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| Past Sports from the past week. Past sports article for the week of 4/14/09 Sport franchises to save the Postal Service By Cozmic The USPS is losing, or rather, hemorrhaging money straight into the red. Each cent the price of fuel goes up costs the Postal Service $8 million, and people seem to be sending fewer and fewer packages. The times are rather drastic, and besides begging to Congress, post-office higher-ups have turned to the fantastic world of professional and anything-but sports. The idea is that any team headed off to another town gets to carry longdistance mail with them, and an advanced chain of pickups and deliveries will eventually get the mail to where it's supposed to be. The idea, while simple in theory, causes a bunch of problems in the off-seasons, not to mention most athletes hate the idea of carrying around even more luggage, and the whole thing is a potential logistics nightmare waiting to happen. Take the play-off season, for instance. What if you expected Chicago to actually accomplish something, so you send the package that way, only to find out Chicago gets beaten by New York? Trouble ensues, and people can start making claims the USPS is even more unreliable. Of course, the entire thing is also substantially cheaper both for sports teams, some of which are also in dire straits financially (and by this we don't mean they get money for nothing and the chicks for free), and the Postal Service, running so critically low on funds the executives don't get paid even half of what other, private-owned corporations higher-ups make. Of course, the second part of the plan is to ship regular stuff going via the USPS with franchise merchandise, meaning you can pick up your mail at the nearest arena, although people who live in rural areas are still pretty much screwed and stuck with waiting for the regular mailman to get there, or hoping one of the few mailcarrying blimps in service blows all the way over to Backwater, Georgia, or similar. Regardless of the pros and cons of the idea, negotiations with the NFL, NHL, NBA and the MLB are ongoing, with the sports side of things now demanding there be appropriate logos on every envelope delivered by a sports-league. The Postal Service has countered with a demand that every franchise should have a “delivered by the USPS” logo on their planes and buses, something most franchises scoff at. The situation is a strange one, as both sides seem to need one another in these still uncertain times, and yet both still love the idea of bickering over one another. The deal is definitely coming to fruition, but exactly what deal it really is is just about anyone's guess at the moment. Most people just want to get their mail on time, it might contain awesome things like the signed copy of Psychonauts for the Playstation 2 I recently received. |
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