TFC Asks Me for an Interest-Free Loan

You'll remember, of course, the general contempt that TFC has shown for travelling fans. Well, now it's showing it to home fans as well.

My season ticket renewal form arrives in my inbox. Apparently included in this year's price is not just my 15 league games, but also an international friendly (I see they've learned their lesson and are now scheduling only one of these atrocities), two Canadian championship matches, and (drumroll please) a premliminary round CONCACAF game.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that would be the CONCACAF round we are not guaranteed to play in (and which, indeed, we did not play in this year due to Cunningham's complete inability to from a range of four feet with only air molecules to beat).

Now, the team is very nice about this. If we don't get to play in this game next August, they say they'll refund me the money.

Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Average ticket price: call it $45. Season ticket holders: 16,000. That's a $720,000 interest-free loan the MLSE boys are asking from us fans for the next eleven months. At prime, that works out to about $33,000, or enough to pay two and a half developmental players' salaries for a year.

I guess the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (owner of MLSE and its aggressively mediocre family of sports teams) didn't get to be the multi-billion dollar behemoth it is withour nickel-and-diming its customers along the way.