New City, New Fans Still Balk at Cardinal-Style Pro Football

The NFL’s Phoenix Cardinals figured one of their biggest problems--lack of consistent fan support--was forever behind them when they moved from St. Louis to Arizona this spring.

They may have assumed wrong.

Often booed by small crowds at St. Louis’ Busch Stadium during losing seasons the last three years, the Cardinals have started on the wrong foot with the pro football fans of Arizona because of a controversial ticket policy.

The Cardinals, who haven’t qualified for the playoffs since 1982, will have the highest ticket price of any NFL team this season at an average cost of $38 per ticket, almost twice the league average.

The team, meanwhile, is practicing at an abandoned high school while waiting for its regular training facility and working-class fans seem turned off by the high ticket prices.

Some players said they already have felt the first backlash.

“You hate to see the negative crop up so early,” says offensive tackle Luis Sharpe. “In a new situation like this, with new support and new fans, you’d like to think the marriage will go smoothly.”

Instead, the situation has alienated potential fans who simply can’t afford to buy good tickets and infuriated some local business leaders who have had their choice seats moved to “nosebleed” sections of 72,000-seat Sun Devil Stadium because of an old contract clause.

That clause is contained in an April, 1986 agreement with Arizona State University. It allows 11,800 season-ticket holders of the defunct USFL’s Arizona Outlaws to have top priority for Cardinals tickets while some 55,000 ASU season-ticket holders have second priority.

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled in early June that the Outlaw ticket holders paid for their priority by leaving money on deposit in 1986 to receive the rights if an NFL team moved to Sun Devil Stadium within two years.

However, about 8,000 ASU season-ticket holders with choice seats have been bumped into the end zones and upper decks by the Cardinals because the Outlaws’ season-ticket holders owned their seats.

Four of the victims are Phoenix business executives who were instrumental in the negotiations to get the Cardinals to relocate their franchise.

One of them--Circle K convenience store chairman Karl Eller--has threatened to pull his corporation’s $2 million in support for both ASU and the Cardinals unless he can retain his eight 50-yard-line seats for NFL games. He reportedly has already withdrawn a $150,000-per-year verbal agreement to sponsor a new stadium scoreboard.

Last month, 43 members of the 4,100-member Sun Angel Foundation--ASU’s biggest financial booster group--notified school officials by letter that they plan to withdraw millions of dollars in support unless their Cardinal ticket situation is rectified.

ASU President J. Russell Nelson and Bruce Meyerson, the school’s legal counsel, both said it would be irresponsible for the university to break its binding contract with the Outlaws over ticket priority and subject ASU to potential liability.

“It concerns the Cardinals that people are angry,” said team owner Bill Bidwill. “I can understand why they are upset. There is enough anger to spill on to everyone. But we are not party to any agreement between the Outlaws and ASU.”

The Metropolitan Phoenix Sports Alliance has guaranteed Bidwill $4.7 million annually in ticket revenue and another $2.4 million from the sales of 60 luxury sky boxes.

Eller is a member of the alliance, comprised of local business and civic leaders. It is not yet known if he will withdraw his support of the $10-million project to build the 60 sky boxes in time for the 1989 season.

Meanwhile, local ticket brokers say business is slow. Scalping still is legal in this state, but many brokers feel their asking price may be too high for the average blue-collar worker.

For their home debut in an Aug. 12 exhibition game against New Orleans, the Cardinals drew 51,987 to the 72,000-seat facility. Some scalpers were selling $50 tickets for $5 just minutes before kickoff in 106-degree weather.

Bidwill moved the Cardinals out of 54,392-seat Busch Stadium, the team’s home since 1960, saying it was one of the smallest facilities in the NFL and that he could not make his club “financially competitive with the rest of the league.”

Last year, the team drew 194,748 fans for its home games and grossed an estimated $3.8 million.

The Phoenix Cardinals are expected to gross $17.5 million this season and already have sold 59,000 season tickets although most contain costly premiums.

Tickets in the loge section sell for $350 ($35 for two exhibition games and eight regular-season home games) and have premiums of either $900 or $600 with the exception of 228 choice seats which sell for $1,650 apiece.

The remaining seats, aside from the south end zone bleachers, are $250 season tickets. Premiums are $250, $150, $50 or none at all.

Season tickets in the south end zone are $150 with no premiums.

“I hope this doesn’t polarize any of the fans,” says Pro Bowl kick returner Vai Sikahema. “You know, the bad thing about it is we have to pay the same prices if we want to have our friends and families there to watch us play. We’re not any more happier about it than the fans are. But if we give them something good to watch, they may not mind paying those prices.”

Meanwhile, members of the Cardinals organization still haven’t fully adjusted to the move. The team is practicing at an abandoned Phoenix high school until their $5 million training facility is built in Tempe.

The relocation from St. Louis was announced by Bidwill on Jan. 15, but not formally approved by the NFL until March 15 at its spring meeting in Phoenix.

Bidwill, saying he was following NFL tradition, decided to call his team the “Phoenix Cardinals” instead of the “Arizona Cardinals,” drawing anger from some factions who wanted a state team.

The court battle kept the Cardinals from officially selling tickets until June 10 and the state Board of Regents didn’t get around to signing the team’s stadium lease until late July.

“It’s been a long, drawn-out thing,” Bidwill says. “It’s also been very emotional. I’ve lived in St. Louis for 26 years. It was hard to leave. But we’re very happy to be here.

“We think we have the necessary fan support in Phoenix to be successful. We hope to be here a long, long time.”