The hot topic on sports-fan message boards up in the Meadowlands is the steep prices that the New York Giants will be charging their fans for Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs). The Giants, you see, are building a new $1.6 billion stadium with a heated field, to open in 2011.

And to pay the price, the franchise is fleecing the fans. If you want to see the 2007-2008 World Champions live, you’ll have to not only pay the season ticket cost, but first, you’ll have to pony up for the PSL, a one-time charge that’ll run you up to $20,000. No PSL, no season tickets.

The Star-Ledger’s Steve Politi called PSLs one of the “great rip-offs in sports, a one-time fee for the privilege to cough up more cash to buy tickets.”

I say they’re not one of the great rip-offs in sports. Full disclosure here: I am not an expert in professional sports rip-offs, though I have been suckered by them now and again. I just refuse to believe that any revenue-producing gimmick that’s not authored by Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is among the great rip-offs in sports. Only schemes that originate with Snyder can claim such bona fides.

If Dan Snyder’s expansion of Triple X Radio wasn’t intended just to silence his critics, well, what’s the point?

Snyder has now bought six radio stations in this market that will bring him the same audience he’d have gotten if he’d just paid for one of those, WTEM-Sportstalk 980. 

But, Snyder now has Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban, hosts of “The Sports Reporters” and the biggest Snyder bashers in local broadcasting over the last couple years, in his afternoon drive slot. And, more to the point, he now has Pollin and Czaban on his payroll. 

Snyder’s network debuted its new schedule today. “The Sports Reporters” are in “Best Of” mode.

Speaking of Best Ofs: Snyder axed City Paper’s Best Radio Show, “Baseball Roundup,”, and its host, Phil Wood, shortly after acquiring WTEM.

There is no baseball show on Snyder’s roster. 

On the plus side: It look as if somebody convinced Snyder to move away from giving his stations those bizarre, quasi-pornographic XXX names: WTEM is referred to as “ESPN 980″ in Snyder’s new press releases.

Dan Snyder’s anti-solvent theme park chain, Six Flags, should be out of its misery very soon.

Stock in Snyder’s company, which sold for nearly $12 a share around the time he took over its board of directors, was selling for a quarter during today’s trading.

A quarter.

Twenty five cents.

That means it would cost you 140 shares of Snyder’s stock to park at Snyder’s football stadium.

A quarter!

Is this the story of the year or what?

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news — what’s left of it, anyway! — in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera. 

The D.C. Times wrote a nice story this week about the refurbishing of Cardozo’s football stadium, which should be the grandest in the city by fall.

But the article turns tragicomic when reporter Amanda McClure gives a brief and off-the-mark history of the venue and the school.

The stadium was built along with the school in 1916, and hosted Central High School football games and track meets until it was renamed Cardozo in 1928. The name honors Francis Lewis Cardozo, the first black to hold administrative office in South Carolina.

Cardozo became segregated as an all-black school in 1950 but was reintegrated in 1954.

Cardozo’s current plant was in fact named Central High School—with alumni that included J. Edgar Hoover—until 1950 and was the flagship of the white portion of the city’s totally segregated school system till its dying day.

The transfer of the building, located on a hill off 13th Street NW, from all-white Central to all-black Cardozo made for one of the ugliest chapters in the ugly racial history of D.C. Contrary to what the story infers, no public high schools in this city were ever “reintegrated”—they were all-black or all-white from Day 1 until the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.

But, again, no matter its history, as the story points out: Cardozo is gonna have a helluva football stadium.

Dan Snyder’s post-viable theme park chain, Six Flags, remains headed toward Chapter 11 at a pace that reminds me of my nephew the morning after he got Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

A pace so fast, in fact, that there’s no time now to talk about all the dis-leggings, decapitations and other deaths and viruses that have plagued Snyder’s parks of late.

No, with Six Flags stock (SIX) hitting — stop me if you’ve heard this one lately! — ANOTHER RECORD LOW during today’s trading, at just 72 cents a share*, let’s go right to the big board!

To recap: Snyder controlled 10,921,300 shares of SIX, mostly owned by him and staffers of the Washington Redskins, when he took over Six Flags in 2005.

The stock at one point shortly after his ascension hit $11.93 per share. That means Snyder was atop a green mountain totaling $130,291,109.

Today, that cabbage patch is worth just $7,863,336.

Snyder and his followers have lost $122,427,773.

Snyder went into this venture hailed as a marketing genius. But, let’s be serious, the Six Flags numbers during Snyder’s reign couldn’t be worse if Charles Barkley was handling the books.

Six Flags is scheduled to release its financials for the second quarter of 2008 soon. And God only knows what this report will bring.

Oh, wait a sec! Make that: God AND Dwight Schar might know!

Schar is one of Snyder’s Redskins partners and a member of Snyder’s Six Flags board.

He just dumped two million shares of Six Flags stock.

Way to stay with the ship, Capt. Stubing!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

*SIX dipped to 71 cents a share before I could hit “post.” Like I said: Snyder’s a quick one! I’m not re-crunching numbers.

The Washington Nationals are withholding stadium rent from the city because, they say, the stadium isn’t finished. Well! I’ve been to a couple games, and I see a fully-functioning stadium. And it costs $11.50 for a beer and a bag of peanuts!

Fellow D.C. taxpayers, listen to my plan: So long as the Nationals withhold money from the city, I’m going to withhold money from the Nationals. The stadium allows outside food. So next time I’m offered a free ticket (which happens weirdly often), I’m going to smuggle all the beer I need by hiding it in a bag along with peanuts and other legitimate items. I predict that this will have no effect whatsoever on the franchise’s deadbeat doings, but I will enjoy myself righteously. Join me!

Mike Bianucci, a former star for W.T. Woodson in Fairfax, has been signed by the Texas Rangers.

Bianucci and Westfield’s Brandon Snyder were the two most dominant sluggers in local prep baseball in the 2005 season.

Snyder opted to go pro right out of high school, signing a seven-figure deal with the Baltimore Orioles. Injuries have kept Snyder from living up to billing so far; he’s still with the O’s single-A affiliate in Frederick this season.

Bianucci opted for the college life, and has starred at Auburn the past three springs. He’s also lived the amateur player’s dream of playing in the much mythologized Cape Cod League each summer.

I went to my first Cape Cod League game on Saturday. Having followed him since high school, I was excited about seeing Bianucci play outfield for the Cotuit Kettleers. As of the weekend, he was tied for second in the league in RBIs and home runs.

Turns out he’d accepted an offer from the Rangers and left town a few hours before the first pitch.

As Snyder could tell him, there’s no turning back now.

Dan Snyder’s pre-defunct theme park chain, Six Flags, is zipping toward Chapter 11 quicker than a guy who’s taken an Evelyn Wood course.

On Wednesday, Six Flags stock (SIX) was going for $.98, its first-ever dive below a buck a share. Then it sunk to just 90 cents during Thursday’s trading.

$1 is a sort of Mendoza Line for SIX on Wall Street: Six Flags stock could be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange if it stays below or even just hangs around that tragic number for a while.

The company’s more than $2 billion in debt and doesn’t ever turn a profit.

Snyder’s going to release an earnings report for the second quarter of 2008 in a few weeks, and if those numbers aren’t good, well….let’s hurry and take another look at the Big Board while we still can!

When Snyder took over Six Flags through an ugly shareholders coup in 2005, he and his investment outfit, Red Zone LLC, a clique made up mostly of Redskins officials, claimed control of 10,921,300 shares of SIX.

As Snyder was anointing himself the Man in Charge, the stock went up to $11.93 per share, meaning the Red Zone investment was worth $130,291,109.

On Thursday, that wad was blown down to just $9,829,170.

Boy, is there a lotta red in Red Zebra: The Redskins Park pot is light by…. $120,461,939!

But, here’s the good news: There’s not much more to lose!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

David Nakamura got a sweet little tip: There’s an abandoned recording of tax scammer Harriette Walters‘ voice still extant on the District voice-mail system. You could (a) call (202) 442-6762 while it remains or (b) listen to it right here:

Much chatter this afternoon about a Sports Business Journal report that Washington Nationals games on TV attract an average of 9,000 households—a number that, ironically enough, matches the number of Nats players that Manny Acta has had to place on the disabled list this season. Even Alan Thicke didn’t have it so bad—and he got his ass kicked by golf highlights.

Dan Steinberg jumped on this early, but the folks at Big League Stew get a good joke in:

Nine thousand people? A 0.39 overall score? Really? I know Nats baseball isn’t as exciting or riveting as C-SPAN or Wolf Blitzer, but you figure the Nats would have scored a higher rating just by the people leaving their televisions on after a Skins minicamp update…

Photo by D.F. Shapinsky

The Washington Kastles, the city’s new team tennis outfit, are still telling ticket buyers that Serena Williams will be playing three matches with the squad next week, starting with Tuesday’s home opener on the site of the old DC convention center.

Who thinks that’ll happen?

If Serena whups underdog Zheng Jie in today’s Wimbledon semifinal, she’ll be in London through the weekend.

Prediction: The word “fatigue” will pop up when revised lineups are announced for the Kastles’ Tuesday match-up with something called the Boston Lobsters.

According to the Kastles schedule, that’s the only home date Serena will be playing this season.

Luckily for the Kastles, Serena’s not the only team member in the news these days. Justin Gimelstob’s been very media friendly.

Dan Snyder’s cheerless theme park chain, Six Flags, will debut a cheerleading squad, the Thrilleaders, at its New Jersey outpost on July 4.

Six Flags boasts that the Thrilleaders are the first official cheerleading squad ever put together by an amusement park company.

Snyder’s operation hasn’t had much to wave pom-poms about lately.

Not with the company’s stock crashing to a buck a share during Tuesday’s trading.

And word getting out that Dwight Schar, one of Snyder’s Redskins partners and a member of Six Flags’ board, began dumping two million of his Six Flags shares last week.

And, um, Saturday’s decapitation of a teenage visitor to Six Flags Over Georgia by the Batman rollercoaster.

But, long before the Thrilleaders came about, Six Flags already had an unofficial cheerleader: Some guy named Rick Munarriz of the stock tout site Motley Fool.

Yesterday, as Six Flags stock (SIX) was continuing its descent toward double figures, Munarriz had the stones to write that “the chain is clawing its way back” and made yet another pitch for Six Flags stock.

Wha?

Munarriz’ previous Six Flags writings have been just as full of bullishness. For whatever reason, he’s been touting the company since shortly after Snyder took over, when SIX was trading at more than $10 a share.

He’s never let the near-total collapse of SIX get in the way of his cheering.

Last June, in a post headlined “Six Flags Rocks Around the Clock,” Munarriz hailed several moves Snyder’s management team had made, and was particularly taken with the partial purchase of Dick Clark Productions from Red Zone LLC — a bizarre transaction that essentially amounted to one of Snyder’s private equity outfits (Red Zone) making a $40 million sale to one of Snyder’s public equity outfits (Six Flags).

In any case, Munarriz called Six Flags’ acquisition “brilliant.”

On November 2, 2007, Munarriz posted a column headlined “Four Stocks That Should Quadruple Soon,” and included Six Flags in the mix. As of yesterday, Six Flags stock had lost more than two-thirds of its value since that post.

Brilliant.

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

Dan Snyder’s toxiferous theme park chain, Six Flags, appears to have Mapquested directions to oblivion.

Stock in Snyder’s company (SIX) hit a tragic number – $1 a share – during Tuesday’s trading.

I’m no Suze Orman, but I believe the proper term to describe what this development means for Six Flags backers is: Ouchie wouchie.

As if investors didn’t already have incentive to jump ship– Snyder’s chain is more than $2 billion in debt and buries itself deeper with every non-earnings statement – the last week has brought them scads of reasons to give up hope.

Just as news was spreading about the decapitation of a teenage visitor to Six Flags Over Georgia, management was filing paperwork with the SEC confessing that Redskins administrator and Snyder’s Six Flags partner Dwight Schar had jettisoned two million shares of stock.

When the big boys with all the inside info are running away from the company, it’s time for the recreational traders and everybody else to, as they said on Wall Street in the 1980s, “Bust a move!”*

Schar was a big cog in the original investment machine, made up of mostly Redskins officials including Vinny Cerrato and Karl Swanson, that Snyder used to power his way to the top of Six Flags in 2005.

At the time, Snyder’s clique controlled 10,921,300 shares of SIX.

Not long after Snyder put himself in charge of the Six Flags board of directors, the stock was trading at $11.93 per share, meaning the Redskins Park clique was sitting on $130,291,109.

Boy, has Snyder scrambled that nest egg.

With today’s dollar store pricing, I don’t even need a calculator to figure out how shallow things have gotten in Snyder’s original office pool: $10,921,300.

Snyder et al’s nut had shriveled off about $120 million.

Yet again: Ouchie wouchie.

Keep the dial right here for breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

*The phrase “Bust a move!” was probably not really part of  the Wall Street lexicon in the 1980s. Or ever.

Dan Snyder’s piteous theme park chain, Six Flags, is imploding as we speak.

The company announced this evening that Dwight Schar, Snyder’s partner in the Washington Redskins and in the investment group that took over the Six Flags board in 2005, has just dumped TWO MILLION of his Six Flags (SIX) shares.

“I very much believe in the Company, the management team and the extraordinary progress they are making in the turnaround,” Schar said in a press release announcing his huge Six Flags selloff.

We believe everything you say, Dwight!

Oh, wait! No we don’t!

Keep the dial right here for all the breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.

Dan Snyder’s can-you-spare-a-buck? theme park chain, Six Flags, is making huge strides toward its inevitable resting place in Chapter 11.

Early in Monday’s trading, a share of SIX was selling for $1.14. In a season of historic lows, this is but another.

When Snyder’s investment group, which included his Redskins staffers Vinny Cerrato and Karl Swanson, took over Six Flags in 2005, they claimed to control 10,921,300 shares of company stock.

By March 2006, Six Flags’ stock was trading for 11.93 per share.

That put the value of the co-workers’ investment at $130,291,109.

With today’s poopy price, the pool’s value had sunk to $12,450,282.

Damn, I’m tired of carrying the one for these guys, so let’s just say the Redskins Park traders are down about $118 million.

This keeps up, and Snyder and his staffers are going to lose some serious money.

And no matter what you read elsewhere: Six Flags stock was already in freefall last week, so the company can’t blame its dire straits on the decapitation of a visitor to its Six Flags Over Georgia park over the weekend.

That is unsettling, however.

Keep the dial right here for breaking news in Snyder’s Six Flags soap opera.