Comments on: San Jose: Worth The Price Of Admission http://theinbetweenhop.com/2009/07/worth-the-price-of-admission/ A baseball-inspired space that is not about baseball, but its fans. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:36:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc By: admin http://theinbetweenhop.com/2009/07/worth-the-price-of-admission/comment-page-1/#comment-13 admin Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:46:57 +0000 http://theinbetweenhop.com/?p=380#comment-13 I don't think they are pricing fans out on purpose, nor could you really *find* direct evidence to support that. Ticket prices go up the same way the cable bill goes up every six months. Comcast asks for more from the subs to pay for programming. Teams charge what they do to supplement local and national TV revenues as their expenses fluctuate. It used to be the other way around. My old boss in the minors explained it to me best when I asked him why we didn't cut the price on concessions - which were exceedingly high for the poor quality - in order to boost attendance. He didn't want to hurt the gross profit in terms of dollars and percentage, because the cost of the soda, beer, and hot dogs were the same. The profit has to come from somewhere. In the minors it's all sources, but concessions are up there. In the majors it's luxury suites and tickets close to the field. The Biz of Baseball has great analyses of the FCI. Chris Robinson did a quick-and-clean on prices league-wide: http://www.flipflopflyin.com/flipflopflyball/info-ticketprices.html You can see from his graph the large payroll teams skew the overall number. There are affordable seats in most parks and I think those seats are being filled - especially at places like Yankee Stadium. My sense is that when the prices come down for all teams in all sections - it will have other implications such as lower payrolls and more first/second year players playing for the league minimum. I don’t think they are pricing fans out on purpose, nor could you really *find* direct evidence to support that. Ticket prices go up the same way the cable bill goes up every six months. Comcast asks for more from the subs to pay for programming. Teams charge what they do to supplement local and national TV revenues as their expenses fluctuate. It used to be the other way around.

My old boss in the minors explained it to me best when I asked him why we didn’t cut the price on concessions – which were exceedingly high for the poor quality – in order to boost attendance. He didn’t want to hurt the gross profit in terms of dollars and percentage, because the cost of the soda, beer, and hot dogs were the same.

The profit has to come from somewhere. In the minors it’s all sources, but concessions are up there. In the majors it’s luxury suites and tickets close to the field. The Biz of Baseball has great analyses of the FCI. Chris Robinson did a quick-and-clean on prices league-wide: http://www.flipflopflyin.com/flipflopflyball/info-ticketprices.html

You can see from his graph the large payroll teams skew the overall number. There are affordable seats in most parks and I think those seats are being filled – especially at places like Yankee Stadium. My sense is that when the prices come down for all teams in all sections – it will have other implications such as lower payrolls and more first/second year players playing for the league minimum.

]]> By: Luke http://theinbetweenhop.com/2009/07/worth-the-price-of-admission/comment-page-1/#comment-12 Luke Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:05:41 +0000 http://theinbetweenhop.com/?p=380#comment-12 Jesse, is MLB pricing out their fans on purpose? Or is their reasonable evidence to suggest so? I ask this as a business man, pessimist and purist (not always a great combination ;). I see reports on half empty stadiums, wondering what would happen to attendance if they halved the price of the ticket. Would the place fill up and increase wear on the stadium? Does that help or hurt their business to keep people coming that aren't in the higher income range of their demographic? Sorry for the barrage of questions. I'm just really starting to wonder about the business of baseball. Jesse, is MLB pricing out their fans on purpose? Or is their reasonable evidence to suggest so? I ask this as a business man, pessimist and purist (not always a great combination ;) . I see reports on half empty stadiums, wondering what would happen to attendance if they halved the price of the ticket. Would the place fill up and increase wear on the stadium? Does that help or hurt their business to keep people coming that aren’t in the higher income range of their demographic?

Sorry for the barrage of questions. I’m just really starting to wonder about the business of baseball.

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