EVEN MORE SHOCKING NEWS and fallout from Fielkow Firing

[NINERS4LIFE]

COULD THAT ATTENDANCE STORY BE TRUE?????

This story is getting crazier by the day!!!!

http://www.wwltv.com/sports/saints/s...105048a2c.html

Henderson Commentary Part II: Officials say Benson not happy about games in Baton Rouge

10:58 PM CDT on Monday, October 17, 2005

Jim Henderson / WWL-TV Sports Director

As night falls on one of the ugliest days in the history of the New Orleans Saints, that's endured a lot of them, we're learning more background behind the firing today of executive vice president of administration Arnold Fielkow.

Fielkow had already offered his resignation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when his opposition to Benson's plan to play all of the games in San Antonio and Fielkow's position that some of the games should be played in Baton Rouge became public.

It was not accepted then.

It was demanded today. That came after Benson was incensed by an editorial that said some unnamed Saints executives wanted to return to New Orleans to play again.

Benson fired off a memo to the staff that threatened them, saying if you want to leave, then leave today. He was talked out of issuing it by others in the front office.

But the anger apparently remained.

He chastised another staffer for issuing a press release detailing a recent favorable e in ticket sales for the Dolphins' game in Baton Rouge that was ok'd by Fielkow. Benson demanded all releases from that individual be ok'd by him. That left many Saints staffers in San Antonio feeling that was part of an effort by Benson to make Baton Rouge suffer in comparison with ticket sales in San Antonio.

Great fanfare was attached to the announcement that yesterday's game in San Antonio drew a sell-out crowd of 65,562...the largest sports-related crowd in the history of the Alamodome. But Saints officials in San Antonio tell me that the turnstile count was only 59,200....leaving 6,999 no-shows from a crowd that also included an estimated 6000 Falcon fans.

When Tom Benson announced to the staff today in San Antonio that Arnold Fielkow was fired, he said he and grand-daughter Rita Leblanc would now take over the marketing efforts of the team.

If under these cir stances the four games in Baton Rouge can be marketed successfully he will be hailed as a marketing genius. Who will want to come to those games now to put more money in the owner's pocket? The pity in all this is that Saints' fans in this state will probably be blamed for not supporting the games in Baton Rouge, giving those who propose a permanent move to San Antonio more ammunition against a region that has been financially and psychologically put up against the wall of a firing squad.

[NINERS4LIFE]

whatever

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

This Jim Henderson guy, doing the writing, is the Sports director over at NO biggest TV station. From what I read and heard, he really hates Tom Benson and will probably be fired soon as play by play for Saints radio.

[TheTruth]

I am SHOCKED...SHOCKED I TELL YA.

[NINERS4LIFE]

OK so now it's crazy

[ChumpDumper]

I'll believe this story when the author displays simple subtraction skills.

[dknights411]

Uh, you couldn't tell that there was THAT many empty seats in the dome in the first place. Sour grapes. Oh well.

[baseline bum]

I love hearing these Saints fans whining with the argument of 'what if San Antonio suffered a natural disaster and New Orleans came in and tried to steal the Spurs?'

News flash: the Quarry arena vote that failed so miserably happened right after the worst flood in the city's history in 98, and it seemed every day from then until the vote for the funds for SBC Center you'd hear some jackass quote from Marc Morial lusting over the team and their new arena. New Orleans sure had no problem trying to swoop in and capitalize on our misfortune then.

[Marcus Bryant]

Exactly. To top it off, NO managed to make SA look downright affluent...before Katrina.

[Johnny_Blaze_47]

Both Henderson (and Greg Simmons as I pointed out to Kori last night) are getting very biased for their "objective" journalists positions.

Also, did the game "sell-out"? If so, then they reported it correctly as a sell-out.

If I were to pour over the years of Saints home games, I'm sure I'd find some inflated numbers as ALL sports teams do.