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In the business of baseball, it is important for teams to make as much money that they can. Whether it be merchandising, TV contracts or tickets, the objective is to turn a profit.
When a team has attendance issues, they may install a flexible pricing platform where they raise prices for rivals and appealing opponents (or teams whose fan base travels well Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals). This is an old practice and probably frustrating for the fans of the local nine looking to take their family out to random games. Take the Tampa Bay Rays for example: An outfield ticket is $17 for a regular game, $20 for marquee games and $24 for Prime games. Note the Rays don’t make it easy to find the definition of each game.
While I see no reason to argue with the pricing model, I do take exception for the new plan that I read about in Sports Illustrated from the . Instead of pricing per opponent, fans can expect to pay more/less pending on who the starter is for 2,000 of the hardest to sell tickets. Expect to pay more for NL Cy Young Award Winner Tim Lincecum each time he toes the rubber.
The price range is between $5-$50 with a day-to-day fluctuation of just $.50. Doesn’t sound bad and initial projections show $810,000 increase in revenue if all tickets are sold for a five-spot.
The plan would make sense, especially for a team looking to find a way to pay Barry Zito’s insane contract. However,
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I can’t help but laugh especially when the Giant’s VP of Ticket Services Russ Stanley notes that the light went on for this idea – scalpers during Barry Bonds’ home run chase.
“It was our softest opponent, softest day of the week, and tickets were only $10. We could have been charging $50,” noting that scalpers were bringing that in.
Only in America can scalpers start a trend on tickets in a sport married to its traditions. And if you were wondering the Giants have distanced themselves from Bonds and his legal circus.