A listener named Zeb e-mails:
Paul, thought you might find this interesting. As you may or may not know, WWE( World Wrestling Entertainment) was in town to do a show last night (10/24/06) at the Scotts Trade center. I have a relative who works in the suites at the center and was working the show last night. Around the 5th inning of the CARDINALS game I received a call from her asking for an update of the World Series. I thought this was kind of strange considering the amount of TVs located in the suites and surrounding areas, so I asked why she wasn’t watching the game. She told me that when the staff arrived for work at Scotts Trade, WWE had stipulated that there were to be no TVs on in the suites during the wrestling performance. She said she had spent 1/2 of the night going in and out of suites turning off the TVs 4 or 5 times and having to explain to the customers, who had already paid for their tickets, that they could not watch the CARDS because WWE did not want the TVS on. She said that at one point a WWE rep. threatened to have the cable feed to the entire building cut off if the suite staff could not keep the TV’s off, which would of meant no CARDINALS GAME in the concourse as well. Now I don’t know about you but if I had paid 2 to 3 hundred dollars for a suite, I would watch whatever I liked, especially my home team in the World Series. Its not like WWE would lose money by allowing their fans to watch a baseball game. They are still getting the ticket money. Does this sound strange to you?
Absolutely. I could see if they objected because the TVs were too distracting to other fans, but having been in those suites, I’ve seen them on with no problem. On the other hand, maybe they’re afraid that if anyone looked away from the arena for even one minute, they’d lose track of the incredibly complex plot lines that make up all WWE events.