Peter Abraham of the BOSTON GLOBE has the startling news this afternoon: “there were still 6,000 seats available as of last night through the team. Just a few minutes ago, to see what was out there, I pulled up four tickets on Yankees.com for section 221. OK, so they were $431 each. But they were there.”
(Yankees COO Lonn Trost: “Our Prices Are Our Prices” OH RLY?)
To be clear, these are not secondary market tickets, which makes the news even worse, and ensures massive empty patches at Yankee Stadium tonight.
Yes, the weather is awful, but the game is going to be played and we are talking about the Yankees, a team with a death-grip on the local sports fan.
So why the empties?
It ain’t the economy, which is in recovery mode and hasn’t affected the capital of the world as much as other American towns.
It’s now obvious that we’ve reached a tipping point on ticket prices. NOT re-sold tickets, but face value seats.
The Yankees went over the cliff thanks thanks their boundless greed in pricing the new ballpark, and now they’re pay a steep price -in revenue and reputation.
As long as they continue to gouge fans, this trend will only strengthen. The economic crash made people more aware of what they could realistically spend. Even as they regain their 401Ks with the stock market surging, it appears fans are fed up with the absurd overcharges and will boycott ballparks until there’s a drastic rollback in prices.
Good for them.
12:38 am on October 17th, 2009
The economy is not only in the tank - foreclosures are still flooding the market. People are underwater on their homes if they’ve bought them in the last 5 years. Since folks move on average every 7 years - they’re stuck or bailing out.
Point is: no one is doing very well right now.
Last thing anyone needs right now is $400 baseball tickets.
1:45 am on October 17th, 2009
HAHA !! I just got home from the game and was sitting in my season seats in legends and i have to tell you that it was packed! Thats right, packed. Clearly the shot above was taken as the rest of the rich people were moseying on out from the delicious all you can eat gourmet buffet in the Legends Suites restaurant! It was stinkin cold out there tonight man! We were hanging indoors as long as we could, and why not didnt miss a thing with 500 LCD’s on every wall including the bathrooms. Listen yes ticket prices are expensive but the shot above in no way portrays what happend there tonight. Typical journalistic sensationalism.
6:42 am on October 17th, 2009
Well, I can vouch for the notion of hitting the upper limit on ticket prices: The Denver Broncos just announced yesterday that 2010 club seat prices will go down between 17 and 24 percent (depending on where the club seat is).
Real question, though, is whether or not either Dodger Stadium or Angels Stadium will sell out if the World Series becomes the Battle of Los Angeles? Furthermore, would the Battle of LA WS cause Fox Sports to move the WS to Prime Ticket, since it would be extremely unlikely anyone outside the Southland would see such a WS?
3:30 pm on October 17th, 2009
Judging by the catcher’s gear, I’d say that’s Yanks v A’s in, uh, April.
Even with the crazy ticket prices, and the cold rain and snow, the place was packed and jumping.
Obviously, Abraham is a hater.
4:34 pm on October 17th, 2009
@Pete: Don’t forget about the homeowners who refinanced their mortgages over the last five years: those people are ALSO severely upside-down and in risk of foreclosures.