[glamourcitys]

Today on page 8 of the Listin Diario sports pages section B Lowell Fernandez, Pan Am Games Business Manager reported the official ticket sales for the games from August 1 thru 17th., including opening and closing ceremonies, and just as I predicted, the majority of the attendance was fake, inflated freebies and government employees acting as fans.

In fact, Mr. Fernandez reported even lower figures than mine. His official count was RD$440,000,000 pesos. He expected that with freebies and all he would have achieved RD$514 million. I gave the count much closer to that.

Mr. Fernandez also admitted what I also stated about the great fiasco with the TV rights and stated that the games were almost unsaleable. He claimed that the different threats that the games would be cancelled hurt the sale of ads and promotions.

I simply said that the games have never been a good product to begin with, but being in DR would make them disappear from the world view.

Fernandez reported 600,000 individual ticket sold. This is just about the figure I projected. Compared to the Winnipeg games which sold US$23 million in tickets, we pale in comparison.

What Fernandez forgot to say was the number of empty seats. My last count was about 2,400,000 empty seats throughout the games. If he ever tells us his figures, I guarantee you it will be within a few thousands of my figure. In one game alone between two basketball superpowers I counted 70 fans with 99% of the stadium empty.

And for those who think I was being unpatriotic, just think....only about 5 top businesses bought corporate tickets. One of them Banco Popular was forced by Hippo because their President is a PPH front. The business community repudiated these games, and what is even worse, it took a criminal in prison to offer incentives for the athletes. Schools were given free tickets, but students stayed home. They prefered to listen to Tego Calderon on 94.5FM and watch his presentations on TV stations the same week of the finals, than watch these boring games.

The best after game show was the Sabado de Corporan special. Althought it was free and well attended, the mere fact that Hector & Tito and Magic Juan were contracted for this show, made the day for Corporan. They simply stole the show. Hardly anyone cared that Amelia Vega was there with her fake hand salute that looks like a muppet signal.

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