Box Seats or Paying the Rent?
The new Yankee Stadium is making news, but not for the reasons team management wants. In addition to building a stadium that, after a few games, seems to be allowing too many home runs, empty seats in prime viewing locations are painfully obvious.
According to the Associated Press: “At the new Yankee Stadium, the best seats in the house have turned out to be the emptiest. The most expensive spots in America’s costliest ballpark have become an embarrassment packing a financial sting to the proud New York Yankees, as the Legends Suite section in the infield has been filled only once in the six games since the $1.5 billion stadium opened last week.
“On most days, the seats that cost $500-$2,500 as part of season tickets and go up to $2,625 for individual games haven’t been close to full. And as TV cameras pick up the patchy attendance with every pitch, it serves as a little tweak to the nation’s richest baseball franchise.”
You can take a look at single ticket prices anywhere in the stadium. Most infield seats in the lower level cost from $375 to $275. Seats behind the outfield fences in the lower level run from $100 to $75. You can get a bleacher seat behind the centerfield bullpen for $14.
Contrast those prices with other New York City attractions. Top prices on Broadway are $136. The best seats at the Metropolitan Opera cost $550. Jazz clubs with top name artists are normally $35 plus a $10 minimum.
A Zogby Interactive poll done on Feb. 23-24 found 70% saying have cut back on entertainment, recreation and eating out at restaurants. We reported then that: “The slashing of entertainment budgets isn’t just taking place in poorer households – around 70% of those in all household income brackets, including those with more than $100,000 in household income, said they have reduced their spending on entertainment and at restaurants in the past year. Younger adults are most likely to say they have cut back – 76% of those age 18-29 are spending less on entertainment, compared to 55% of those age 65 and older who say the same.”
Are the Yankees, and perhaps other pro teams, out-pricing the market for seats at games? Would you pay those prices to watch a ballgame?
Loading ...
The Yankee organization wanted to bring back the atmosphere of how the stadium looked when it opened early in 1923. Well they did and also they brought back the economic realities of such a stadium where the wealthy could only afford the good seats back in 1923. Actually it appears worse. Now with most of the inexpensive seats taken for the season. The seats for the wealthy appear mostly unused because they either don’t go wach day or in this economic climate don’t want to get embarrassed by living the luxurious life while others suffer because a result of the Republiklan party.
Anyway, for the price of a regular field box seat, I could buy a 32″ LCD HDTV. I will not throw away $325 on a box seat at Yankee Stadium. I can afford to buy a 32″ LCD HDTV though.
Oh for people who want to change America, please see my noncommercial website http://action.democratz.org
Baseball is so unimportant and boring, I find it difficult to believe that a person would bother seeing it free, let alone paying more than $5 per ticket.
The Yankees have dissed their most dedicated fans and (along with most of the country) groveled before the wealthy and powerful while expecting the public to pay for it.
This is only one example of the abhorrent corruption ailing America. It has broken us morally and financially.
No way would Pay that kind of money to watch overpaid pro primadonnas. I would spring for ten bucks to watch over fifty geezers chase fly balls and that ten would be for beers later. LOL
The only way I would pay to see the Yankees is when they are losing to the Red Sox.
Most of these seats were corporate sponsorships. I’m in St. Louis and the Cardinals have the same problem. A-B got bought out by InBev, and the first thing the Dutch did was axe the brewery’s support of baseball. Whole sections of previously paid boxes are vacant. It’s all around — banks, construction, insurance, etc. These companies cannot buy luxury box seats for investors and clients when they can’t even cover the payroll.
I have never been to a major league baseball game, and after seeing the prices for the new Yankee Stadium, I am not sure I will ever see a major league game. What happened to the good old days when it cost $10 to see a bunch of guys try and make it to the majors? I have seen several minor league games through the years, and it was money well spent. Pro sports isn’t about the game anymore. It’s about the money. Players have become over payed…and for what? Case and point. A team in the NHL shells out millions of dollars for a new contract over a number of years for a player who ends up sitting half of the season between knee injuries and concussions. Who will end up paying for the new contract? The fans. Yes, the team has announced ticket prices will go up next year. This is the same in every sport. The Yankees will probably not even consider lowering ticket prices to attract more fans, as they have to consider the bottom line. Fans want to see their team a success on the field, and they stay loyal through the years…but in the end…they pay the price…heavy on their pocketbooks. Knowing the economy is in the state it’s in…does anyone do their homework and try to find out if an area can support the new venue it proposes to build? Sometimes I wonder…
My favorite baseball teams are Little Leaguers. By the time the players get to the majors, they have forgotten how to play for fun and are not worth paying much to watch. I have been a baseball fan for decades, having grown up listening to the game on the radio, that is the medium for me, along with an occasional visit to watch the local major league teams and yell a few oldie phrases along with the crowd.
@Kenneth
I once lived in your fine city when I was a young teenager. My mom sent me off to Catholic school there soon after my dad passed away. I got to go to several Cardinals’ games, and some 41 years later, they remain a team I support. I also was a big supporter of A-B when I became of age, but when this once proud American icon got taken over by InBev, I’ve since changed my adult beverage support to Adolf Coors’ product…
I was a Yankee fan from 1956 until a few years ago. Mantle, Maris, Richardson, Ford and all the rest of them. A few years ago they were ahead of the Boston Red Sox 3 games to none and then were swept is when they lost me after 49 years. All those multi millionaire players puked all over themselves.
I’m now a Red Sox Fan. Jacoby Ellsbury is from Central Oregon so that makes it easier to root for them.
Economic situation may depress ticket sales, but many people can’t get excited anymore about watching some millionaires throw a ball around. It’s hard to identify with the players. The exception was Craig Biggio of the Astros – We respected the hustle he showed on every play, and every minute.
It galls me to see entertainment as a deductible expense. Why should taxpayers and shareholders subsidize a select few who exploit the loophole? Why should expensive seats and suites be allowed to reduce a company’s tax liability and reduce company earnings? It is only because of self-serving management!
It no longer is a legitimate aid for business – instead it is a bribe, it is a perk, it is a relic from the good old boy days that is sexist, discriminatory, and corrupt.
Ask me how I really feel!
This is how things are supposed to work. People pay what they believe a item is worth. As a result, for way too long, people had disposable income and spent it on athletes and entertainers until their salaries got out of whack. And shrines/stadiums were built ever bigger to take in all that money. Now, the pendulum will swing back the other way, and salaries will have to drop and entertainment will have to remain at a value the consumer is willing to pay. This is a good thing. Yankee Stadium may just be the “canary in the mine”!
Teachers will profoundly influence the future of your children, doctors may hold your life in their hands – but in their entire working lives, they won’t make as much as some of today’s absurdly overpaid professional athletes can earn in 1 year, for such earthshaking contributions to the well-being of society as making a rubber ball go through a metal ring with some string hanging off it, or whacking a baseball with a wooden stick. Seems to me our value system has gotten a bit OUT of whack nowadays…..
I enjoy baseball, but at those prices, I’ll listen to it on the radio. (Yes, the radio. Baseball is much better suited to radio than it is to TV. Who ever decided that the best way to televise a baseball game was to show lots of closeups of the players – who seem to scratch or spit the minute the camera goes on them?)
I think the athletes salaries are exorbitant and there is no way I would enjoy watching them enough to spend that much money. I can find more rewarding activities that cost much less or are free.
Baseball unions have taken the game into a financial orbit well beyond reality. For years we’ve heard complaints about families being priced out. Fathers taking sons; parents taking their children to the “great American game”. And, yes owners are equally (well not really if they wanted to stay in business)to blame.
The players will tell you they’re only taking the owners money. Somehow we all knew baseball players were highly skilled but having the smarts to convince it isn’t our money going through the owners hands is a bit too much.
Yankee Stadium aside, what happened to professional sports? The same thing that happen to American business salaries. Some suggest its greed. In reality folks, it was changes starting in the 1980’s to the US Tax Code. Years earlier, if someone, let alone a baseball player like Manny or A-Rod, made a miollion bucks, the last $100K was taxed at 80 – 90%. So who wanted to make it only to lose it? No one
#16, It always comes back to the unions for some people.
The unions didn’t cause th problem with salaries. The owners wanting to BUY players instead of the hard route of devleoping a TEAM has caused the salary problem in most pro sports.
The stadium in NY is one more in modern America’s belief in the entitled class. Too bad they lost a good chunk of their money in the Bush stock market.
It’s a shame the Yankees priced the new stadium right out of the average person’s reach. It used to be you could take your son for his 10th birthday and some of his friends to a game, buy tickets, food and souvenirs and not spend too much money. That scenerio has died with the increasing greediness of sports unions, big business, players, owners and media outlets. My family makes good money (over $70,000 per year), but we can’t afford to buy good tickets, pay the gas for an 8 hour round trip, food for 5 (for the entire day), and souvenirs for one afternoon, when we could probably reserve a hotel for a week’s vacation for that price. It’s too bad America can’t put a stop to this practice. All this talk of salary caps for players; how about salary caps for ticket prices? Or food vendor prices? And doesn’t the management understand that if they priced the seats at $50 or less they would be filled each and every game?
Yankee stadium was financed with our dollars. The tax exempt bonds cost each one of us! The direct subsidy by New York costs millions more. Then they have the gall to charge these prices -such arrogance is too commonplace.
I wouldn’t think of paying those prices to watch a boring baseball game. I never watch it on t.v. for free. These sports figures are making way too much money for what they contribute to society. I’m tired of watching millionaire morons who would be working in a car wash if they couldn’t hit a baseball.
I dont get it. What is wrong with the Yankees or any team for that matter, trying to get the best return for their money?
There are plenty of seats at various price points.
If you dont want to pay the prices they charge, then dont go to the game.
How much do people pay for a basketball game? a football game.
At this time things are tight and of course we are all cutting back (specially the businesses, who paid for the expensive seats)
Things will change, as they usually do. In the meantime lets see if the players salaries come back down form the ridiculous levels they are at at this tine.
After all are these very inflated salaries not a huge contributor to the reason for ticket prices being so high?
>>>>Are the Yankees, and perhaps other pro teams, out-pricing the market for seats at games? Would you pay those prices to watch a ballgame?<<<<
You even have to ask? Of course they are. People are much more worried about paying mortgage, buying food for the family, have electricity and water than they are about going to a game you can’t afford anymore.
Let the richest ten percent of the population fill the stadiums because the average Joe can’t afford it anymore.
Wheter it’s the New York Yankees or the Tampa Devil Rays, the lack of spectators is awful. Why? The cost of attending the games.
Consider, a Father or Mom taking the kids to a Professional Game: 1 Adult and 2children under 15 yrs of age. Tickets = $75.00 or higher.
Parking $ 12.00 or higher. Food for three $55.00 or higher which includes three hot dogs, popcorn or Crachjacks, three soft drinks and maybe a bag of some kind of candy. You do the math!
For the same amount a family of four can buy groceries for 4-5days.
This kind of disposable income is only available to 18% or less of the entire work force in America. The American Baseball franchises earn most of their money from Television.
Solution: Every Week day game is $5.00 per person. On Saturday is $4.00. Kids under 15 is $2.00. Food prices for kids, half price. Result: Television showing a stadium filled to the rafters cheering their respective teams.
Reflection: many municipalitites will soon be forced to close their stadiums due to falling tax base revenue. Baseball and it’s players/employees must downsize, take less or disappear.
The Cubs still have nice seats in the $20+ range. Not all the clubs are this greedy. Not a Yankees fan, but if I were, no way I’d pay those prices and I love baseball.
For those who don’t, why on earth did you even bother to comment on this on? If it were about NASCAR I’d never have opened this comment section
How Sad.
Why don’t they go to area High School coaches and offer those seats for free to the HS baseball teams?
It would fill the seats, make the teams and owners appear benevolent, might even qualify for a tax write off.
And, hopefully, the kids would get to see some good games played.