Mike Tice ticket scandal

[Pyser]

fascinating:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/football/nfl/03/08/banks.tice/index.html

[Crapshoot]

Tice screamed slimeball in how he got the job in the first place - I'm not exactly surprised...

[Crapshoot]

Dola, I still dont' think its some great crime on his part - it is a open practice, and I've heard about players selling many times before..

[dawgfan]

I don't think the scalping of the tix is that big a deal, but as the Head Coach, Tice should've known better than to continue being a ringleader. Poor judgement on his part.

[JeeberDMack]

Yikes, for a second there I thought it said Mike Price ticket scandal.

Whew...

[Draft Dodger]

I have a hard time seeing how this hurts the league in any way - I mean, they charge 500 fucking dollars for the damn things anyway. People are getting ripped off whether Tice upcharges them or not.

[stevew]

I wonder if he will get indicted for tax fraud.

[sovereignstar]

I wonder if he will throw the red flag.

Fixed.

[Pyser]

JeeberDMack?

When did you start multiplying?? Soon you'll be like Agent Smith.

[JeeberD]

You will be assimilated... ;)

[stkelly52]

Just listening to talk radio now and it sounds like the story is unraveling. The story comes from two disgruntled former Vikings, and several points of the story have already been proven false.

[mckerney]

Just listening to talk radio now and it sounds like the story is unraveling. The story comes from two disgruntled former Vikings, and several points of the story have already been proven false.

It's likely Chris Hovan has had little to do without anyone signing him yet.

[Blackadar]

Just listening to talk radio now and it sounds like the story is unraveling. The story comes from two disgruntled former Vikings, and several points of the story have already been proven false.

Interesting....

I'm actually bothered by Tice's statements on this.

"I'm confident when the league finishes looking at this, everything will come out fine," he told SI.com in the report posted late Tuesday. "It's a shame assumptions are being made about my role in this. I did not approach any player about Super Bowl tickets as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings."

Does this mean that the players aporached him and he then did something? Does this mean he did approach players before becoming head coach?

[Logan]

Interesting....

I'm actually bothered by Tice's statements on this.

"I'm confident when the league finishes looking at this, everything will come out fine," he told SI.com in the report posted late Tuesday. "It's a shame assumptions are being made about my role in this. I did not approach any player about Super Bowl tickets as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings."

Does this mean that the players aporached him and he then did something? Does this mean he did approach players before becoming head coach?

Just saw a scroll on ESPN's Bottom Line that said something to the effect of "Mike Tice tells ESPN.com's XX that he scalped tickets as an assistant coach."

[Ksyrup]

Late in the 2003 season, Tice berated one Vikings veteran for asking teammates if he could buy their tickets, which he had hoped to procure for family members. Tice, one source said, accused the player of trying to "backdoor the head coach."



I like this, it's like that comedy skit where the parent condemns his kid for smoking pot - only because it's his pot.

[Franklinnoble]

If this gets Tice fired, it's all good with me.

[sovereignstar]

[rush limbaugh]Art Shell is overrated because he's black.[/rush limbaugh]

[rkmsuf]

I know it's common practice but the whole thing is scumbaggy since it's being done by people who make 7 figures and grub to make 2 grand on SB tickets.

Losers.

[Arles]

I know it's common practice but the whole thing is scumbaggy since it's being done by people who make 7 figures and grub to make 2 grand on SB tickets.
Tice does work for Red McCombs and the Vikings, so it's doubtful he makes 7 figures ;)

[rkmsuf]

Tice does work for Red McCombs and the Vikings, so it's doubtful he makes 7 figures ;)

His salary is 1,000,000 right on the nose. That's a year.

That extra 10-20K he may clear in bilking money off people from free superbowl tickets he gets is key.

Guy should be giving the tickets away instead of being an asshole.

[Ksyrup]

Mike Tice strikes me as a cross between Mike Ditka and Matt Millen. In other words, an obstinate meathead.

[Arles]

Just listening to talk radio now and it sounds like the story is unraveling. The story comes from two disgruntled former Vikings, and several points of the story have already been proven false.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2008348

"Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Tice met Tuesday with NFL security officials looking into possible scalping of Super Bowl tickets, he told ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

Tice told Mortensen that he scalped Super Bowl tickets as an assistant coach, but that he did not as the head coach of the Vikings. Tice told Mortensen that he told assistants that it was OK to sell Super Bowl tickets to a ticket agency in California.

"If I'm guilty of anything," Tice said, "I am guilty of telling coaches that it's OK to sell their tickets." Tice said he gave the name of the person who purchases the tickets for the California ticket agency to his assistants."

[rkmsuf]

The NFL should just stop giving any of them tickets.

[Arles]

This just got a little worse. Tice now admits he sold tickets as the Head Coach of Minnesota:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2008348

Vikings head coach Mike Tice acknowledged scalping some of his personal Super Bowl ticket allotment last month in violation of NFL rules, according to a published report.

"I probably shouldn't have sold my tickets," Tice told SI.com in a report posted on the Web site Thursday night. "I made a mistake. I regret it. I'll never do it again. I'm going to be in trouble. I'll probably get slapped with a big fine."

The report contradicts what Tice told ESPN's Chris Mortensen earlier this week.

Tice told Mortensen that he scalped Super Bowl tickets as an assistant coach, but that he did not as the head coach of the Vikings. Tice told Mortensen that he told assistants that it was OK to sell Super Bowl tickets to a ticket agency in California.

Tice told Mortensen that he met with two members of NFL security on Tuesday for five hours as they investigated whether Tice and other Vikings coaches and office personnel scalped Super Bowl tickets. The NFL confirmed Wednesday that it is looking into ticket sales.

According to SI.com, Tice told NFL security investigators that he scalped part of his allotment of 12 tickets to this year's Super Bowl.

"I sold some of my tickets this year," Tice told SI.com. "I did. I told the league that and I told (team owner) Red McCombs that. I'm not going to lie. But if I'm going to be thrown out this year for selling tickets, then I'm a scapegoat. If I'm guilty of anything, I'm guilty of selling some of my tickets. I am not guilty of buying any player tickets since I've been made the head coach (in January 2002)."
Damn, this might have just sealed his fate.

[Cards4ever]

The NFL should just stop giving any of them tickets.


Exactly! If the NFL is really concerned about this going on, they should sell them all to the General Public, at least a higher percentage would actually be used by the ticket buyers.

[Arles]

Exactly! If the NFL is really concerned about this going on, they should sell them all to the General Public, at least a higher percentage would actually be used by the ticket scalpers.
Fixed that for ya ;)

[sovereignstar]

Damn, this might have just sealed his fate.

Art Shell?

[Arles]

tell you what, if the Vikings got rid of Moss, hired Art Shell and got a new owner, I may actually have to somewhat root for them...

Nah, but I came close. :p

[sovereignstar]

tell you what, if the Vikings got rid of Moss, hired Art Shell and got a new owner, I may actually have to somewhat root for them...

Nah, but I came close. :p

LOL

Seriously though, I don't see him getting fired for this. McCombs is going to be the owner of this team for at least another two months and I can't envision any scenario in which McCombs reigns as the shining knight of morality. Not when he'll have nothing to do with McComb's future anyways.

What a fricking bonehead though. The press is going to grill him and at such an inopportune time.

[Ksyrup]

"If I'm guilty of anything," Tice said, "I am guilty of telling coaches that it's OK to sell their tickets." - to Mortensen

"If I'm guilty of anything, I'm guilty of selling some of my tickets." - to SI.com

"If I'm guilty of anything, I'm guilty of stabbing the bitch to death and setting her on fire by Lake MeaWanka. I am not guilty of buying any player tickets since I've been made the head coach (in January 2002)." - to someone, tomorrow?



I believe every word this man says.

[Ragone]

Instead of fining him.. they should just never give him super bowl tickets again.. so he'll clearly never see the super bowl ever again(except on tv) cause he clearly isn't taking the vikings there(unless they buy him a ticket)

[Cards4ever]

Fixed that for ya ;)


Not really, there is a ton of people that would love to go to a Super Bowl and just can't afford the ticket prices. Sure, some would get into scalpers hands, but, I'm guessing that a higher percentage would be used by the people that won them in a lottery then what is given to NFL personnel today.

[Cap Ologist]

I resisted the urge to make the Mike Price Tick Scandal parody. I need help.

[sovereignstar]

Pro Football Talk has got an interesting read on the situation.

-----
WILL TICE MESS ENSNARE OWNERS?


As the Super Bowl ticket scalping scandal surrounding Vikings coach Mike Tice continues to grow (and as Tice continues to fuel it by making damning admissions to the media), several published reports have echoed the sentiment that players, coaches, and even owners have been scalping tickets for years.

But in addition to John Czarnecki's report that owners are involved in trading Super Bowl tickets for travel arrangements and/or adding surcharges for sales to business associates, a league insider supplied us with this gem on Friday morning: "Who do you think are the biggest abusers when it comes to scalping tickets? The owners, without a doubt. The whole thing is a big racket."

Sales by owners are made, per the source, directly to brokers.

"That’s why some of the cheaper organizations refuse to sell tickets to employees," the source explained. "Because the owners want all the proceeds for themselves. Every ticket that an owner keeps for himself nets around (depending on seat location) $1200 per ticket easy. Multiply that times 2500 tickets and you make a nice easy profit of about $3 million."

(Teams in the Super Bowl get up to 5,000 tickets; for the rest, the number of available seats is more like 1,000 per team, and we're trying to confirm this.)

Moving forward in light of this information, we believe that the NFL's choices in this regard are as simple to identify as they will be difficult to make.

Option 1: Brush the whole thing under the rug by imposing a token fine on Tice and shaking a finger at anyone else who might be tempted to engage in similar conduct in the future.

Option 2: Get out the flexible scope and start exploring whether and to what extent coaches, players, and owners have engaged in similar conduct.

Option 3: Come down hard on Tice and Tice only, and make it clear to every else that, going forward, this crap has to end.

Option 1 invites significant scrutiny from the media. Plus, if/when the IRS starts serving subpoenas and the Justice Department starts issuing indictments, the league's pooh-poohing of the affair will look even fishier.

Option 2, if done properly, could turn the league upside down for months, if not years. And the issue creates a significant conflict of interest of Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, especially if the inquiry involves owners. It was one thing, for example, for Bart Giamatti to chase Pete Rose like the last Christmas turkey in town. It's quite another for Tags to be in the position of snooping around the affairs of the very folks who fund his entire operation.

To do this the right way, the league office would start by leaning on players and assistant coaches, offering immunity and/or leniency in exchange for information that would enable the ringleaders and/or the biggest offenders to be taken down. The league office then would continue up the ladder until all of the folks who are and have been major players in this scam are fairly and adequately punished.

With the possibility that one or more of the people on the top rung of the ladders are one or more of the persons who pay the Commish's salary, we think that the league office should authorize NFL Security to retain a team of truly independent investigators and decision-makers to track this problem down and to mete out proper punishments.

Option 3 would be grossly unfair to Tice, since he's hardly the only person in a position of authority making extra coin off of the sale of scalped Super Bowl seats. And, frankly, it would be very hard for us to have much respect for the NFL moving if the powers-that-be opt to make Tice the sacrificial meathead for a problem with roots that the league office has, through past inaction, allowed to run very, very deep.

Regardless of how this all plays out, the Tice affair likely will be viewed, in retrospect, as the opening scene in a string of embarrassments that could knock the image of greatest sports league in the world down by several pegs.

[rkmsuf]

STOP GIVING THEM TICKETS. PROBLEM SOLVED.

They want to go to the game, buy one like the rest of us..

[Ksyrup]

Upwards of 40,000 tickets for the Super Bowl are owned by the teams?! I had no clue. What did people think they were doing with them? Giving them away as late New Years gifts?

[Ksyrup]

I expect Congress to establish a committee to look into these allegations. Or will it take a book?

[rkmsuf]

Why does the league care what owners do with the tickets? I could see it getting upset at players/coaches, but if some owner wants to scalp all 2000 of his seats, why is that a big deal?

They should just give all 70,000 to 100,000 to league owners and let them sell them to the public then.

Enough of the ruse. Let the owners try and get 1,200 profit apiece on them then.

[Arles]

Why does the league care what owners do with the tickets? I could see it getting upset at players/coaches, but if some owner wants to scalp all 2000 of his seats, why is that a big deal?

[Franklinnoble]

The league doesn't really care.

They care if the fans get pissed off enough to do anything about it.

Which they won't.

So, nobody cares.