The Redskins, TGDS writes, are currently offering a big discount on premium seats to any ticketholder who brings more premium ticketbuyers to the organization.

Here's some copy from the team's promotion of its referral program posted on the Redskins website:

"SAVE $1,000 each time your friends, family members, or business associates purchase a new pair of 2011 Premium Season Tickets. There is no limit to your savings!"

By all appearances the overall ticket-selling picture at FedExField is uglier than ever before—they are in the midst of removing thousands of seats from the stadium and installing "party decks" in their place.

Then again, sales of club seats have been lousy in Redskins Land for a real long while.

And, on a related note, this isn't the first time Dan Snyder's team has tried to get customers to recruit friends and family with them to the club level.

In 2006, the team debuted something called the "Club Connections Referral Program." Here's the pitch from that scheme:

Football is a team game and with that in mind, the Redskins are now offering a unique referral program for existing Premium Seat Members. Start building your team today. Tailgate together before the game, watch the Redskins at FedExField with your friends and family, celebrate after a big play and enjoy the Club Level during the 5th Quarter Party.

One sign of the current ticket-moving doldrums: The incentives offered by the Redskins nowadays are a helluva lot more generous than they were five years ago.

Club Connections participants who sold an additional pair of premium seats to "friends, family, or business associates," for example, only got to choose between getting a signed Redskins jersey or two Tailgate Club passes, which were good for a pre-game buffet. That's not quite the $1,000 now being offered.

Four seats brought you the jersey/Tailgate Club passes and a pair of "VIP Draft Day Party Invitations" in 2006. (The extra prizes were accumulated with each pair, "12 Days of Christmas"-style.) Six got you into the "Welcome Home Luncheon." Anybody who moved eight club tickets also got a visit to the Touchdown Club, which means the buffet plus a pre-game field pass. And if you sold 10 club seats for Snyder, you got all the above plus a trip for two to an away game, a benefit that—according to Club Connections literature—was worth $3,800. (Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie declined to comment on why the incentives had gone up.)

Nowadays, you move five pairs for the team, you get five grand off the bottom line of your premium tickets invoice.

'Course, anybody who can sell 10 club seats in the current environment would probably also get a job offer to run the Redskins ticket office.

The lead sentence of yesterday's press release from the Washington Redskins, dated Jan. 13, 2010, announcing the team won't raise ticket prices: "The Redskins have announced that general admission ticket prices for the 2010 season will be unchanged, remaining at the same price for the fifth season in a row.

The lead sentence of last year's press release from the Washington Redskins, dated Jan. 14, 2009, announcing the team won't raise ticket prices: "The Washington Redskins announced Jan. 14 that general admission ticket prices for the 2009 season would remain unchanged for the third straight year."

One year passes, two years are gained! The new math?

But wait! In fairness to Karl Swanson and the beleaguered Skins marketing machine, I think those statements are both accurate. Then again, I got a D in algebra.

But: A 2006 story in the Washington Post said Snyder raised general admission prices in the lower bowl that year by 39 percent, and the price of parking 40 percent. Since that massive hike — 39 percent in one season? What the heck? — Dan Snyder has learned that demand ain't what he expected it to be, and has gone to desperate measures to keep those ticketholders he has. That means suing 'em. And, much as it surely hurts him, not raising ticket prices.

So, the general admission tickets for the 2010 season will indeed have the same prices as the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 seasons. Fifth season in a row!

But if you use years, as the 2009 release did, then the prices that were changed in 2006 went unchanged in 2007, 2008, and 2009, so last year was only the third year they were unchanged.

Hence: One = Two!

'Course, the Redskins love to play funny with numbers in these releases. Last year's announcement also had CEO Mitch Gershman saying the Redskins have "more than 200,000 people on our waiting list for season tickets." This year, it's got Gershman's replacement, Dave Donovan, saying: "The Redskins have the largest season ticket waiting list in the NFL." Surely that's hokum, but it' still an improvement from 2008's bogusness.

(AFTER THE JUMP: The Skins are still claiming a sellout streak? The Skins charge the ninth highest ticket prices for the 29th best team? How great was Steve Kolbe's Caps' call? How depressing was Dave Johnson's Wiz call? Shouldn't the Wizards be the ones offering all-you-can-drink tickets? D.C. United gives away some future to get some past? Tim Riggins splits Dillon? How's Lyla taking it? John Riggins is on "One Tree Hill"? Really?)

Both this year's and last year's release both claim the Redskins have a sellout streak that's been running "since 1966." That's totally true...in Opposite Land! Even allowing the team to ignore the strike year's small crowds, Snyder was unloading tickets to last month's Dallas game as Christmas packages to all takers. And Snyder's now got more than 20,000 premium seats that he doesn't count here, even though there hasn't been a single year since he bought the team that those seats have all sold. So stop with the sellout talk.

The recent press release has an odd boast: "The Redskins average general admission ticket prices are below those of nine other NFL teams." (True, according to Team Marketing Report, the prime surveyor of pro sports pricing, with figured that a family of four spent $431 and change per Redskins game this season.) Snyder's release didn't mention, however, that the Redskins record was below that of 28 other NFL teams.

A high draft pick, Bruce Allen, Mike Shanahan and no price increase still ain't gonna be enough to bring everybody back to FedExField.

For starters: The people want a real Jumbotron, Dan Snyder!

***

A Tale of Two of the City's Teams: Steve Kolbe's call on WFED-AM of Tomas Fleischmann's shootout goal, which completed the first-place Caps' comeback last night from two goals down in the third period to beat Florida, was so ecstatic and over-the-top, it was as if he was practicing a Stanley Cup call — which, what the heck, isn't that crazy a thing for this team's play-by-play man to do even this early in the season.

Meanwhile, over at WJFK, Glenn Consor and Dave Johnson were desperate to say something positive about the last-place Wizards, as they fell 22 points back in the first half and lost by 12. The announcers described Antawn Jamison in Herculean terms as he tried keeping the Wiz within reach of a single-digit deficit. The desperation and overall plight of the team made it really hard to listen to.

Also last night, the Caps' radio ads were pushing premium ticket packages that include an all-you-can-eat buffet and even "Unlimited Beer, Wine and Soda." The Snyderesque tickets, called the Dewar's 12 Club, are "starting at $99" apiece. I tried getting tickets for tomorrow night's game with Toronto through Ticketmaster, and, as usual, no pairs were for for sale. The best available was a single seat in the corner for $229.45. Best of times for the Caps.

The announcers' desperation carries over to Wizards marketing campaign. The team is now running high-budget TV commercials starring Caron Butler on local TV — I'd never noticed this sort of advertising before — and, during radio game broadcasts, hawking cheap family packages for $49 for four seats and four hot dogs. Worst of times for the Wiz.

Throw in the off-court troubles, and, if the Verizon Center weren't thrown in, you gotta figure Ted Leonsis would seriously be considering to go for the "refusal" portion of his right-of-first-refusal deal to buy the Wizards from Abe Pollin's estate.

***

Guess you really don't know what you've got til it's gone.

D.C. United gave up a whole lot to bring back former goalie Troy Perkins, who left town in 2007 to play in Norway. Perkins was with United from 2004-2007, and stands as the second-winningest goalie in franchise history. The team sent midfielder Fred, who never lived up to one-name status, as well as a 2010 first round SuperDraft pick (seventh overall) and some cash to the Philadelphia Union just to take the expansion squad's place in the allocation line in time to nab Perkins. United really must've missed him.

And Perkins gives a quote that shows he missed United right back.  "It’s more than just a feeling," Perkins said about the return. "It’s something deep in the heart and the soul."

Awesome Trivia about "More than a feeling": Even Kurt Cobain accepted that his riff for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" transcended from Boston's 1976 smash "More Than a Feeling."

That makes Tom Scholz the Karl Marx of the alternative rock revolution!

***

One of my favorite football players of all-time, Tim Riggins of the Dillon Panthers, is moving on. TV Guide reports the star fullback from NBC/DirectTV's "Friday Night Lights" is leaving Dillon so Taylor Kitsch, the actor who's played him so gloriously for four seasons, can make a play for the big screen.

I always figured Riggins, a troubled, wild-and-crazy-but-lovable fullback, was modeled after John Riggins of the Redskins. And he was just one of many seeming Washington references on FNL. There was Coach McGregor, the hotshot coach who was hired as Coach Taylor's replacement at Dillon when he, you know, took a brief sabbatical to give college coaching a try — DeMatha's Bill McGregor, whose squad always makes USA Today's Top 20 national polls, has long been among the most touted high school coaches in the country. And when Riggins and his buddies watch the highlights package he was going to send to recruiters for the University of Oklahoma, as a clip of him bowling over an opposing safety was shown, the guys all agree he looks like "Brandon Jacobs running over Laron Landry."

Why the D.C. nods? Well, turns out "Friday Night Lights" executive producer Peter Berg is pals with Dan Snyder. He's sat in Snyder's box on game days for years, and privately screened his Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx movie "The Kingdom" for the team and its owner. Berg's team's a whole lot more successful on the field than Snyder's.

Meanwhile, the real life Riggins, as in John Riggins, was reportedly taking a role on "One Tree Hill" this season. I see that his alleged character, Ken Arthur, has appeared in three episodes, but I've missed 'em all and read nothing about his acting. Anybody see #44's TV work this year?

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Another Redskins game that ain't a sellout. Another Redskins game that won't be blacked out.

The graphic above is from the latest installment of the now regular email blasts that precede every home game.

But no matter what your head tells you, remember: Dan Snyder says the Redskins have a waiting list of "over 200,000" names of folks who want tickets but can't get them.

And remember this, as your watching the Skins/Eagles game on local TV and see a sea of empty seats: The NFL has a blackout policy!

What's going on around here is sorta amazing, ain't it? A "Monday Night Football" game against the hated Eagles — a rematch of the Body Bag Game opponents! — and Skins management feels it has to lie ("visiting team returns," "limited number," etc.) to try to get folks to take tickets?

How low has Snyder taken the operation? Well, if the Redskins were a dance, you could lay the limbo pole on the floor and Snyder could still sneak his franchise under it.

***

Vinny Cerrato opened his radio station on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, declaring he wanted to be "perfectly clear" about some things: Jim Zorn is the Skins head coach for the rest of the season "and hopefully into the future." Sure, "perfectly clear" is a Nixon tag line. And Cerrato sounded crazy while he delivered it.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Snyder doesn't talk to the media? Did anybody tell the New York Times? Snyder tells Brian Mitchell he's sorry? Brian Mitchell believes it? Debbie Yow wants you to call her Dr. Yow? She's a doctor? Really? Charlie Brotman can tell stories? Ron Jaworski doesn't blame Jim Zorn, either? Why do races get such scary names?)

Cerrato also was manic when he said Snyder doesn't have to come out and address the mess he's made of what was once among the top shelf of NFL franchises but is now among the most despised. "Dan has never spoken to the media for a decade now," Cerrato says.

Huh. I thought Snyder posed for photos and talked to the New York Times a few weeks ago.

***

Brian Mitchell has been declawed. In an interview during the "John Thompson Show" on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, Mitchell said he'd just had a conversation with Snyder, and that the owner apologized for cutting Mitchell in 2000 to make room for Deion Sanders.

Mitchell, who ripped Snyder brutally on WTEM for a couple years before Snyder bought the station and fired him, sounded genuinely touched by the words of contrition.

Then again, Snyder needs Mitchell right now a lot more than Mitchell needs Snyder. So during the Eagles game this Monday, Snyder is installing Mitchell into the FedExField "ring of fame" or "hall of stars," or whatever the hell that list of names at the stadium is called now,

Mitchell's appearance on the field should be, like so much about the "Monday Night Football" outing, very odd. Until recently, hardcore Skins fans thought of Mitchell as a turncoat because he was so tough on his former team after Snyder cut him.

But the way the Skins have played this season, what once seemed like hate now just sounds like the truth.  And the fans are so united in despising Snyder, any enemy of the owner is a friend of theirs. So cheering Mitchell is the same as booing Snyder.

That means Mitchell's appearance might provide the only cheers from Skins fans all night.

***

Before Cerrato's desperate announcement, Rick Snider of the Examiner wrote what everybody's feeling: Jim Zorn ain't gonna make it through the season. Snider's piece is mean and fun, like so much of the Redskins coverage these days.

***

Ron Jaworski went on "The Tony Kornheiser Show" to talk about the upcoming telecast of "Monday Night Football," where Jaworski still works.

Asked about the home team's bizarre off-field behaviors in recent weeks, Jaworski said that he'd "gone through every single play" of Redskins games this season, and came to the conclusion that everybody knows:  "It's not about the play-calling."

But: Jaworski picked the Skins to cover the spread.

(If I quote one more radio interview, I'm going to have to pay royalties to the Great Steinographer...)

***

Debbie Yow's official University of Maryland bio refers to her as "Dr. Yow." I didn't know she was a doctor. And, after reading the bio, I still don't. It says she's got a masters degree from Liberty University and "a doctorate (honorus causa) from the United States Sports Academy and an honorary doctorate for professional achievement from Elon University."

Sounds here like Yow just showed up and sat on a stage to get her ceremonial sheepskin. So why would she use "Dr. Yow" as a title? Any psychologists out there explain these behaviors?

***

Charlie Brotman's PR firm, Brotman-Winter-Fried Communications, held its 40th anniversary party last night. I've stolen a bunch of stories from them over the years, with a drag racer with a colostomy bag and a family that makes its living pulling each other's hair coming to mind first.

At the party, I got Brotman to start talking about the old days, which ain't hard, and in no time flat he told tales about picking up Ted Williams at a local hotel and taking him to a real estate extravaganza in 1969 and working with Ray Leonard before the Thomas Hearns rematch and getting Nixon to sign a ball at RFK (which Brotman still has in his office) and bringing in Tiger Woods when he was 16 years old for a charity function and so on and so on. What a life. I could have listened all night, but Charlie had other duties. He's a DC treasure.

***

I got a press release from Brotman's firm today about something called the Gynecologic Cancer Half-Marathon, scheduled for DC on Nov. 8. I gotta say, as noble as the cause is, the race's name is jarring. When's the Scurvy Run-Walk? Or the Crushed By a Metrobus 10K? Or the Trust Me This Is Really the Worst Way to Die Tri?

'Course, I wouldn't have noticed the press release if the event were called the Life Is Great Race. And no matter the name, I ain't entering. No pain, no pain!

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

The lede:

In 1989, when he was a 9-year-old from Virginia Beach, Norris Adams had a feverish love for the Washington Redskins.

At a Redskins home game that season, he persuaded his parents to put him on the waiting list to buy season tickets.

Twenty years later, Adams is a 29-year-old lawyer in Charlotte. He recently received a burgundy envelope with the word "CONGRATULATIONS" in golden type.

Adams had made it to the top of the Redskins' list. According to the team, more than 200,000 people are behind him.

According to the story, Adams talked his wife into letting him buy the tickets by telling her "this season ticket opportunity is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and it's going to change our lives forever."

In the Carolinas in 2009, getting Skins tickets is not only newsworthy, but a life-changer?

So the legend of the waiting list still has clout 400 miles away from Raljon.

Up here, not so much.

Mr. Adams apparently hasn't heard that in the DC area the Redskins are so short of customers they're sending offers to buy season tickets to folks who never signed up for any waiting list.

Yet by the end of the story, we learn that even Adams, despite all his burgundy and gold delirium, can kinda sense desperation in the Redskins ticket operation.

The kicker:

Adams hadn't even kept the Redskins apprised of his address or contact information, and he has no idea how they found him. He's just glad they did.

"I don't know what voodoo the Redskins used to hunt me down after all these years, but I sure hope they use some of that witchcraft come this fall," Adams said. "Their newest season ticket holder is counting on it."

In the comments section for the story, other readers of the Raleigh paper step forward to say that they, too, have gotten offers for Redskins tickets.

Again, these folks are hundreds of miles away.

Why is Skins management blanketing such a remote market?

All the strange behaviors are enough to make one wonder about those layoffs in the Redskins ticket office a few months back, where workers who reportedly worked "in general admission sales" were let go.

At the time, the firings were portrayed as signs of the bad U.S. economy.

But on the Redskins- owned message board, extremeskins.com, there have been postings that the entire staff of the ticket office has been replaced.

Could it be that Dan Snyder turned over the staff because he was worried that up here, he can't sell enough tickets to fill his stadium?

Can Cody Glenn save the day?

As Fickerphiles know, making a scene at sporting events ain't his only fetish: So is running for political office.

As Ficker, a ruthless and tireless campaigner who has run for every public office from dog catcher to U.S. Senator since the 1980s, was dumping his Skins seats, he was also competing for a seat of another sort.

Last month he won the Republican primary in the race to fill the Montgomery County Council slot left empty since Don Praisner's death in January.

The special election will be held May 19.

Running runs in the family. When I asked him how he's going to fill all the time he used to spend on Redskins games, Ficker told me his big pastime these days is traveling around the globe to watch his daughter. Desiree Ficker, who grew up in Potomac and trained with her father as a kid when he wasn't screaming at Charles Barkley, is a world class triathlete.

She's finished second in the Ironman Kailua-Kona in Hawaii.

And, oh, yeah, she was also named Hottest Triathlete 2008.

Who knew?

The Redskins' GM-with-a-longer-title-and-less-power-than-a-typical-GM selected Cody Glenn, a converted linebacker whose Nebraska career was most notable for injuries and the way it ended: by getting kicked off the team last year for an undisclosed off-field incident.

As Lawrence Phillips or any honest Husker fan can tell you, if you can play some ball, it's tough to get suspended in Lincoln for anything short of a war crime.

Cerrato said Glenn was investigated thoroughly before the draft. But that claim looked shaky when Glenn told reporters his troubles came when he was caught illegally selling football tickets. That story quickly fell apart, however, and Glenn admitted the suspension wasn't for selling tickets, and apologized for lying.

He did not, however, 'fess up to whatever it is that got him booted. The rumors have been flying ever since.

And they're ugly.

So when the Redskins open their mini-camp this weekend, Glenn's going to realize that until he comes clean, this thing ain't going to go away. If he shows up at all, that is.

I want to know.

I actually hope it turns out that Glenn REALLY WAS thoroughly investigated by Cerrato, that he REALLY DID get in trouble for selling tickets, and that his ticket selling abilities were what attracted Cerrato to Glenn in the first place.

That way, using a fifth-rounder on Glenn would make more sense. From what I read, Cerrato's boss needs somebody who can sell tickets more than he does an inexperienced linebacker.

I sensed things were bad over at the team's ticket office.

Turns out they're worse.

Dan Snyder claims in interviews there are "over 200,000" folks waiting for season tickets.

Oh, really?

CITY PAPER HAS OBTAINED a piece of direct mail (available after the jump, click graphic to view full size) that the Redskins sent out a few days ago. The document offers recipients the chance to buy "up to eight (8)" season tickets and parking passes for the 2009 season.

"I have no idea why we got this," said a recipient of the offer, which was addressed to a generic official of the organization he works for. "Nobody here ever signed up for the waiting list. They even misspelled our name."

(The recipient requested anonymity for him and his organization. I checked to see that the account name and password provided on the mailer do in fact work on the Redskins' Web site, meaning barring some hacking or an elaborate scam the offer to buy tickets is legitimate.)

And the seats being hawked here aren't the silly-priced club or suite seats at FedExField, which have never sold out since the stadium opened, despite the Redskins' claims otherwise.

No, this mailer is for the run-of-the-mill general admission tickets. The tickets Snyder, who made his money in direct mail before buying the Skins, tells us "over 200,000" people are waiting for.

In other words: This looks like the most desperate measure the team has ever made to dump tickets, and sure makes it look like whatever waiting list there once was has been reduced to nothing. (If even one person was still on the list who actually wanted to buy Redskins tickets, why would the team bother offering tickets to random folks not on it?)

The desperation is such that anybody who buys tickets "by May 15, 2009" also gets "a $25 Redskins Retail Store Gift Card."

The letter is jam-packed with laugh-out-loud lines.

Among them:

—"Resell your tickets at a profit via StubHub for any game you are unable to attend!"

—"Quantities are limited." And,

—"Don't miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity!"

So, NFL: Are you going to enforce the ballyhooed blackout rule if Snyder's latest direct mail campaign doesn't fill his stadium?