They're ... they're ...
How does that go again?
Oh, yeah. They're soon parted.
No one likes to disparage men and women of faith, but there is faith, and then there is blind faith. And then there is whatever it is that compels people to hand over their money to minor-league indoor football entities.
The Blob's cynicism about the aforementioned hardened a long time ago, just about the time indoor football in Fort Wayne died gasping for the third or fourth or eleventy-hundredth time. And it pretty much red-lined when Joe McClendon traipsed into town promising a shiny new model, the National Gridiron League, which would begin play in May.
Well, today is the first day of May. And we all know what's happened since McClendon said that.
The Fort Wayne franchise, the Indiana Blue Blombers -- not to be confused with the other NGL team named "Indiana" -- hired a convicted felon as head coach, who didn't even show up for the introductory news conference. The team had zero presence in town other than a website offering to take your money for season tickets. Some people did, which brings us back to our little homily about faith, blind faith and whatever else.
See, what happened was, the NGL pulled the plug on the 2019 season before it ever began. Stories began to surface about team staff who hadn't seen a dime of their promised salaries, and arena deals that hadn't happened even though some of the said arenas were listed as the home fields for NGL teams. And now some of the prospective fans who plunked down money for 2019 season tickets still haven't heard from the NGL about either promised refunds or rolling those tickets over to 2020.
(I'm not sure there's even a name for people who'd even consider doing the latter at this point. There is faith, after all, and then there is the sheer, inexplicable gullibility of hopeless rubes.)
One of those fans who hasn't seen his money, but who shall remain nameless here, dropped more than $900 for Blue Bombers season tickets. Six weeks have gone by since the NGL promised to refund season ticket money. This particular fan hasn't heard a word. He hasn't tried to contacting the league office, he says, because he's had no luck doing so in the past.
McClendon's explanation for this is that these things take time. He still maintains that 100 percent of those who bought tickets will eventually be contacted, and says about 70 percent already have been.
This might be true. It might also be true there's a giant invisible bird in the sky that flaps its wings and makes the wind blow.
Even money which is more likely at this point.
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