04/19/24
May 31, 2003
Are baseball stadiums half full or half empty?: The Washington Post looks for possible reasons for the decline in attendance; new stadiums are no longer novel, fan backlash due to paying for new stadiums that hold crap teams, there's a war on. Slate points to a Team Marketing Report survey that reports "reports average ticket price increase of 2.8 percent to $18.69. Cost of family of four to attend a game increases 3.29 percent to $148.66."
posted by kirkaracha to baseball at 05:33 PM - 3 comments
Baseball tickets are cheap, but that's only normal. Let's not forget that baseball is played every single day, unlike any other stadium-sized sport. Teams can't expect 50 000 fans to shell big bucks on a daily basis. In Montreal, the most expensive Expos ticket is 26$, whereas the best Canadiens seats are sold well over 100$. Also, a simple currency conversion doesn't tell the whole story. Price is measured against your buying power. Last time I was in London, everything was priced pretty much the same as in Canada, expect in £. That would be roughly 2.5 times more. Of course, Londoners earn 2.5 times more too. The real suckers are the tourists like me. Anyways, 24 £ seems rather cheap for Premiership soccer.
posted by qbert72 at 05:50 PM on June 01, 2003
That's a good point about the frequency of the games qbert. I hadn't thought of that. Looking at my calculations again I'd reckon that the £24ish I estimated for average ticket price is probably actually the average cheapest ticket at each ground. I can't find any more exact figures though.
posted by squealy at 03:27 AM on June 02, 2003
Is it really down to prices though? As far as my terrible maths can calculate the average ticket price quoted by kirkachara would be about £12 in real money. That's about half of the average ticket price in the English Premiership and yet attendances have never been so healthy. Perhaps it's more the quality of the fare on offer that's the problem. Embrace the future. The future is soccer. ;-) Btw, I like baseball.