Arena football is canceling its 2009 season. You’d think that with a mini-depression looming, the cheap seats of the local arena club would be a good substitute for NFL tickets priced to be competitive with backstage Madonna passes. My friends and I went to a New Orleans Voodoo match a few months ago and had a blast for what was no more than $15 a seat. Imagine being able to take your whole family to a sporting event more than once every other year! Of course, you sacrifice the communal experience, the feeling that you are bearing live witness to something that a non-trivial number of Americans care about and are watching on TV. Arena football is fun, but there just aren’t a lot of people who care about it.

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