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Rows of expensive, empty seats a concern for Yankees & Mets
Michigan
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in Sports Talk
From New York Times:
Odd patterns have been forming inside New York’s two shiny new baseball stadiums, ones not seen in years. Clumps of empty blue and green seats are painfully obvious because many of them are in the best sections or right behind home plate, while fans are concentrated in the more remote parts of Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.
After spending $2.3 billion on new stadiums packed with suites, restaurants and the latest technology, the Mets and the Yankees expected fans to embrace their new homes and pay top dollar for the privilege. Almost every team that has built a new stadium in the recent past has seen an immediate surge in attendance.
Instead, the Mets and the Yankees face a public relations nightmare and possibly millions of dollars in lost revenue after failing to sell about 5,000 tickets — including some of the priciest seats — to each of their first few games after last week’s openers.
The empty seats are a fresh sign that the teams might have miscalculated how much fans and corporations were willing to spend, particularly during a deep recession. Whatever the reason, the teams are scrambling to comb over their $295- to $2,625-a-seat bald spots.
“I’m sure they’re thinking, ‘It’s just April,’ ” Jon Greenberg, executive editor of the Team Marketing Report, said of the lack of sellouts. “But it’s lost revenue they anticipated getting. This is the worst possible time to debut a stadium.”
The teams are loath to cut prices for fear of alienating existing ticket-holders. Letting fans from other sections move to the premium seats behind home plate and above the dugouts could backfire in the same way.
The price of an average premium ticket is $510 for the Yankees and $150 for the Mets. The prices of nonpremium tickets rose 76 percent this year at Yankee Stadium, which goes a long way toward offsetting losses from unsold premium seats.
“But it doesn’t look good,” said Maury Brown, president of the Business of Sports Network, a research Web site. “It’s the Yankees, not the Nationals. On television, it stands out like a big sore thumb.”
Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ general managing partner, said recently that “small amounts of our tickets might be overpriced.”
Still, the teams are trying to drum up sales. The Yankees have hired Douglas Elliman Worldwide Consulting, which promotes and markets real estate projects for developers, to sell premium seats to high-end residential customers. The team has also extensively advertised the availability of the high-priced seats, and invited potential buyers to visit the Stadium at a Select-a-Seat weekend last month.
Unable to sell season-ticket plans for about 100 of their best seats, the Mets have been auctioning them off one game at a time. At least one fan took the bait, paying $7,500 for two seats behind home plate on opening night.
The Mets have suffered the indignity of watching a court-appointed trustee sell the two season tickets bought by Bernard L. Madoff, the financier who admitted to running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that counted the team’s principal owner, Fred Wilpon, as one of its victims.
An auction for the seats concluded on eBay Tuesday night, with the winning bid coming in at $38,100, considerably below their face value.
Neither team seemed worried that some of the premium seats — any seat that comes with an amenity, like waiter service or access to a dining club — were unfilled. Some of them could have owners who simply did not show up, which hurts food, parking and merchandise sales. Other seats may be part of partial season ticket plans that did not include games played last week.
“If someone’s not there at the moment, that doesn’t mean it’s unsold,” said Dave Howard, the vice president for operations for the Mets. So far, he said, fans are spending about 60 percent more on food, beverages and merchandise than they did at Shea Stadium. “There’s a lot of circulation in the ballpark.”
Many fans with tickets are trying to recoup what they can by selling some of them online well below face value. More than 10,000 tickets (about 20 percent of the ballpark) for the Yankees’ game against the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday were available, a handful for as little as $5, according to FanSnap.com, which scans the Web sites of five dozen ticket resellers.
“More season-ticket holders than ever before are selling into the market,” said Michael Janes, FanSnap’s chief executive. “Some people need to generate cash to pay the rent.”
The teams’ sluggish starts on the field — including the Yankees’ 22-4 loss Saturday to the Cleveland Indians — have not helped generate extra buzz. Attendance across the major leagues has dipped this season, and plenty of premium seats are empty in other ballparks. Many basketball and hockey teams have also had attendance declines.
But the slow start in New York is striking considering how much the teams here spent to build and promote their parks. Like airlines that break even on economy tickets and rely on first-class travelers to turn a profit, the teams need to sell their most exclusive seats to help repay the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax-free bonds they issued to finance their new parks.
The unfilled seats in New York are even more glaring compared with how robust sales have been for previous stadium openings. The Baltimore Orioles sold out 67 of their 80 home dates in 1992, when Camden Yards opened. The Cleveland Indians sold out 36 games in the strike-shortened season in 1994, and were filled to capacity 455 consecutive games from 1995 to 2001.
After moving to their new park in 2001, the Houston Astros drew 3.1 million fans, 300,000 more than they ever attracted at the far larger Astrodome. The Pittsburgh Pirates, a perennial second-division team, sold 2.4 million tickets in 2001 when PNC Park opened, 700,000 more than they ever sold at Three Rivers Stadium.
Mets officials say they are encouraged that they have already sold the equivalent of 25,000 full season tickets, 7 percent more than in 2008. Most of the team’s 15-game plans are sold out, and single-game ticket sales for April and May are 87 percent higher than in the same period last year.
Randy Levine, the Yankees’ president, said last week that attendance at the second home game was proportionately ahead of last year’s pace. Levine also said that 80 to 85 percent of the Stadium’s 4,000 premium seats had been sold for the full season.
For next season, the Yankees plan to raise premium ticket prices 4 percent.
Odd patterns have been forming inside New York’s two shiny new baseball stadiums, ones not seen in years. Clumps of empty blue and green seats are painfully obvious because many of them are in the best sections or right behind home plate, while fans are concentrated in the more remote parts of Yankee Stadium and Citi Field.
After spending $2.3 billion on new stadiums packed with suites, restaurants and the latest technology, the Mets and the Yankees expected fans to embrace their new homes and pay top dollar for the privilege. Almost every team that has built a new stadium in the recent past has seen an immediate surge in attendance.
Instead, the Mets and the Yankees face a public relations nightmare and possibly millions of dollars in lost revenue after failing to sell about 5,000 tickets — including some of the priciest seats — to each of their first few games after last week’s openers.
The empty seats are a fresh sign that the teams might have miscalculated how much fans and corporations were willing to spend, particularly during a deep recession. Whatever the reason, the teams are scrambling to comb over their $295- to $2,625-a-seat bald spots.
“I’m sure they’re thinking, ‘It’s just April,’ ” Jon Greenberg, executive editor of the Team Marketing Report, said of the lack of sellouts. “But it’s lost revenue they anticipated getting. This is the worst possible time to debut a stadium.”
The teams are loath to cut prices for fear of alienating existing ticket-holders. Letting fans from other sections move to the premium seats behind home plate and above the dugouts could backfire in the same way.
The price of an average premium ticket is $510 for the Yankees and $150 for the Mets. The prices of nonpremium tickets rose 76 percent this year at Yankee Stadium, which goes a long way toward offsetting losses from unsold premium seats.
“But it doesn’t look good,” said Maury Brown, president of the Business of Sports Network, a research Web site. “It’s the Yankees, not the Nationals. On television, it stands out like a big sore thumb.”
Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ general managing partner, said recently that “small amounts of our tickets might be overpriced.”
Still, the teams are trying to drum up sales. The Yankees have hired Douglas Elliman Worldwide Consulting, which promotes and markets real estate projects for developers, to sell premium seats to high-end residential customers. The team has also extensively advertised the availability of the high-priced seats, and invited potential buyers to visit the Stadium at a Select-a-Seat weekend last month.
Unable to sell season-ticket plans for about 100 of their best seats, the Mets have been auctioning them off one game at a time. At least one fan took the bait, paying $7,500 for two seats behind home plate on opening night.
The Mets have suffered the indignity of watching a court-appointed trustee sell the two season tickets bought by Bernard L. Madoff, the financier who admitted to running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that counted the team’s principal owner, Fred Wilpon, as one of its victims.
An auction for the seats concluded on eBay Tuesday night, with the winning bid coming in at $38,100, considerably below their face value.
Neither team seemed worried that some of the premium seats — any seat that comes with an amenity, like waiter service or access to a dining club — were unfilled. Some of them could have owners who simply did not show up, which hurts food, parking and merchandise sales. Other seats may be part of partial season ticket plans that did not include games played last week.
“If someone’s not there at the moment, that doesn’t mean it’s unsold,” said Dave Howard, the vice president for operations for the Mets. So far, he said, fans are spending about 60 percent more on food, beverages and merchandise than they did at Shea Stadium. “There’s a lot of circulation in the ballpark.”
Many fans with tickets are trying to recoup what they can by selling some of them online well below face value. More than 10,000 tickets (about 20 percent of the ballpark) for the Yankees’ game against the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday were available, a handful for as little as $5, according to FanSnap.com, which scans the Web sites of five dozen ticket resellers.
“More season-ticket holders than ever before are selling into the market,” said Michael Janes, FanSnap’s chief executive. “Some people need to generate cash to pay the rent.”
The teams’ sluggish starts on the field — including the Yankees’ 22-4 loss Saturday to the Cleveland Indians — have not helped generate extra buzz. Attendance across the major leagues has dipped this season, and plenty of premium seats are empty in other ballparks. Many basketball and hockey teams have also had attendance declines.
But the slow start in New York is striking considering how much the teams here spent to build and promote their parks. Like airlines that break even on economy tickets and rely on first-class travelers to turn a profit, the teams need to sell their most exclusive seats to help repay the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax-free bonds they issued to finance their new parks.
The unfilled seats in New York are even more glaring compared with how robust sales have been for previous stadium openings. The Baltimore Orioles sold out 67 of their 80 home dates in 1992, when Camden Yards opened. The Cleveland Indians sold out 36 games in the strike-shortened season in 1994, and were filled to capacity 455 consecutive games from 1995 to 2001.
After moving to their new park in 2001, the Houston Astros drew 3.1 million fans, 300,000 more than they ever attracted at the far larger Astrodome. The Pittsburgh Pirates, a perennial second-division team, sold 2.4 million tickets in 2001 when PNC Park opened, 700,000 more than they ever sold at Three Rivers Stadium.
Mets officials say they are encouraged that they have already sold the equivalent of 25,000 full season tickets, 7 percent more than in 2008. Most of the team’s 15-game plans are sold out, and single-game ticket sales for April and May are 87 percent higher than in the same period last year.
Randy Levine, the Yankees’ president, said last week that attendance at the second home game was proportionately ahead of last year’s pace. Levine also said that 80 to 85 percent of the Stadium’s 4,000 premium seats had been sold for the full season.
For next season, the Yankees plan to raise premium ticket prices 4 percent.
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Comments
They can't change this year's prices but I have to feel next year's prices will have the high-end premium prices reduced significantly.
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
simple solution; sell the seats for cheap to families and kids and let them have a hell of a good time.
Don't you guys read the official team responses?
(eyeroll)
Steve
<< <i>simple solution; sell the seats for cheap to families and kids and let them have a hell of a good time. >>
This is way too easy and makes too much sense to ever be seriously considered.
Interesting how the economic woes manifest themselves. The Yankees probably thought that their new Ball Park would be sold out forever, with Wall Street firms paying whatever the asking price was for premium seats. The large dollars flowing through the financial capital of the USA have shrunk considerable and as a result, the spending of such dollars on sports tickets, dining out and material goods has shrunk, leaving less revenue for the businesses that such dollars were spent at/on.
It would be very embarassing to the Yankees and Mets to have empty seats behind home plate shown repeatedly on game broadcasts and ESPN highlights.
If demand dwindles prices for seats will go down. The Yanks and Mets can't lower prices
this year because what do you do for those that already paid?
They each took a gamble and lost.
Who in their right mind would pay 3k to sit at a baseball game?
Steve
<< <i>
<< <i>simple solution; sell the seats for cheap to families and kids and let them have a hell of a good time. >>
This is way too easy and makes too much sense to ever be seriously considered. >>
I like the sentiment, but as the article suggested, if they do something like that they are going to alienate the fans that paid through the nose for those same tickets. Why should those fans pay that much money for the privelege of having great seats when the team is going to sell the same ticket so cheaply? Having families and kids enjoy the game in a way that would otherwise be impossible for them is the "right" answer, but it's probably not the right answer for a team that is trying to make money.
<< <i>No, salary cap is not the answer. The answer is supply and demand.
If demand dwindles prices for seats will go down. The Yanks and Mets can't lower prices
this year because what do you do for those that already paid?
They each took a gamble and lost.
Who in their right mind would pay 3k to sit at a baseball game?
Steve >>
Did ya ever contemplate that "high prices" lowers the demand? The salary cap is the answer.
But you're right about they gambled and lost and frankly it was a bad gamble in my opinion....NFL football, they can get away with high prices like this playing only 8 regular season games. Trying to get away with this playing 81 games, frankly is preposterous...poor management really almost beyond belief.
2 grand per game per seat for prime seating is a gigantic and biblical increase of the previous 300 bucks or so for the haughty taughty seats.
Its not a salary cap issue, it is a Yankee greed issue. 90% or so of the seats in the stadium are sold for the season because there were modest or no price increases with them.
They made a mistake, especially considering the economy, those seats will sell when something is done about the empty ones and the pacification of the dopes who actually paid those prices.
ISO 1978 Topps Baseball in NM-MT High Grade Raw 3, 100, 103, 302, 347, 376, 416, 466, 481, 487, 509, 534, 540, 554, 579, 580, 622, 642, 673, 724__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ISO 1978 O-Pee-Chee in NM-MT High Grade Raw12, 21, 29, 38, 49, 65, 69, 73, 74, 81, 95, 100, 104, 110, 115, 122, 132, 133, 135, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 160, 161, 167, 168, 172, 179, 181, 196, 200, 204, 210, 224, 231, 240
lol no kidding.
Steve
The thing that makes it appear worse then it really is, is the section(s) where the empty seats are.
If this trend continues into the summer then I'd think they miscalculated.
I have been to April games and I don't ever recall them being sellouts.
Guess we will have to wait and see.
Steve
<< <i>Did ya ever contemplate that "high prices" lowers the demand?
lol no kidding.
Steve >>
...see Steve...you're finally learning....keep reading my posts and one day you may become a genius.
Lesson #2 for today...Did ya ever contemplate that the exorbitant salaries that the Yankees and Mets pay, contributes to these "high prices"?
<< <i>
<< <i>Did ya ever contemplate that "high prices" lowers the demand?
lol no kidding.
Steve >>
...see Steve...you're finally learning....keep reading my posts and one day you may become a genius.
Lesson #2 for today...Did ya ever contemplate that the exorbitant salaries that the Yankees and Mets pay, contributes to these "high prices"? >>
Lesson #3...and did ya ever contemplate that a salary cap would help to lessen these outrageous salaries, hence lower team costs, hence lower ticket prices...hence a salary cap is needed.
I'll stop here for today - I don't want to overwhelm you with too much complicated information.
That still does not mean a cap is needed.
Think about it before you lamely attempt to ridicule.
Steve
<< <i>Of course ding dong that goes without saying.
That still does not mean a cap is needed.
Think about it before you lamely attempt to ridicule.
Steve >>
Lesson #4 - never criticize the teacher - I may make you stay after school and write 100 times on the chalk board..."Stevek is the greatest"
As Winpitcher said, the supply and demand will dictate the ticket prices and salaries. I have said a million times, you have no right to complain about the salaries these guys make when you pay hundreds of dollars to go to a game.
If you want salaries and ticket prices to go down, don't go to the games. They will get the message...and it seems the Yanks are getting the message right now.
JS
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>simple solution; sell the seats for cheap to families and kids and let them have a hell of a good time. >>
This is way too easy and makes too much sense to ever be seriously considered. >>
I like the sentiment, but as the article suggested, if they do something like that they are going to alienate the fans that paid through the nose for those same tickets. Why should those fans pay that much money for the privelege of having great seats when the team is going to sell the same ticket so cheaply? Having families and kids enjoy the game in a way that would otherwise be impossible for them is the "right" answer, but it's probably not the right answer for a team that is trying to make money. >>
I don't understand why the teams CAN'T lower the prices this year. So what if people from now through the end of the season pay less than people did before now. It's simple supply-and-demand. The people who have already bought tickets did so of their own free will, based on the knowledge they had at that time. It's the same as if I go to the gas station today and buy gas for my car, and then tomorrow, the station lowers the gas prices. Do I go back to the gas station and complain? No...I bought gas today based on the knowledge I had at the time, and did so of my own free will. Same as buying any commodity, such as gold, silver or stocks. If I buy today, and the price goes down tomorrow, even significantly (A LOT of people have recently been through this exact scenario), I don't have any grounds to complain, since no one held a gun to my head and forced me to buy today.
Now...IF it can be determined that either team knew at the time of initial ticket sales, that they would be lowering the prices in the future (highly unlikely), and they withheld that information from ticket buyers, THEN I could see ticket holders having a gripe. Otherwise...NO.
Bottom line...lower the damn ticket prices, and sell them at what is determined to be a fair market value!
Steve
<< <i>A salaray cap simply means more money to the owners, instead of the players. That won't affect ticket prices. An owner isn't just going to give their extra money away simply because SteveK wants them to. They will pocket the savings from a salary cap, and NOT pass the money onto you. What planet are you from Stevek?
As Winpitcher said, the supply and demand will dictate the ticket prices and salaries. I have said a million times, you have no right to complain about the salaries these guys make when you pay hundreds of dollars to go to a game.
If you want salaries and ticket prices to go down, don't go to the games. They will get the message...and it seems the Yanks are getting the message right now. >>
Hey "genius" - Who said it wasn't about supply and demand...but it's also about operating expenses and profit...I've been stating this for awhile now, a bit facetiously about the Yankees going Chapter 11 to make a point..and nobody's denying that point now are they? Most of the geniuses here stated the Yankees would easily sell all their seats in their new stadium at virtually any price. I clearly stated the Yankees weren't adjusting to a changed economic climate by continuing their usual free agent wild spending ways as though money was no object...well money seems to be an object now doesn't it...and frankly, the Yankees should have seen it coming.
One day I think you might finally get it...a salary cap not only keeps the Yankees dopey management from getting into trouble, but it ensures better balance in MLB giving most teams a decent shot at a championship...and in my opinion would increase the popularity of MLB. But I guess you probably think MLB baseball is still the national pastime when the NFL surpassed MLB many years ago, and I believe one big reason for that was that MLB did not install a salary cap.
<< <i>A salary cap has done little to affect ticket prices in the NBA or NFL. What's a courtside seat cost for a Lakers game at the Staples center? $2k+, and the cost only goes up year to year. Same with premium seats at any NFL game. A salary cap would do nothing to throttle back ticket prices for any sporting event. The only thing that will affect ticket prices is for people to stop consuming them. >>
100% correct. Player salaries are partially a function of ticket prices, but the reverse is not true; i.e., ticket prices are not a function of player salaries. To argue otherwise would be to say that revenue is a function of cost, which doesn't make any sense.
Also, there's been recent evidence suggesting that team payroll does not have an independent causal effect on team wins, despite the fact that all economic theory would suggest that it does. Why? One theory is because players hit free agency at (roughly) 28 years of age, which is just about the time that they hit their performance peak. They decline after that, and yet it's in those declining years that teams (irrationally) decide to pay them the most money. Again, this is a general rule, so I don't want to hear about all the exceptions, because obviously this doesn't apply to everyone who's ever put on a MLB uni in their early 30's. In general, however, this has been demonstrated to be partially true, and could explain why the leak between payroll and team wins is so weak in professional sports.
<< <i>If the economy didn't tank there would be plenty of dumb people and companies who would have paid the outrageous prices the Yankees are asking for these seats.
2 grand per game per seat for prime seating is a gigantic and biblical increase of the previous 300 bucks or so for the haughty taughty seats.
Its not a salary cap issue, it is a Yankee greed issue. 90% or so of the seats in the stadium are sold for the season because there were modest or no price increases with them.
They made a mistake, especially considering the economy, those seats will sell when something is done about the empty ones and the pacification of the dopes who actually paid those prices. >>
Who's to say it was a mistake? Assuming the Yankees have some monopoly power in the market for live MLB baseball (and they almost certainly do), then the profit maximizing price for those tickets occurs at the intersection of the marginal cost and the marginal revenue curves. Marginal cost is the cost of supplying one additional seat; marginal revenue is the revenue you gain from selling one more unit (or, in this case, ticket). I don't know what the Yankees' cost curves look like, so I can't speak to this one way or another, but it's very possible that they're profit maximizing right now, even with some seats unsold. In any case, declaring that the Yankees must have made a pricing mistake because they haven't sold out is incorrect-- you can see this in plenty of other markets (see movie theatres, for instance) where units go unsold and yet the firm is profit maximizing.
<< <i>A salary cap has done little to affect ticket prices in the NBA or NFL. What's a courtside seat cost for a Lakers game at the Staples center? $2k+, and the cost only goes up year to year. Same with premium seats at any NFL game. A salary cap would do nothing to throttle back ticket prices for any sporting event. The only thing that will affect ticket prices is for people to stop consuming them. >>
Now how in the heck do you know that or can you be sure of that? I mean come on now, I realize it's conjecture, but it would be naive, and in my view quite naive to believe that without a salary cap, that ticket prices wouldn't be higher, and likely if not definitely much higher than they are now in the NFL and NBA. And please stop with the analogy of the Lakers games whereby there are the Hollywood big shots who buy these tickets and money is basically no object to them...that's just not an analogy valid to most teams out there.
<< <i>
<< <i>A salary cap has done little to affect ticket prices in the NBA or NFL. What's a courtside seat cost for a Lakers game at the Staples center? $2k+, and the cost only goes up year to year. Same with premium seats at any NFL game. A salary cap would do nothing to throttle back ticket prices for any sporting event. The only thing that will affect ticket prices is for people to stop consuming them. >>
Now how in the heck do you know that or can you be sure of that? I mean come on now, I realize it's conjecture, but it would be naive, and in my view quite naive to believe that without a salary cap, that ticket prices wouldn't be higher, and likely if not definitely much higher than they are now in the NFL and NBA. And please stop with the analogy of the Lakers games whereby there are the Hollywood big shots who buy these tickets and money is basically no object to them...that's just not an analogy valid to most teams out there. >>
Why would Laker tickets be an invalid analogy to Yankee tickets? Don't both teams represent the most expensive tickets in their respective leagues? Aren't the people buying $2500 tickets to yankee games the same people buying floor seats to the lakers? Not everyone on the floor at Staples is a celebrity, just like not everyone in those super expensive seats at Yankee stadium is a celebrity.
Why is it naive to think that a salary cap would not have an effect on ticket pricing? If there was a relation between a salary cap and ticket pricing, then there would surely be equitable pricing at every NFL stadium throughout the country. We all know that's not the case. There are some markets that will bear an extraordinary, select group of tickets. Be it floor seats at the lakers or the ultra premium $2500 tickets at yankee stadium, people in these markets will pay extreme amounts of money for select seating, whether or not there is a salary cap in play.
No offense, but I think the naive line of thinking is to assume that a salary cap would have any bearing whatsoever on ticket prices. We've seen it have no bearing on NBA and NFL tickets, there's nothing to suggest it would apply to MLB, either.
<< <i>
<< <i>If the economy didn't tank there would be plenty of dumb people and companies who would have paid the outrageous prices the Yankees are asking for these seats.
2 grand per game per seat for prime seating is a gigantic and biblical increase of the previous 300 bucks or so for the haughty taughty seats.
Its not a salary cap issue, it is a Yankee greed issue. 90% or so of the seats in the stadium are sold for the season because there were modest or no price increases with them.
They made a mistake, especially considering the economy, those seats will sell when something is done about the empty ones and the pacification of the dopes who actually paid those prices. >>
Who's to say it was a mistake? Assuming the Yankees have some monopoly power in the market for live MLB baseball (and they almost certainly do), then the profit maximizing price for those tickets occurs at the intersection of the marginal cost and the marginal revenue curves. Marginal cost is the cost of supplying one additional seat; marginal revenue is the revenue you gain from selling one more unit (or, in this case, ticket). I don't know what the Yankees' cost curves look like, so I can't speak to this one way or another, but it's very possible that they're profit maximizing right now, even with some seats unsold. In any case, declaring that the Yankees must have made a pricing mistake because they haven't sold out is incorrect-- you can see this in plenty of other markets (see movie theatres, for instance) where units go unsold and yet the firm is profit maximizing. >>
I'm just kidding but it sounds as though you would make a good manager in the Yankees front office and my opinion of their front office borders on incompetence.
There is no way, in my opinion, the Yankees are "profit maximizing" at this point. Comparing sports ticket sales and movie ticket sales is apples and oranges. In sports, the teams basically have control over their product whereby a movie theatre does not and is dictated to by the movie studios in various aspects and you can read about that if you wish. If the Yankees were profit maximizing, they would have a better sliding scale in place to sell these tickets and they should have all these tickets sold in prime seats such as this. And as you know the extra revenue derived from a ticket sale is increased with various food and beverage, and souvenirs, parking, other revenue, etc derived from getting people in the seats. I'm not saying at all that your "profit maximizing" comments are incorrect because most companies use that as a basic business sales model, but in my opinion it's pretty clear that the Yankees are not doing that at this time.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>A salary cap has done little to affect ticket prices in the NBA or NFL. What's a courtside seat cost for a Lakers game at the Staples center? $2k+, and the cost only goes up year to year. Same with premium seats at any NFL game. A salary cap would do nothing to throttle back ticket prices for any sporting event. The only thing that will affect ticket prices is for people to stop consuming them. >>
Now how in the heck do you know that or can you be sure of that? I mean come on now, I realize it's conjecture, but it would be naive, and in my view quite naive to believe that without a salary cap, that ticket prices wouldn't be higher, and likely if not definitely much higher than they are now in the NFL and NBA. And please stop with the analogy of the Lakers games whereby there are the Hollywood big shots who buy these tickets and money is basically no object to them...that's just not an analogy valid to most teams out there. >>
Why would Laker tickets be an invalid analogy to Yankee tickets? Don't both teams represent the most expensive tickets in their respective leagues? Aren't the people buying $2500 tickets to yankee games the same people buying floor seats to the lakers? Not everyone on the floor at Staples is a celebrity, just like not everyone in those super expensive seats at Yankee stadium is a celebrity.
Why is it naive to think that a salary cap would not have an effect on ticket pricing? If there was a relation between a salary cap and ticket pricing, then there would surely be equitable pricing at every NFL stadium throughout the country. We all know that's not the case. There are some markets that will bear an extraordinary, select group of tickets. Be it floor seats at the lakers or the ultra premium $2500 tickets at yankee stadium, people in these markets will pay extreme amounts of money for select seating, whether or not there is a salary cap in play.
No offense, but I think the naive line of thinking is to assume that a salary cap would have any bearing whatsoever on ticket prices. We've seen it have no bearing on NBA and NFL tickets, there's nothing to suggest it would apply to MLB, either. >>
Well, we could go round and round on this, but come on now...if the NFL and NBA didn't have a salary cap, I don't think it's debatable that their ticket prices would increase and possibly dramatically in many instances. You gotta understand something...sometimes if not often these player union representatives are perceived as dopes being manipulated by the owners...they are not dopes...they realize if salaries get too far out of control, that it could have major long term or even short term repercussions on the health of their industry, therefore, they give a little back to get more in the future...actually good business and smart business on their part, protecting the owners from themselves, so that their represented players have a solid future.
MLB needs a salary cap to ensure the successful long term future of their product...and sooner or later it will happen. Case closed.
<< <i>
Well, we could go round and round on this, but come on now...if the NFL and NBA didn't have a salary cap, I don't think it's debatable that their ticket prices would increase and possibly dramatically in many instances. You gotta understand something...sometimes if not often these player union representatives are perceived as dopes being manipulated by the owners...they are not dopes...they realize if salaries get too far out of control, that it could have major long term or even short term repercussions on the health of their industry, therefore, they give a little back to get more in the future...actually good business and smart business on their part, protecting the owners from themselves, so that their represented players have a solid future.
MLB needs a salary cap to ensure the successful long term future of their product...and sooner or later it will happen. Case closed. >>
I'm sure you realize this, but it wasn't the player union reps in the NFL who got the cap put in place, it was owners with foresight like Mara of the NY Giants, a team who would lose the most with a cap. And you do realize that the salary cap is coming off after this year, right? That the 2010 season is set to be 'uncapped'. If the players' union reps were as powerful as you make them out to be, who wanted the cap in place for long term health of the sport, then there would have been no way this could have happened. As it is it was the owners who decided to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement.
You state that MLB needs a cap to ensure the future of their product, and yet the sport has never been healthier in terms of attendance. 2008 saw a downturn of just over 1 percent, after 4 years of record setting attendance figures. A cap (or lack thereof) will never be an issue when it comes to baseball attendance. What will be will be the overall economic turmoil the country currently faces. However, even if a cap were in place we'd be seeing the same troubles with attendance. If you think that the cost of going to a game would be any cheaper with a cap in place, well, I don't know what to tell you. As the poster above stated, all a cap would do would be to take money from the players and put it into the owners' pockets. The cost of going to a game would be the same whether or not there a cap existed.
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Well, we could go round and round on this, but come on now...if the NFL and NBA didn't have a salary cap, I don't think it's debatable that their ticket prices would increase and possibly dramatically in many instances. You gotta understand something...sometimes if not often these player union representatives are perceived as dopes being manipulated by the owners...they are not dopes...they realize if salaries get too far out of control, that it could have major long term or even short term repercussions on the health of their industry, therefore, they give a little back to get more in the future...actually good business and smart business on their part, protecting the owners from themselves, so that their represented players have a solid future.
MLB needs a salary cap to ensure the successful long term future of their product...and sooner or later it will happen. Case closed. >>
I'm sure you realize this, but it wasn't the player union reps in the NFL who got the cap put in place, it was owners with foresight like Mara of the NY Giants, a team who would lose the most with a cap. And you do realize that the salary cap is coming off after this year, right? That the 2010 season is set to be 'uncapped'. If the players' union reps were as powerful as you make them out to be, who wanted the cap in place for long term health of the sport, then there would have been no way this could have happened. As it is it was the owners who decided to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement.
You state that MLB needs a cap to ensure the future of their product, and yet the sport has never been healthier in terms of attendance. 2008 saw a downturn of just over 1 percent, after 4 years of record setting attendance figures. A cap (or lack thereof) will never be an issue when it comes to baseball attendance. What will be will be the overall economic turmoil the country currently faces. However, even if a cap were in place we'd be seeing the same troubles with attendance. If you think that the cost of going to a game would be any cheaper with a cap in place, well, I don't know what to tell you. As the poster above stated, all a cap would do would be to take money from the players and put it into the owners' pockets. The cost of going to a game would be the same whether or not there a cap existed. >>
There will still be restrictions in place when it goes "uncapped" to safeguard against excessive spending by the same teams year after year like in MLB...that's what it's all about...excessive spending that isn't affordable...and the fans windup paying the costs in higher ticket prices and other things as well...of course it seems the excessive spending may have finally reached its peak, as does everything sooner or later.
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Who's to say it was a mistake? Assuming the Yankees have some monopoly power in the market for live MLB baseball (and they almost certainly do), then the profit maximizing price for those tickets occurs at the intersection of the marginal cost and the marginal revenue curves. Marginal cost is the cost of supplying one additional seat; marginal revenue is the revenue you gain from selling one more unit (or, in this case, ticket). I don't know what the Yankees' cost curves look like, so I can't speak to this one way or another, but it's very possible that they're profit maximizing right now, even with some seats unsold. In any case, declaring that the Yankees must have made a pricing mistake because they haven't sold out is incorrect-- you can see this in plenty of other markets (see movie theatres, for instance) where units go unsold and yet the firm is profit maximizing. >>
It was a mistake. Period. End of story and GOOD NIGHT.
If there are no hot dog eating fannies in large quantities of seats right down by the dugouts, behind homeplate, etc and the rest of the Stadium is filled then a huge mistake has been made.
The Yankees and Hank Steinbrenner have admitted to the media that a mistake has been made. It is also a huge embarassment to the Yankees to have opened a brand new ballpark after 84 years
and all you see is empty seats on television right down at the field and read stories from all over the nation chuckling about this suddenly new phenomenon at yankee Stadium. This makes the movie theatre example absolutely irrelevant to a case like this.
ISO 1978 Topps Baseball in NM-MT High Grade Raw 3, 100, 103, 302, 347, 376, 416, 466, 481, 487, 509, 534, 540, 554, 579, 580, 622, 642, 673, 724__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ISO 1978 O-Pee-Chee in NM-MT High Grade Raw12, 21, 29, 38, 49, 65, 69, 73, 74, 81, 95, 100, 104, 110, 115, 122, 132, 133, 135, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 160, 161, 167, 168, 172, 179, 181, 196, 200, 204, 210, 224, 231, 240
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MLB needs a salary cap to ensure the successful long term future of their product...and sooner or later it will happen. Case closed. >>
No salary cap is happening in MLB anytime soon.
ISO 1978 Topps Baseball in NM-MT High Grade Raw 3, 100, 103, 302, 347, 376, 416, 466, 481, 487, 509, 534, 540, 554, 579, 580, 622, 642, 673, 724__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ISO 1978 O-Pee-Chee in NM-MT High Grade Raw12, 21, 29, 38, 49, 65, 69, 73, 74, 81, 95, 100, 104, 110, 115, 122, 132, 133, 135, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 160, 161, 167, 168, 172, 179, 181, 196, 200, 204, 210, 224, 231, 240
<< <i>I don't understand why the teams CAN'T lower the prices this year. So what if people from now through the end of the season pay less than people did before now. >>
Hypothetically, the current season ticket holders could sue because their ticket value was affected by the team. It's one thing if brokers are selling them for less than face but when the team does it, they have grounds to file and would probably win.
Whether or not it makes baseball more or less popular, I don't know. But I am quite certain it won't lower the ticket prices.
Operating costs savings will go into the owners pockets.
By the way, Football is NOT the national pastime, gambling is. Football's high popularity is fueled directly by this aspect.
Rows of empty seats has been the norm for the Florida Marlins for years now, so instead of moving to Las Vegas or Jacksonville, or any of the 100 cities that would most likely draw baseball patrons into a ballpark much better than South Florida.
So the Marlins answer to empty seats? Build a new stadium.
That sounds familiar?
rd
Quicksilver Messenger Service - Smokestack Lightning (Live) 1968
Quicksilver Messenger Service - The Hat (Live) 1971
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Who's to say it was a mistake? Assuming the Yankees have some monopoly power in the market for live MLB baseball (and they almost certainly do), then the profit maximizing price for those tickets occurs at the intersection of the marginal cost and the marginal revenue curves. Marginal cost is the cost of supplying one additional seat; marginal revenue is the revenue you gain from selling one more unit (or, in this case, ticket). I don't know what the Yankees' cost curves look like, so I can't speak to this one way or another, but it's very possible that they're profit maximizing right now, even with some seats unsold. In any case, declaring that the Yankees must have made a pricing mistake because they haven't sold out is incorrect-- you can see this in plenty of other markets (see movie theatres, for instance) where units go unsold and yet the firm is profit maximizing. >>
It was a mistake. Period. End of story and GOOD NIGHT.
If there are no hot dog eating fannies in large quantities of seats right down by the dugouts, behind homeplate, etc and the rest of the Stadium is filled then a huge mistake has been made.
The Yankees and Hank Steinbrenner have admitted to the media that a mistake has been made. It is also a huge embarassment to the Yankees to have opened a brand new ballpark after 84 years
and all you see is empty seats on television right down at the field and read stories from all over the nation chuckling about this suddenly new phenomenon at yankee Stadium. This makes the movie theatre example absolutely irrelevant to a case like this. >>
Unless you have access to the Yankees' cost curves-- and I'm going to guess that you don't-- then you have no way of knowing whether they are profit maximizing or not. You can carry on about fannies in seats and $5 hot dogs all you want, but all of it amounts to nothing but baseless speculation.
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<< <i>I don't understand why the teams CAN'T lower the prices this year. So what if people from now through the end of the season pay less than people did before now. >>
Hypothetically, the current season ticket holders could sue because their ticket value was affected by the team. It's one thing if brokers are selling them for less than face but when the team does it, they have grounds to file and would probably win. >>
I see what you're saying Stown, but then why couldn't fans sue a team under that hypothesis if say for instance, the team's ownership suddenly traded their best player(s), or the team just played badly. Wouldn't both those scenarios also affect ticket value?
Steve
<< <i>There will still be restrictions in place when it goes "uncapped" to safeguard against excessive spending by the same teams year after year like in MLB...that's what it's all about...excessive spending that isn't affordable...and the fans windup paying the costs in higher ticket prices and other things as well...of course it seems the excessive spending may have finally reached its peak, as does everything sooner or later. >>
The only restrictions on the uncapped year will be for the 8 playoff teams. They will only be allowed to sign the same number of free agents as they lose. Other than that, teams will face no limitation. What is limited is that teams will be able to slap two franchise tags on players, and the number of years to be eligible for free agency goes to 6 from 4.
So, a team like the Redskins, which consistently is in the top 5 in revenue, if they finish out of the playoffs, will be able to spend as much as they want in the uncapped year. The only teams affected will be those who went to the playoffs. And I'm going to disagree with you again in stating that fans pay higher costs due to higher salaries. There's just no evidence to support the argument that baseball ticket prices have risen at a higher rate than the NFL or NBA because of the lack of a salary cap.
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It was a mistake. Period. End of story and GOOD NIGHT.
If there are no hot dog eating fannies in large quantities of seats right down by the dugouts, behind homeplate, etc and the rest of the Stadium is filled then a huge mistake has been made.
The Yankees and Hank Steinbrenner have admitted to the media that a mistake has been made. It is also a huge embarassment to the Yankees to have opened a brand new ballpark after 84 years
and all you see is empty seats on television right down at the field and read stories from all over the nation chuckling about this suddenly new phenomenon at yankee Stadium. This makes the movie theatre example absolutely irrelevant to a case like this. >>
When did Steinbrenner (or anyone from the yankees organization) come out and claim it was a mistake? I don't recall that happening but I very well could have missed it. If you have a link I'd love to read it.
It's apparent nobody (within any organization) knew full well the impact of the recession. It would be a bigger mistake to suddenly and radically adjust pricing, as it would simply alienate those who have already paid top dollar. And, who knows. With the economy showing signs of life, those seats might be full before you know it. I'm sure people within the organization took a calculated risk and are still more than profitable, even with the number of empty seats. I'm sure the people making these decisions know a hell of a lot more about the situation, about the costs and the revenues, and have decided the money they're making (even if not selling them out) is more than enough to cover their costs and run a nice little profit as well.
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<< <i>I don't understand why the teams CAN'T lower the prices this year. So what if people from now through the end of the season pay less than people did before now. >>
Hypothetically, the current season ticket holders could sue because their ticket value was affected by the team. It's one thing if brokers are selling them for less than face but when the team does it, they have grounds to file and would probably win. >>
I see what you're saying Stown, but then why couldn't fans sue a team under that hypothesis if say for instance, the team's ownership suddenly traded their best player(s), or the team just played badly. Wouldn't both those scenarios also affect ticket value?
Steve >>
Ironically, some fans have sued because of your scenario but nothing ever came from it.
By placing a lack-luster team on the field, the perceived value of a ticket could/would diminish. However, if the teams lowered the prices across the board, they are actively (and some could say maliciously) reducing the actual ticket value.
For a hypothetical, say a residential developer built a subdivision of 100 homes. He sells 60 of them at $100k a pop and cannot move the other 40, regardless of the incentives. They decide to blow them out at $60k just so they can get rid of the inventory. Existing owners yell foul and take the developer's rear to court since he negatively affected their homes value.
Yea sure, if ya print hundreds of billions of dollars anything might show some life. The DJIA is still below 8000 - the stock market is one of the best if the the best leading economic indicator out there with a leading range of about 6 months, and it's clearly indicating no growth for around the next 6 months. This economy is showing no signs of real growth...only phony growth that comes with printing money.
Here's an easy call, a real easy call...those expensive Yankee seats are gonna be empty all summer, and it may even get worse.
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Here's an easy call, a real easy call...those expensive Yankee seats are gonna be empty all summer, and it may even get worse. >>
I agree about the economy, but I don't agree about these seats being empty when the pennant races heat up this summer.
If the Yanks are out of it, then yes, they'll be empty.
The hedge funds, real estate tycoons, and others who bought these seats have enough money to buy the whole stadium.
Think about it. Guys making 5,000,000 a year spending 2,500 a seat is like a guy making 50,000 a year spending 25 per seat.
There are PLENTY of people making 5 million a year spending money on Yankee tickets. They are EASILY making 5 mil/year and much,
much more.
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Unless you have access to the Yankees' cost curves-- and I'm going to guess that you don't-- then you have no way of knowing whether they are profit maximizing or not. You can carry on about fannies in seats and $5 hot dogs all you want, but all of it amounts to nothing but baseless speculation. >>
Ok, when did this empty seat issue ever become an issue about whether or not the Yankees are making a profit? That is ridiculous. The Yanks probably nearly break even just with the YES Network. So come on, stop trying to sound like some kind of economic guru.
You can carry on about horse crap like "cost curves" and "profit maximizing" all you want. The New York Yankees are not maximizing anything with tons of prime empty seats on so many levels. Ticket sales, food sales, parking sales, media scrutiny, and plain old embarrassment is happening here.
It is HIDEOUS to have a packed stadium except down by the dugouts and home plate.
ISO 1978 Topps Baseball in NM-MT High Grade Raw 3, 100, 103, 302, 347, 376, 416, 466, 481, 487, 509, 534, 540, 554, 579, 580, 622, 642, 673, 724__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ISO 1978 O-Pee-Chee in NM-MT High Grade Raw12, 21, 29, 38, 49, 65, 69, 73, 74, 81, 95, 100, 104, 110, 115, 122, 132, 133, 135, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 160, 161, 167, 168, 172, 179, 181, 196, 200, 204, 210, 224, 231, 240
Get taken to the woodshed?
I think I said it all in my first post:
Supply and demand. When demand dwindles prices will lower.
Take some of your own advice professor Stevek and listen to the big boys.
That will make you a genius.
BAM!
Steve
<< <i>Geez what happened teach?
Get taken to the woodshed?
I think I said it all in my first post:
Supply and demand. When demand dwindles prices will lower.
Take some of your own advice professor Stevek and listen to the big boys.
That will make you a genius.
BAM!
Steve >>
What woodshed? It's all hypothetical and opinion...you can't go to the woodshed on that unless you've got really thin skin, and I don't know any regulars here at Sports Talk who have thin skin - LOL
Steve
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Unless you have access to the Yankees' cost curves-- and I'm going to guess that you don't-- then you have no way of knowing whether they are profit maximizing or not. You can carry on about fannies in seats and $5 hot dogs all you want, but all of it amounts to nothing but baseless speculation. >>
Ok, when did this empty seat issue ever become an issue about whether or not the Yankees are making a profit? That is ridiculous. The Yanks probably nearly break even just with the YES Network. So come on, stop trying to sound like some kind of economic guru.
You can carry on about horse crap like "cost curves" and "profit maximizing" all you want. The New York Yankees are not maximizing anything with tons of prime empty seats on so many levels. Ticket sales, food sales, parking sales, media scrutiny, and plain old embarrassment is happening here.
It is HIDEOUS to have a packed stadium except down by the dugouts and home plate. >>
You embarrass yourself only further with each subsequent post. 'Cost curves' and 'profit maximizing' aren't, as you've so eloquently stated, 'horse crap'-- they're the coin of the realm in the world of business. And without access to that information nobody-- not me, and sure as hell not you-- have any idea whether these empty seats are a problem.
Here's another 'horse crap' concept: If you have market power (i.e., you can set a price, and don't have to sell at the market price), you generally want to keep raising the price until you reach the point where a 1% increase in price will be attended by a 1% decrease in the quantity demanded. In other words, to the point where the price elasticity has an absolute value of '1'. If the value is LESS than one-- which it may be with the Yankees, although I'll reiterate that nobody here knows one way or another-- then you keep raising the price.
This could be an interesting discussion, and I'll be happy to continue my part in it if anyone (including yourself) is interested in genuinely exploring the issue. But I'm not going to trade insults-- you'll have to find another forum member to oblige you on that front.
Edit to add: Forbes doesn't appear to see the empty seats as a huge concern.
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You embarrass yourself only further with each subsequent post. 'Cost curves' and 'profit maximizing' aren't, as you've so eloquently stated, 'horse crap'-- they're the coin of the realm in the world of business. And without access to that information nobody-- not me, and sure as hell not you-- have any idea whether these empty seats are a problem.
Here's another 'horse crap' concept: If you have market power (i.e., you can set a price, and don't have to sell at the market price), you generally want to keep raising the price until you reach the point where a 1% increase in price will be attended by a 1% decrease in the quantity demanded. In other words, to the point where the price elasticity has an absolute value of '1'. If the value is LESS than one-- which it may be with the Yankees, although I'll reiterate that nobody here knows one way or another-- then you keep raising the price.
This could be an interesting discussion, and I'll be happy to continue my part in it if anyone (including yourself) is interested in genuinely exploring the issue. But I'm not going to trade insults-- you'll have to find another forum member to oblige you on that front.
Edit to add: Forbes doesn't appear to see the empty seats as a huge concern. >>
heh, you are incredibly lost.
Any rational thinking person knows gobs of empty seats in prime locations at a brand new Yankee Stadium is a HUGE red flag.
"Cost curves" and "profit maximizing"
Did you just get a job in the Yankee front office?
If ONE other person other then yourself defends such crap I will relent. In the city of New York opening a brand new Yankee Stadium with loads of empty prime real estate is a DISGRACE. A disgrace on the Yankees part for outrageously raising ticket prices in a abysmal economy.
I am sorry you are naive enough to stick to incredibly flawed business analysis.
ISO 1978 Topps Baseball in NM-MT High Grade Raw 3, 100, 103, 302, 347, 376, 416, 466, 481, 487, 509, 534, 540, 554, 579, 580, 622, 642, 673, 724__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ISO 1978 O-Pee-Chee in NM-MT High Grade Raw12, 21, 29, 38, 49, 65, 69, 73, 74, 81, 95, 100, 104, 110, 115, 122, 132, 133, 135, 140, 142, 151, 153, 155, 160, 161, 167, 168, 172, 179, 181, 196, 200, 204, 210, 224, 231, 240
The front office started going downhill when the Yanks got rid of George Costanza.