FEATURE ARTICLE - TORONTO FANS UNION

Everyone on the planet is projecting the Raptors to tank this season.

The Leafs finished the pre-season at .500 and aren’t expected to do much better in the regular season.

The Jays finished another season with another losing record.

Even if the Argos win the Grey Cup again, no one really cares about the CFL.

Toronto is a mecca for sports fans, but lets be honest, while everyone loves great drama on their team, there’s only so much dysfunction anyone is willing to pay for (Attention Rob Babcock).

Just like teams have insurance for when a player goes down, fans should have a similar net to break their fall off the bandwagon when their favourite teams hit the skids.

It’s about time we all band together and fight for our rights as fans, which are too often being trampled on and taken for granted by the leagues and athletes we ultimately pay to keep around.

Because of this grave injustice, there needs to be a Fans Union (FU for short). That’s right, an organization specifically in place to guard the rights of the fans, to make sure we’re never used, abused, misguided or misjudged again.

There should be a code of conduct, or Fans Constitution all professional clubs need to follow, like meeting a mandatory win loss ratio. Failure to do so will result in public humiliations of team officials (Attention Rob Babcock), ticket price reductions and in severe cases, free games for the public.

In the case of annual ticket price increases, this should be a negotiated event between the Fans Union and the professional league in question. Failure to agree upon a suitable rate would result in a boycott by ticket buyers.

The same rule would also apply to the egregious cost of concessions and team merchandise.

There’s nothing worse than a sullen and ungrateful star athlete. So under the Constitution, they’d be required to give interviews to the media, sans clichés, greet fans with a customer service-like approach and grant all reasonable requests by the people who’ve been cheering them on for years.

The above suggestion are all to protect you, the fan, but keep in mind, we need to hold up our end of the bargain too. That means being respectful of athletes privacy, being courteous when seeking an autograph, refraining from hurling rude or crude insults at athletes or management (Attention Rob Babcock) and not leaving your gum under the seat after the game!

Sincerely,

Ruby Jones

Need to vent about this? Feel free to e-mail rubyj@flow935.com