For the rich and (occasionally) the poor, live sports has become a tale of two fanbases

Open this photo in gallery:

A couple of weeks ago, I was seated next to a sports fan at a dinner. Generally, that means a lot of Maple Leafs or Blue Jays talk.

This guy wanted to talk about his sports secret – a pro wrestling league that operates out of offbeat venues in Toronto’s east end. He took me through a camera roll of oiled-up musclemen coming off the top turnbuckle like he was showing pictures of his grandkids. He and the family go often. They don’t sell food there, so they bring takeout pizza.

We didn’t exchange bank balances, but this was someone who could clearly afford more typical sports experiences. What I was really struck by was his gatekeeping – “You CAN’T write about this.” He was worried the place would be thronged.

I told him that since he’d asked so nicely, I would very definitely be writing about it, which I have the suspicion was his goal all along. I think he’s made a lot of money off people like me.

That’s where the mainstream live sports experience is at now – even those few who can afford to do it are looking for alternatives. Even they are tired.

The upcoming World Cup has become some sort of tipping point. The face value of tickets – creeping over US$10,000 in some instances – is one thing. The fact that you have to buy them blind, hope they are decent, often be disappointed in that hope, and find out later that there are other, even more exclusive tickets jammed in front of you is another.

As World Cup ticket sales seem to slow, FIFA set to make more seats available

I think what’s really finished people off is the train to New Jersey. If you want to go to the Meadowlands – where the final will take place – you have to take that train. Otherwise, it’s a car to nowhere, followed by trekking through a swamp.

I’ve ridden that train. It’s ugly and uncomfortable. On a typical day, a return trip from Manhattan will run you US$13. During the World Cup, it will be US$150.

Open this photo in gallery:

No normal person can imagine paying 10 grand to watch two hours of soccer. But charging a day’s pay to go 15 kilometres on a train that didn’t require purpose building and doesn’t have a bar?

It’s like Doug Ford’s plane. People get that, and it makes them crazy.

The going line on this kind of thing is that it’s getting harder for the average person to experience what we used to think of as a typical experience.

I was raised by a single mother who had zero cash to spare, but my brother and I were still treated to a Leafs game once a year. If they’d sold tickets on the roof, we would’ve bought those, but we never cared where we sat. We just wanted to be there.

I wonder how many working-class single mothers are at Leafs games any more? And if so, which liquor store did they rob to pay for it?

Open this photo in gallery:

The problem is not that the people who run sports are losing touch with their working- and middle-class fanbases. It’s that they no longer want to have to see them, or sit beside them, or be anywhere near them.

They absolutely do want those people invested in the team, but from home. They need them to create the bulk of conversation that gives a sports franchise its cultural heft.

They just don’t want them in the building. They don’t want them scrounging around for the cheapest hot dog and the smallest beer.

There are now two fanbases for every team. There are the rich, who fill the lower bowls, and have dinner in exclusive arena spaces regular punters don’t have access to, never forced to press up against the ‘real’ fan.

Open this photo in gallery:

Then there’s everyone else, whose job it is to keep the flame alive. Gradually, these people have begun to accept that they aren’t good enough to come to games. They do their fanning in the streets – wearing a jersey around town, asking people if they saw the game last night. These people are too poor to be worth anything as customers. So they are being transitioned to a volunteer pep squad/marketing department.

Sports is now the cultural equivalent of flying. It is still possible to do it for a non-insane amount of money, but it’s going to suck. I’m sure that if airlines had their way, every plane would be business-class and above, and anyone who couldn’t afford that would swim to Europe. However, that would make it too obvious.

Instead, there are 20 great seats on a plane, 40 okay ones and 200 upholstered torture devices.

FIFA redraws the map on top-tier World Cup seating

The Eloi board first, and we Morlocks must walk through them. We’d feel shame if we weren’t wild with anxiety about making it to the overhead bins before they fill up.

Live sports is that plane, with the numbers reversed. You’re in the platinums? Sir, allow Jeremy here to piggyback you to your seat. You’re in the upper bowl? I don’t know how you get in, pal. Maybe you should try climbing through a window.

I think of this every time I see Jays fans sprint through the doors at opening and start Hunger Games-ing their way to the upper levels to grab the handful of cheap, standing spots. Only the young survive that cull.

The World Cup proves that plenty of people are lining up to pay a month’s rent to see in person what they could’ve watched on TV for free. They’re not buying an experience, which is what our mom bought us. They’re purchasing status. They have acquired the right to drop, “You know, when I went to the World Cup last summer …” into a conversation with some rando at the gym.

That system obviously works. Everybody in sports is getting monstrously rich. There is apparently no limit to the gouging.

It will continue to work right up until a critical mass of the people who can afford to get fleeced decide it’s more fun to spend a couple of hours in a church basement with a bunch of strangers who are there for the sense of community, rather than the ego boost.