General

Yankees Brilliant Solution to Empty Premium Seats: Raise Ticket Prices Next Season

Apr 23, 2009, 2:35 PM UTC

The Yankees are tops in the big leagues in home attendance this season, so really, no one can gripe too much about their exorbitant ticket prices. People are still going to the new park, and they’re doing so in larger numbers than any other stadium. (Or, if you fancy mocking the Nationals attendance, as most do, New York is lapping Washington’s average.) â†µâ†µBut, if you’ve watched a Yankees home game this season, you’ve probably noticed a sight similar to this in the area surrounding home plate: â†µ

â†µ

â†µâ†µ

â†µâ†µThose seats go for as much as $2,625. The seats in the section directly behind those go for $300. You can guess which wins out. There are other empty patches around the stadium as well, which Simon on Sports illustrates. They all occur in sections at the edge of a more expensive pricing category. So yeah, they have some pricing structures to sort out, the details of which are too complicated for me to offer any realistic solutions, although I’m fairly certain raising the cost of premium tickets (the ones around the plate) is not the way to go.â†µ

â†µ

â†µYes, I said they are raising ticket prices ... next season. By four percent, in fact, which is about a $100 hike on the sections that are already empty. Not only is it illogical, it boarders on insane, as pointed out by Josh Alper at NBC New York (via Mouthpiece Sports):â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥The team’s owner has admitted some of the tickets are overpriced, which is a pretty clear sign that they’re overpriced, but Levine sees no reason to turn back. Either [Yankees president Randy] Levine knows something we don’t about where the economy is headed in the next few months, or he’s insane. â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Here’s a vote for insane. The Yankees’ attendance at their second home game in 2008 was 48,544, which meant nearly 85 percent of the seats were filled. This year, the Yankees got 45,101 people through the turnstiles on day two, or 78.5 percent capacity. â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µBack to my original point, however: They’re still filling 44,000+ seats a game even with the outrageous prices. Although attendance is down slightly, as is attendance across the league (something about the economy teabagging us), they’re still doing just fine. So long as they’re okay with vast sections of vacant blue seats in plain view of the camera.â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: