Friday, March 21, 2008

Hope for the Bleachers?

This article details some of the plans for ticket pricing at the new Stadium:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3305979

At first it all seems a bit outrageous, but then you get to the end and realize that perhaps there is a method to their madness. They are obviously pricing the average fan out of any the premium seating range, but they are doing it in a way that allows for rich folks to subsidize the rest of the stadium so that hopefully the non-premium seats stay in reach for the average fan. Here is a quote from the Yanks' COO (emphasis mine):

"Of the non-premium seats, 88 percent will be less than $100," he said. "It's easy to say that that's not cheap, but on the other 55 percent of the ballpark is going to be $45 or less. That's over 24,000 seats. We recognize everybody can't afford the suites. At the same time, we're trying to allow those suite prices to subsidize the other seating in the stadium. Look, the bleachers are $12, will be $12. The grandstand is $20 and $25, will be $20 and $25."

2 comments:

priv8pete said...

Great pull, Joe! Now I'm excited that I might be able to keep my seats beyond 2009!!!

Michael in New York said...

No, I disagree strongly. $45 is a HUGE amount of money for a ticket. The bleachers are $2 and "going to stay $12" because they raised them this year specifically so they could move into the new stadium and say, See, we didn't raise the bleacher ticket prices (this year)." Further, every element of the new stadium seems designed to marginalize the bleachers and make them less and less appealing. They've placed about 15 rows of pricier seats in front of us and a bullpen in front of THEM, meaning we'll be about as far away from teh action as the left field bleachers are right now. (And the left field bleachers are death to fun, they're so far away.) We're gonna be looking over the heads of fat cats, not enjoying the view we've had for 30+ years. I wish they WERE subsidizing most tickets by charging through the roof for luxury suites. instead, they're charging through the roof for the vast majority of the seats, guaranteeing that casual fans will only come to games once or twice a season at the most. fat cats down near the dugout and home plate will be in their barcaloungers getting trashed. And we'll be shoved aside and in the corners, far away from the action, paying more than ever for worse seats. If the Yankees were smart, they would have made certain Yankee Stadium had more bleacher seats than any other stadium in the country, kept their great position/view and trumpeted that fact. They would have made certain that those awful upper deck seats were super cheap too. Better to pack in the fans because the MOMENT the team hits a rough patch those seats are going to remain unsold. And a half empty stadium without concession sales is bad for the bottom line and bad on TV viewership.