: a VP night. Only they won’t be honoring Flyers VPs Bob Clarke or Keith Allen. This one will call attention to hockey mom Sarah Palin and opponent Joe Biden. Appropriately, the Binghamton Senators will be the opponent for the 7:05 p.m. game at the Wachovia Spectrum. Those attending who hail from the home states of the two vice presidential candidates – Delaware and Alaska – will get in at half price, as will all moms who bring a child or children to the game. And if your name is the same that Palin and her hubby gave one of her kids -- Piper, Willow, Bristol, Track, Trig, Hunter, Beau or Ashley – you can walk in without paying a thing. Now that’s a trickle-down policy I’d vote for.

Smith said the idea geminated the way most of their do, with he, Thornton and marketing coordinator Adam Goldberg sitting around kicking around the specifics of holding a Sarah Palin Night, with free admission to all kids named Track. “And it kind of blossomed from there,” Smith said. “It’s one of those things where somebody says something funny and then you’re like, hey, wait a minute, that’s a good possibility.

“So we kind of hashed it out a little bit and developed it, looked at it again. We did a couple things to make sure we weren’t being one-sided one way or another,” Smith said, adding, “We don’t want to make anybody mad on either end of the spectrum.”

He said it, I didn’t.

Invitations have gone out to local offices of the Republican and Democratic parties and, no doubt, word of the promotion will find its way to the national offices of Palin and Biden. As you’d expect, with all the flap over the “lipstick on a pig” comment, the Phantoms will set up a cosmetic station where fans can sample the latest in lipstick fashion. 

In addition, these prizes will be awarded during the second period:

* A one-way ticket to Washington, DC on Amtrak’s Northeast Regional Line

* Alaskan King Crab dinner for two at Shuckers Pier 13 in Dover, Delaware

* DVD copies of “The Deadliest Catch” and “Miami Vice”

* A stuffed pit bull, adorned with lipstick

And why shouldn’t the theme also figure into one element of the game itself: the three stars. The game’s best player will be named the second star; the one who normally would be the second star will be named the First Dude. 

Meanwhile, the team will continue its “big-ticket” giveaways, this time offering a team-autographed bench vise courtesy of The Home Depot. That pretty much covers every room except the bedroom in terms of items that the Phantoms have had signed as a promotion. Give the boys some quiet time in their office and they’ll surely come up with something that would go perfect in the boudoir.

Otherwise, they figure to spend many of their days working on promotions that will center on the imminent closing of the Wachovia Spectrum. Smith said that “a lot of stuff is still being hashed out. For our opening night we’re looking to bring back some figures from the past . . . Obviously we’re going to do our share of Flyers things, but we’re going to be doing our share of Spectrum things, too. We’re trying to work at least something into as many games as we can throughout the course of the season so folks can kinda remember all the stuff that they came to. We know we’ll have people coming who are coming to a game because they want to be in the building one more time.

Hello. I don’t expect readers to get as emotional about what I’m writing about on this blog as those, for instance, who visit Eagletarian or High Cheese. No dirt on the Birds or the Phils here, at least no on-the-field news.

Nor will it possess the literary elegance, wit and wisdom of The Idle Rich.

Instead, it should be a spot you want to visit often to read what’s happening locally and nationally on issues that affect sports consumers -- that’s you and you and you – and chime in with your sentiments when so inclined. We’ll kick around everything from promotions to in-game entertainment to where you go for tickets and how much you pay. Often, it’s way more than most can afford.

These findings first appeared in a feature called View From the Seats, and a couple years later I expanded the coverage in a weekly column called Savvy Consumer that incorporated a readers panel. If you found anything you liked in those, you ought see some subjects in this blog worth digesting.

Consider that it was only four years ago, in February 2004, that the Phillies raised $700,000 for some of its charities by auctioning off items from Veterans Stadium. Cracked bats went for $30 to $50, the bat rack for $5500, all the way up to a banner featuring Richie Ashburn's retired No. 1 that fetched $10,100.
 
All told, the team sold out all 6,000 boxes of artificial turf, all 2,500 glass bottles of infield dirt, all 2,000 boxes of the outfield wall and all 1,000 deluxe box seats. Oh, and a Tyler Houston game jersey ($30) and David Bell cracked bat ($40).

All of that comes to mind as sales are underway on two ballparks in New York. 

Several recent stories in New York, including this one in the New York Times, described how they're selling Shea Stadium right down to the dirt, and if you don't believe it, check out this price list of items. Meanwhile, the New York Post reports, discussions continue on what they are calling the sports memorabilia "sale of the century." How much times have changed. I still have the wooden seat I twisted and yanked out of the cement at Connie Mack Stadium in 1970. That only cost me the price of admission. Fast-forward to today, where officials are estimating that the plastic seats from the House That Ruth Built could go for $1923 a pair. Surely you're figured out how they arrived at that total. That's the year Yankee Stadium opened; also the Bambino's MVP year.