Cullen, Gleason enter second week of talks

Last week, Carolina re-acquired center Matt Cullen to the delight of many locals. The size of his contract raises some concern for some folks, as it might cause financial trouble down the road. Most fear that the only recourse to the increasing payroll is increased gate prices. For years, Carolina has had average ticket prices at or near the bottom of the league. Good for fans, but bad for the bottom line.
Even though salaries don't come from gate receipts, we'll pretend for a second that they do. In reality, gate receipts do have some relationship with salaries, but not directly and not exclusively.
Anyway, since we're pretending, let's say that the fans have to foot the bill for bringing Matt Cullen and his $2.8M contract. Over 41 home games, that's $58,292.68 per night. Assume that the Canes draw about 17,000 per night, and that total per fan per night is $4.02. Over a full season, that's $164.71 to the ticket package. Meh..

The bigger issue is that talks with Tim Gleason concerning the use of the number 8 have not come to a conclusion. Apparently, Cully "put in a call" to Gleason immediately, but there has been no word on how, if at all, this has been resolved.

I assume it goes something like this:
Cully: I'll give you fifty bucks.
Timmy: No.
Cully: Okay. $75 and a case of PBR
Timmy: Make it Miller Lite, and I'll think about it
Cully: I'll get back to you on that.

I'm guessing, in the end, it'll take $100 and two cases of Miller Lite, but Cully will be wearing #8 on October 3.