Giants, Bills, Panthers, Jets alter ticket plans

The New York Giants and Jets, Carolina Panthers and Buffalo Bills made changes to their season-ticket plans this year to account for the lockout, with the Giants taking the biggest step by not requiring renewals until the labor stoppage ends.

According to a survey of all 32 teams by The Associated Press, 17 teams are not changing ticket prices, nine are raising them, four are decreasing them — and two are both raising and decreasing, depending on seat location.

May 1 normally is the due date for full payment by Giants season ticket-holders. Not this year, barring a settlement beforehand of the dispute between owners and players.

"We felt comfortable with it, and we shouldn’t be singled out," co-owner John Mara said. "Each team has its own cash situation and relationship with their ticket holders.

"I have not heard anything (from other teams). Each team has its own individual circumstances. We’ve asked an awful lot out of our fans in the last few years over the stadium."

The Giants and Jets shared the $1.6 billion cost for the New Meadowlands Stadium that opened last season. They also required personal seat license fees for most fans.

For 2011, the Giants are not raising ticket prices, while the Jets are having a 2.3 percent average increase. The Jets added a payment alternative that defers 50 percent of the total amount due until a training camp date is announced.

The Panthers added a fourth payment option for fans: 10 percent of the renewal price due up front and 90 percent due upon the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement.

Buffalo extended its series of payments by one pay period and adjusted payment terms so that 50 percent of the account balance is not due until the league announces games will be played. Fans then have a two-month period to make the remaining payments.

Jacksonville is offering more flexibility in its payments, but a team spokesman said it had nothing to do with the lockout.

The four clubs reducing the cost of tickets are San Diego, Cleveland, Arizona and Tampa Bay. San Francisco and Kansas City are dropping some prices, raising others.

In Candlestick Park, more than 40,000 seats for Niners games will decrease or remain unchanged in price, but the average season-ticket price will be approximately $83, up about $6 from last season. At Arrowhead Stadium, two-thirds of the seats will have reduced or flat prices, and some sidelines seats will increase.

"My tickets in the nosebleed section did not go up this year," Chiefs season ticket-holder Karen Hamlet said, "but my parking did, from $275 for the season to $320. I’ve heard it will go up at the gate as well (for non-season ticket-holders)."

The Chargers lowered the cost of approximately 6,500 seats and held the line on all others for the fourth straight year. Arizona dropped the price on about 3,700 seats. Tampa Bay has reductions of up to 20 percent for some seats and a 10 percent discount on stadium food, beverage and merchandise purchases for season ticket holders.

Denver, New England and Baltimore are among teams keeping prices constant for at least the third consecutive year.

Aside from San Francisco and Kansas City, nine others are raising prices in some locations. One team, the New Orleans Saints, did not respond to requests from The Associated Press for ticket information. But a Saints season ticket-holder told the AP the price on his seats has gone up to $298 per ticket.

Barton, Crisp homer as A's outslug Reds

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- In a game that featured four home runs, the A's managed to outslug the Reds by a 10-8 score on Tuesday at Goodyear Ballpark.

Oakland took a 7-0 lead on Reds starter Mike Leake, who struggled to get through 2 1/3 innings while allowing six hits and four walks. Leake pitched behind a lot, which gave the A's plenty of opportunity to do damage.

The game's second batter, Daric Barton, got it going when he hit a 3-1 Leake pitch to left field for a solo homer. It was 2-0 in the third when the A's knocked Leake out with a five-run inning. Coco Crisp led off with a home run to center field and Kurt Suzuki later added a two-run double to the center-field wall.

The Reds answered back in the third inning against A's lefty Brett Anderson. With two outs, Brandon Phillips' rolling RBI single into left field scored Paul Janish. Joey Votto followed with a two-run home run into the left-field bullpen -- his third long ball of the spring.

In the fourth inning against Anderson, Jonny Gomes led off with a homer to the grassy hill behind the left-field 'pen.

Anderson pitched six innings and gave up four earned runs and six hits without a walk while striking out four.

Francisco Cordero worked his sixth straight scoreless inning of relief, but his streak of perfect innings ended at four. Cordero gave up two singles and a walk during the fifth inning, but also struck out the side.

Craig Breslow took over for Anderson in the bottom of the seventh and allowed three runs on two hits in his Cactus League debut.

Nick Masset pitched a perfect sixth inning in relief for Cincinnati. That was followed by a hitless inning for Aroldis Chapman, who walked one and struck out two.

Votto added his third hit of the game in the ninth inning. His two-run single shortened the A's lead to two runs before right-hander Michael Wuertz recorded the game's final out.

Up next for A's: Lefty Gio Gonzalez, working on an extra day of rest, is set to make his fifth spring start Wednesday when the A's travel to Mesa, Ariz., for a meeting with the Cubs at HoHoKam Park. Gonzalez has put together an exceptional string of outings thus far, evidenced by a 1.76 Cactus League ERA. He's allowed just three earned runs while striking out 19 in 15 1/3 innings. The game is scheduled for a 1:05 p.m. PT start.

Up next for Reds: It will be a key day in the battle for the final bullpen spots as Dontrelle Willis, Sam LeCure and Matt Maloney are all scheduled to get innings when the Reds head to Peoria to play the Padres at 4:05 p.m. ET. All three pitchers are coming off of lackluster outings but have an excellent chances to make the team. Homer Bailey, who is going to make the rotation, is the starting pitcher for Cincinnati.

Scrubs wash away Dodger losing streak

Major League Baseball is broadcasting one spring training game per day live on its Facebook fan page.
The games will continue through the end of spring training in April, and perhaps into the regular season.

Right now, it's only a promotion for MLB's subscription video service, but it points the way toward Facebook becoming a content distribution platform.
A couple weeks ago, Facebook spooked Netflix investors when it announced an experiment with Warner Brothers to let customers rent "The Dark Knight" with Facebook credits. The panic was silly -- video on demand is already common through cable networks, and Netflix has a huge library of content and subscription service that won't be easily disrupted.
But live sports actually makes more sense than movie rentals -- users are more likely to share a live event with a real-time status update like "check this amazing game out" than they are to point to a movie that's been out for a couple years on video.
MLB says that it's only trying to figure out who might be interested in watching and sharing games online so it can promote MLB.TV more effectively. And this time around, Facebook has no financial incentive -- the games are free.
But as Peter Kafka at AllThingsD points out, today's experiment is tomorrow's distribution platform.

Apple TV Adds MLB.TV, NBA League Pass Support

Baseball and basketball fans finally have a reason to grab an Apple TV, as MLB.com announces that Apple's device is landing MLB.TV's streaming service.

Current Apple TV owners with MLB.TV subscriptions can get the features via a software update, which also adds support of NBA game streams via NBA League Pass.

Apple's $99 Apple TV is the latest streaming device to land MLB.TV, which is currently available via Roku, Boxee, and Sony's Playstation 3. Like the rest of these devices, Apple TV is also subject to media blackouts, which restrict games broadcast at certain times from being streamed. Saturday games starting between 1:10 and 7:05 PM EST and Sunday games starting after 5:00 PM are all subject to blackout restrictions, in addition to games broadcasting during other periods.
Streams via Apple TV are also subject to in-market restrictions, which prevent viewers in certain areas from watching local games. MLB.TV makes the recordings of restricted games available shortly after their conclusion.

In addition to streaming games, the MLB.TV service also offers game scores and team standings.