Chronicle Reports Giants Offering No-Interest Loan to Ticket-Buyers -- Which Comes as Surprise to Giants
Wednesday, Apr. 8 2009 @ 12:59PM
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| You can get a lot at a Giants game -- but not free money. Sorry. |
Despite what you may have read elsewhere, the San Francisco Giants wish for you to buy your peanuts and crackerjack, like the song says -- they won't loan them to you. They won't loan you cash either.
In an opening day story in the San Francisco Chronicle, longtime sports columnist Gwen Knapp ruminated about how baseball must take action to once again serve as the fan-accessible pastime of a hard-up nation (unwittingly opening the gate for a torrent of "In my day we got into games for a nickel and cocaine cost a penny a pound" reader comments). Most eye-opening, however, was the following excerpt:
The Giants have reduced season-ticket prices for 28 percent of their fan base this season, have discounted certain single-game seats and have extended interest-free, five-month loans to season-ticket buyers.
A loan? You mean the Giants are going to hand me money? What do I look like, Barry Zito? We called the team's ticket office -- and the notion of the team loaning fans money came as news to them.
Taylor Gross, a sales representative with the Giants, said that there
are no "loans" to ticket-purchasers. What the Giants do offer, however,
is a payment plan in which buyers plink down 50 percent of the asking
price for season tickets at the time of purchase, and then pay in
interest-free installments over the next four months.
This is the plan Knapp was writing about -- and, clearly, it is no loan. It's another vestige of Depression-era shopping -- the layaway plan. Along with fedoras, this economic relic is making a comeback (and, in other parts of the world, it never left; tourists even in ritzy parts of Brazil are often forced to put back the pair of shoes or bathing suit they thought was a super bargain without noticing that the price is part of a five-payment installment plan).
Perhaps another vestige of Depression-era life will save the Chronicle and the rest of us -- folks sleeping under newspapers. Talk about a built-in clientele!
This is the plan Knapp was writing about -- and, clearly, it is no loan. It's another vestige of Depression-era shopping -- the layaway plan. Along with fedoras, this economic relic is making a comeback (and, in other parts of the world, it never left; tourists even in ritzy parts of Brazil are often forced to put back the pair of shoes or bathing suit they thought was a super bargain without noticing that the price is part of a five-payment installment plan).
Perhaps another vestige of Depression-era life will save the Chronicle and the rest of us -- folks sleeping under newspapers. Talk about a built-in clientele!
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