Posted on 08/20/2019 12:24:42 PM PDT by GuavaCheesePuff
As a result, new stadiums are shrinking.
In a piece for USA Today, sports writer Gabe Lacques noted the falling attendance of several MLB teams.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
It is because Steinbrenner wanted all the good players and the Yankees didn’t want revenue sharing at first.
I know I'm dating myself but it used to cost $1.75 for a bleacher seat at Fenway Park. I used to go there on my paper route money. For another 50 cents, you got a "grandstand pass" which allowed you to leave the bleachers and enter the grandstand where you could grab any empty seat available (or stand in the back). I usually ended up in the rows right behind the Red Sox dugout by the end of the game as many businessmen would be out of there by the 7th inning. Especially if the Sox were losing, which was common in those days.
I did it up right too. I always purchased the scorecard, which came with a #2 sharpened pencil, and I'd properly score the game, paying attention to every pitch.
In those days, they sold beer right in the stands and they never checked IDs. In fact, the kids selling it was close to my age. So I acquired a taste for beer at Fenway as well. I think it was $1.25 back then.
The only time I go to ball games now is when the company is paying for it. My company has luxury booths in most of the parks around the country but it's not the same. We have to schmooze clients in those luxury boxes and nobody pays much attention to the action on the field.
Last time I want to a MLB ballgame on my dime was around 15 years ago. Even back then, it set me back over $500 taking my wife and two sons. What with the parking, the tickets, the food and the beverages. Adds up quick.
Basically MLB is a corporate thing now.
I do go to minor league games on a regular basis. Was up in Pawtucket a few weeks ago to see a AAA game. That's the way MLB baseball used to be.
The downsizing of stadiums wasn’t a reaction to declining attendance, but an understanding they had overbuilt.
Many of those replaced stadiums were DUAL USE< which was the norm in the 60s and 70s... but football might draw 100k to watch 8 home games a year, baseball would NEVER fill those stadiums in 81 home games.
So, there is a implied cause and effect that they shrunk stadiums because of declining attendance, when in fact, it had many man factors.
As to lower priced tickets? I wish, the Pittsburgh Pirates have stunk up the joint for what 23 out of the last 25 years? or something... but the 2 years they made a wildcard game made them think they can charge $20 bucks or more for the cheap seats to watch one of the most craptastic teams in baseball play....
They have only been above 500 4 times in the last 27 years... and they sure as hell won’t be even close to it this year.
About the only thing good you can say about them this year, is, hey, at least they aren’t the Orioles.
Attendance dropped from 2.5 Million in their best year in the last 27 (2015), to less than 1.5 Million last year... (An interesting side note, they had nearly the same attendance record in their WORST year 2001 where they didn’t even get to 400 but had 2.4 Million in the seats, why? because they opened the new stadium, as they did their BEST year)... and their attendance will likely be around the same as last year.
Yet the cheapest seats were jacked up from under $10 to just under $20 not counting the fees in that brief period they topped 500 a season.. and haven’t come back down in any capacity since.
Owners don’t care... thanks to profit sharing they make 10s of millions a year fielding a joke team... and they aren’t going to change, until MLB forces them to. They will spend the absolute minimum they are required to by their obligations on talent, and pocket everything else.
But that hasn’t caused them to drop their ticket prices one bit that I can see.
What’s ridiculous is the Rangers are already replacing the Stadium they built in 1994.
HD tv by far better that best seats at stadium for any sport.
Also can Dvr games and skip commercials and watch when nothing
Else happening.
Hoping that this is not deviant from the topic, but I have not been to an NHL game in quite some time. Can not stand the loud music and sound effects and other things for the ADD crowd that they obviously cater to. And I dare say it is the same thing for MLB and NFL as well.
Not the Rangers. Still in crappy Arlington with no Public Transit and sky high parking rates.
He was there to promote changes in the game, such as a day-glo orange ball, just telling they were going to walk that batter, so just send him to first, etc.
‘Pre-strike I had Oakland As weekend games season tickets for me and the kids (and had had them for several years). Never bought season tickets, or any tickets, after that.
“Anything!! Just speed up the pace and get more excitement in there!!”
indeed. i personally don’t know anyone who’s a baseball fan; to me, baseball is more boring than watching paint dry ...
1994 changed all that with the stupid strike. I thought the owners were to blame as much as the players. They could have called the player's bluffs and brought in replacements (in addition to their manager and two coaches) as the Detroit Tigers did when the players went on strike in 1912 to protest a suspension of outfield star Ty Cobb. Detroit lost the game, of course, but the point was made and Cobb urged the players to return.
The game was all the more remarkable because they were on the road and their players had to be recruited from a North Philadelphia neighborhood. You can look it up. May 18, 1912. The unplanned appearance raised Coach Deacon McGuire's career total to 26 Major League seasons, a record which would not be surpassed until 1993, by Nolan Ryan.
Well given I live in Pittsburgh, more likely to see a better game down the road in the Frontier Wild Things games than you are at PNC Park...
I moved here in 86, was 15 years old, used to go to the game, get a drink and maybe a hotdog with my newspaper money. Well under $10 for a ticket, soda and a hot dog in the late 80s..
Would take my kids up until a few years ago at least once a season, could get sub $10 seats, food and drinks were outrageous, but could justify a nice night chatting and hanging out with my kids... the game almost always stunk, but you cold sit and enjoy a nice evening .... THen they had a few reasonable years, and jacked up everything... With fees and whatnot even 2 cheap seats you are looking at dropping $50 just to get in the door to watch one of the worst teams in baseball play....
Sorry, but I’ll keep driving down to washington.. pay $8 a ticket without the idiot fees... and spend less than the cost to get into a pirate game, and have a few drinks and some food, and see folks play who are at least HUNGRY... if nothing else.
If you were putting out good product, fine, but the Pirates have ZERO desire to put out a good product. Overpriced mediocrity at best... I really don’t see how MLB lasts for more than another generation or two... I was not even a huge sports fan as a kid, but I went to several games a year, and listened to a lot of games on the radio.... and knew tons of adults who never missed a game either on TV or RADIO... now I can’t name you a single person I know who follows them at that level, and can’t name you a kid I know who follows them to any degree either.
The last MLB game I attended featured Gaylor Perry on the mound for Seattle, and Carl Yastrzemski in the outfield for the Red Sox at the Kingdome. It’s been a while.
There are a TON of things they could do just by embracing the technology they already have.
Definitely, Pitch timer. lose outs or points delaying
Timers to change sides, again loss of points or outs.
Fixed number of timed time outs.
they have the pitch locator and speed cameras.
Why not award points for fastballs over 100mph (or what ever).
And then also Points for the “perfect pitch placement”.
Or defending perfect pitch placement.
Tons of stuff they could do..
Agree, games are way
too expensive. just got good seats for ranger game $140 a pop total. So so seats are still in the 80-100 range. That too much.
On top of that, younger people don't have the same interests as previous generations. They are less likely to buy houses or cars and need instant gratification. They're not interested in wasting time watching baseball in a stadium.
The decline of ticket sales in some sports is inevitable besides, the customer experience is better elsewhere than the stadium. (I know, lots of disagreement from people on that, but I used to go to a lot of college footballs games back in the day. Today, no thanks, better on TV, at a watch party, a sports bar or at home).
Just my two pesos...
The Left is ruining sports, just like everything else.
Because baseball could be an interesting sport, if only it were updated.
Rugby has devised a format—7s—7 players on a side instead of 15, played in two 7-minute halves instead of two forty minute halves. So the game can be played in less than a half hour. But with this format you get to see several games.
So it can be done. Very traditional sports can evolve to suit more modern tastes.
Do you work for NASCAR?
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