Yankee Ticket Prices - Good Lord...

Being a huge baseball fan, I often take out the opportunity to scour other ballparks in the nation. As well, because of my occupation, I sometimes get to see other parks on my company's tab (ok, I pay for the tickets, but not much else).

Today, I'm going to write about the Yankees. Love them, or hate them, they are the embodiment of the capitalism system that exists today in the United States. I'm not going to go into "why the Yankees have ruined baseball" argument today, but I'm opine in a succinct manner on their ticket prices.

Yankee 2007 Ticket Prices:

FULL-SEASON PARTIAL ADVANCE GAME DAY
BOX SEATS
Field Championship
Box 1-68 (Rows A-D) $150.00 $160.00 $300.00 $400.00
Box 1-68 (Rows E-G) $135.00 $145.00 $280.00 $380.00
Box 1-68 (Rows H-K) $125.00 $135.00 $260.00 $360.00
Box 69-80 (Rows A-D) $135.00 $145.00 $280.00 $380.00
Box 69-80 (Rows E-G) $125.00 $135.00 $260.00 $360.00
Box 69-80 (Rows H-K) $115.00 $125.00 $240.00 $340.00

Main Championship $85.00 $95.00 $180.00 $280.00
Loge Championship $120.00 $130.00 $250.00 $350.00
Field Box $63.00 $68.00 $73.00 $78.00
Main Box MVP $73.00 $78.00 $83.00 $88.00
Loge Box MVP $63.00 $68.00 $73.00 $78.00
Main Box $48.00 $53.00 $58.00 $63.00
Loge Box $45.00 $50.00 $55.00 $60.00
Tier Box MVP $50.00 $55.00 $60.00 $65.00
Tier Box $35.00 $37.00 $40.00 $42.00

RESERVED SEATS
Main Reserved MVP $56.00 $61.00 $66.00 $71.00
Main Reserved $40.00 $45.00 $50.00 $55.00
Tier Reserved $17.00 $18.00 $19.00 $20.00

BLEACHER SEATS $10.00 $10.00 $12.00 $12.00


Now, I have many friends & co-workers in the area who love the Yankees (I mean to a psychotic passion) and I shudder to think if they wanted to take a road trip up there. Well, if you add the price of tolls, gas, and whatever else, you'll be spending your car note to go see a ball game, unless you care to sit in the bleachers.

If you want to see Yankees game with a family of four, unless you are making 6 figures or know someone with free tickets, how the hell is a family of 4 supposed to see a ball game up there?

Someone has to pay for PAY-Rod (cough, I mean A-Rod), Jeter's, Giambi's, Posada's, Mussina's, and (insert any multi-millionaire as well) and it's the fans. Too bad the corporations and high rollers get to sit up close to touch their heroes, while the working man has to sit far from the action.

Here's a quick summarization about the ticket prices from NY Newsday Yankee Blog:

"Just about all of the tickets from loge box MVP and above are already sold out as part of ticket packages, so you can forget about those unless your company buys a plan. As for the ticket prices, the Yankees substantially increased gameday ticket prices for the best seats -- as much as $400!!! -- but COO Lonn Trost says 98 percent of those tickets are bought at the season ticket rate. There will be a small number of those available to the public, and the Yankees make no qualms about selling them for the high rate. "If we don’t sell them at that price," Trost said, "the brokers are selling them at that price." Trost added that by raising those prices so much, they were able to not raise prices for upper deck and bleacher seats for the third straight year."

Yikes. Is one supposed to feel better? I mean, just suck as much as you can from your fanbase, you know. So much for the family making 50, 60 grand per year or less! I have a good job with great pay, but even I'd choose to sit the cheap seats. I went to Fenway and paid $135 per ticket to sit 8 rows from the field near the visiting dugout, but the Yankee ticket prices just scream highway robbery!

As much as we hate Angelos for the losing seasons and his indifference to signing free agents who *actually make* an impact, I'll say he's kept prices affordable and some of the lowest in baseball.

What does this mean for all of us in Baltimore at Yard and who are O's fans?

More Yankee fans, Baltimore streets covered in blue, being outnumbered in our park, & obnoxiousness from our friends throughout 2007.