Posted on 05/04/2008 3:36:26 PM PDT by melt
There is a very good reason why most Yankee fans don't care how much their team spends on baseball players. One of the best reasons is that their team keeps asking them - at least the most well-heeled of them - to spend more and more to help pay the freight.
There is a guy I know who has tickets behind the Yankee dugout, has had them for awhile. Last season each seat cost $150 per game. This season, because it is the last season at the old Yankee Stadium, the cost went up to $250. Next season, if he wants to keep the same seats when everybody moves across 161st St. to the new Yankee Stadium, the cost will go to $850 per seat.
If he wants to keep his current seats, he has to sign a minimum four-year contract, and they want a third of the cost of the first year up front. If he goes for that deal, they say the most they can increase him over the term of the contract is 4% a year.
"I told my friends who are going this season, ‘Enjoy yourselves, because you'll never be this close again,'" my friend said Saturday.
Now this isn't the old Lawn Tennis Association out of the 1950s, where everybody was just supposed to play for the love of the game. The Yankees are the biggest baseball business in the world, and running the business costs money. The Mets aren't going to be giving away their "premium" tickets at Citi Field, either. But they haven't set next season's ticket prices yet, perhaps sitting back and tracking the baseball market in the Bronx. Well, it's either a market or a shakedown.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
"Ruth"less price gouging at Yankee Stadium is incredible. The Babe must be spinning in his grave...
yeah, he wishes he were top-side making $30m/yr and not the $80K he played for.
I went to see #3 UNC baseball team play #2 Florida State for $5. Great game; could have gone to all three series set for $15. Wonderful stadium too. Great to see wonderful talent vs. coke snorting steroid pumping losers
Mark
they are really pushing this last year at the original location stuff....
But I'm glad I got them.....after reading this I am really gald
Luckily the firm will be paying for a couple this summer. I certainly don’t have any interest in spending that kind of money.
Bread and circuses are getting expensive these days. Shoot, eventually people are going to start paying attention.
I’m not a baseball fan. But I don’t think I’d spend that money on anything other than housing or savings. Where do the people get the money to buy those seats? That’s the important question.
$150 * 81 games = $12,150
$850 * 81 games = $68,850 for 1 season ticket.
$137,700 if you also want one for the wife or a kid.
Great to see that the average Joe can participate in America’s National Pastime.
How much is a hot dog up there?
Meanwhile, online scalpers are selling tix in the nosebleeds deep in right and left field for some $200+ per tix, and the prices just go up from there as the seats get closer to the field action ...
Sentimentality sure goes a long way here, and ppl are willing to pay the prices charged .. and while I'm not trying to make this a *rant* by any means, thats just the way it is.
Oh, and just for the record, I (Mr_Moonlight) as a lifelong Yankee fan, am totally against the building of this "new" Yankee Stadium if it means taking a wrecking ball to the existing 85 year old icon Yankee Stadium :(
You’re absolutely correct.
As long as people keep paying to see these games (baseball, football, basketball, concerts, etc.) owners will keep hiking the ticket prices.
I live in St. Louis and have gone to just one game at the new Busch Stadium. It cost $95 a seat on the lower level, first base side, way out in the outfield and way in the back. The only reason I bought the tickets is because by boss (and good friend) from Dallas wanted to go. That will probably be the only game I will ever go to.
But again, there are people that will pay that price and more to go to these games, and they’ll moan and groan about the prices, but keep paying them.
And yet Baseball complains that fewer and fewer fans are out there. Connection ? In any market, there is an optimum pricing for optimum profit in the long run. I’d say that it’s gone FAR beyond that point, and will eventually self-correct.
At what price to Baseball. . .who knows. . .
It’s everywhere. You can pay up to $190 a seat for a Blue Jackets game. My Upper Bowl season tickets only run me $2600 (for two seats, 41 home games.)
It is all about tax evasion.
The sports facilities have learned that corporations will pay outlandish prices for seats — because they (the corporation) can deduct the cost as an expense.
And so the price of seats is going up, up, up. And corporations are gobbling them up.
And meanwhile the ordinary person cannot afford to attend and take their children to the games anymore.
Corporations pay less taxes — and taxes for the people go up and up and up to make up for the shortfall.
And the beat goes on.
Aren’t the taxpayers building that stadium for the Yankees as well?
Get rid of the aluminum bats and you’ve got a deal.
Hillary: "Well, that $109 million should just about cover our expenses..."
I take that back. She'll probably demand an "Excess Profits Tax" on Big Baseball.
A major reason this outrageous situation has evolved the way it has is because Wall Street brazenly steals money from the rest of America, in large part through the 401k scam, and has actually talked J6P into believing he’s receiving a service from them! That’s why the money is concentrated in NY to bid these things up to the stratosphere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.