There should be no surprise that Post-Katrina New Orleans is setting season-ticket sales records (now at 55,000 and counting).  Those who grew up there, like me, know the passion the city has for the Saints.  David Dixon, the mastermind behind the idea of the Superdome, has said before that the Saints are one of the few things that brings New Orleanians of all colors together.  When a Saints player walks down the street, he's our player, our family.

Naysayers can chuckle at the $14 tickets, and touche'.  Critics can also point to the empty suites at the Superdome.  Gotcha.  Not one person that writes about how nice the Saints would look outside the Crescent City mentions the nearly 60,000 folks who have gone to Saints games continually since the team began playing in 1967.  No NFL city has supported it's losing NFL team better in terms of attendance per victory (The New Orleans Times Picayune ran an article stating that last year).

Many of the evacuess simply took root up in Baton Rouge and other places within a 100-mile radius of the city (Benson pegged that right).  The city of New Orleans has well under the 460,000 pre-Katrina residents, but outlying parishes like Jefferson (which had a larger population than New Orleans before the storm) are 80% or more back and St. Tammany and St. Charles Parishes, booming Pre-Katrina, are growing even faster afterwards.

Reality is that the Saints may still move.  But, according to Benson, "you got a billion dollars?"  In today's crowded sports marketplace, that's what the Saints are worth, overpriced as that is.  However, it will be a year-to-year ride--except if the Saints do something they've never come close to doing--win the Super Bowl.