Brown: With Inflation Factor Yanks Ticket Cost 1029% More Than in ’67
Maury Brown, in The Biz of Baseball, follows up on the Yankees ticket prices story. (Hat tip to BaseballThinkFactory.org .) The highlights:
+ The longest stretch without an increase was from 1968-1975 where the price remained $4.00
+ In the last decade alone, the cost of a box seat has increased 332 percent, accounting for inflation.
+ The cost of a ticket in 1987 ($10) was less than what a ticket cost in 1967, when accounting for inflation ($12.28)
+ From 1967 to 1994 (27 years), the cost for a box seat was under $20.
+ The cost for a box seat from 1994 was under $30 for only 2 years (1995-1996), $40 for one year (1997),$50 for one year (1998)
+ The largest percentage of price increase is from last year to this: $100.
As I noted in my comments yesterday, the Yankees increases from 1994 through 1998, and from 2005 through 2008, are just obscene from a few-years standpoint.
And, seeing these reports doesn’t change the way I felt last December when I wrote:
Is the only way that you’ll be able to afford decent seats to a Yankees game will be if you’re willing to scalp after the first inning is already played?
Worse, I don’t think that the Yankees care that they’re forcing the “everyday diehard fan” out of being able to go to a game. There will be enough well-to-do people, celebrities, corporations, etc., willing to buy tickets for games at the new Stadium – so, at the end of the day, the Yankees will still get their revenue. But, I will suggest this: There will be a change in the atmosphere at the new Stadium. With the “died in the wool” fans relegated to the few seats affordable and available in the upper deck and/or bleachers, and the majority of the seats filled with “Milli Vanilli type” poser-fans, going to a Yankees game, after 2008, will have an artificial feel to it.
It’s going to happen. No doubt about it, for me.
100% correct…. and it’s a terrible shame.