One of the major criticisms leveled at the world’s most prominent athletes over the years has been that they are too unwilling to take a stand on issues or criticize anyone or anything, for fear of upsetting sponsors and consumers. Two people often targeted in this criticism are Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, the world’s two most recognized athletes. “Republicans buy shoes, too,” the old saying goes, and we’re left with press conferences that feature a lot of vanilla cliches.
So it came as something of a surprise on Friday that Tiger, while discussing his pretty awesome commitment to allowing children free admission to his own AT&T National golf tournament this weekend, lashed out at the New York Yankees’ new much-maligned stadium.
According to ESPN.com, Woods told the assembled media the following (bold added for emphasis):
“We don’t want to have what happened at Yankee Stadium,” Woods said Friday at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., site of the AT&T National. “Tickets are so overpriced that you can’t bring the family. We want to have everyone come out and enjoy being in a family atmosphere, walk around, have a good time and not have it cost an arm and a leg.”
That might not be considered coming from a more outspoken or lower-profile athlete, but for Woods, who is a multinational corporation in and of himself, those are pretty strong words. Hey, Yankees - when even the world’s most cliche-riddled athletes are making fun of you, you might want to consider some adjustments to your business model.
9:29 pm on July 5th, 2009
The recently concluded US Open at Bethpage Black also let kids in for free.
2:29 am on July 6th, 2009
Yankees SUCK.
8:29 am on July 6th, 2009
Interesting comments comming from a guy who sold the shirts he wore during the US Open for 120 thousand dollars to sports collectors with NONE of the money going to charity. Maybe he can take some of that money and buy seats at Yankee Stadium for all the children. And oh yes, what is happening at Yankee stadium is happening at all the ball parks and other sports venues. Yankees are still averaging highest per game attendance in baseball.
9:38 am on July 6th, 2009
“And oh yes, what is happening at Yankee stadium is happening at all the ball parks and other sports venues. […] Yankees are still averaging highest per game attendance in baseball.”
Nice rationalization and nice stat, but the rationalization is not true and the stat is misleading. The most expensive seat at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, for example, is $80, and that’s only for “prime” games. You can get a seat right behind the plate for a non-prime game for $55.
You can argue the O’s suck and no one wants to pay an arm and a leg to see them and you’d be right, but apparently no one wants to see a “good” team for an arm and a leg either.
Also, by attendance/capacity, which is a much better way to compare attendance between venues due to the number of seats in each stadium being different (if your house holds 50,000 and mine holds 40,000 and we’re both filling it to 90% capacity you’re going to have a higher per game attendance by default), the Yanks are only 7th, averaging 86.5% capacity. For every 100 seats in Yankee Stadium, 13-14 are empty. That’s not something to be proud of if you’re a contending team playing in the biggest city with one of the most rabid fan bases. You can’t convince me that ticket prices have little/nothing to do with that, especially since the old Yankee Stadium was filled above 90% capacity on average for the preceding three seasons.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/attendance?sort=home_pct&year=2009&seasonType=2