Much has been made in the past few days about all the empty seats in the field level boxes. Peter Abraham is reporting that Yankee officials are claiming those expensive seats are actually sold, but the people who bought them are afraid to use them.
Meanwhile, I heard an interesting theory from somebody with the Yankees on Tuesday. They claim that many of those empty seats we’re seeing are actually sold, but the ticket-holders are afraid to attend games because they work for troubled businesses and don’t want to be caught living it up on television.
That’s just great. The seats are so extravagant that wealthy people won’t attend because it’ll make them look bad. Maybe the Yankees can provide disguises to these folks. Your bank get bailed out by the feds? Here’s a Joe Girardi mask. Have a good time.
That sounds a bit weak on the face of it, but then Jason over at Its About the Money, Stupid chimes in with this personal account.
A few weeks back, we went to a friends’ house for an afternoon. While watching the Masters with my friend (a Wall Streeter), we were discussing this and he made an interesting point. He said to me: “Jason, even if I had those great seats that cost $2500 a ticket, I can’t take a client there. It’s not worth the risk.” I asked him about what risk he was talking about and his answer surprised me as I hadn’t thought of that: “If someone recognizes me sitting behind the dugout and it comes out that I used my Firm’s resources for those seats, and we’ve taken TARP money from the government, I don’t want that sort of publicity or getting calls from The Post.” He’s not a famous guy at all, but there’s a fear that someone might see him and he’ll get “outed” for using Firm money to attend a game. He also told me that he’s not alone with this fear.
What, are they at the stadium but hiding in the NYY Steakhouse? I haven’t seen rich people this scared since Jan 1st, 1959 in Cuba, when Castro took Santa Clara and Batista fled the country.
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TIQ IQ
It seems that the number of empty seats and the seperation of the “classes” is all that Pete Abraham reports anymore. Guy can’t write one blog post without pointing out the empty seats. Can’t we give this topic a rest already?
Also I don’t know what game Abraham was at last night, since he reported it was dead silent, but I was there and maybe it was just my section but the bleachers were rocking last night. It was extremely rowdy for a midweek game played in bad weather. I guess some people just hear what they want to hear.
It sounded quite loud on TV as well. Also, I think people have already begun romanticizing the old place, like it was always loud.
As a yankee fan I’ll say the old place had a lot charm to it, at least to me. But to be perfectly honest, it was a dump. It smelled, the bathroom’s sucked, the food sucked, pretty much everything but the beautiful field sucked. To be fair it was over 70 years old, but after stepping into the new ballpark I can’t see how anyone would miss the old one.
And what a shock, Abraham’s newest blog post is about….the empty seats! Can we please move on already?!?
Steve,
I think there is some real credence to the account that I shared, as well as what Pete followed up with. These tix were likely bought some time ago, before the floor fell out. And many people don’t want to seem like they are partying while their business bleed and/or look for TARP funds.
The days of conspicuous consumption are either behind us or ahead of us, but now’s not the time for it.
Won’t necessarily impact the team’s revenues since the tix are already paid for (most of them, at least), but it makes for an optically troubling scenario.
Jason, IIATMS
If this is true, then there really is nothing the team can do about it, is there? Unless the higher seat fillers, they are kind of stuck.
Jason, maybe you misunderstood my post or I wasn’t clear, but I don’t doubt your account for one second. My first impression was the Yanks sounded like they were covering their behinds, but between your post, the LoHud piece and some anecdotal things I’ve heard I think there’s a lot of truth to it. I also didn’t write that last line with any sense of delight, more with a sense of disgust at the current political atmosphere.
Just for a little background, my Dad worked on Wall Street for 40 years at Merrill and I have family that work in the financial industry to this day.
I’d also say a big part of the lower empty seats is the fact that they have staff checking tickets before you can be seated on any of the lower level… last year I can’t tell you how many times friends and I would be seated in the second part of the lower deck with $10 tickets bought off the Fuji-pack plan.
That said the other day I sat in section 105 with $22 legit tickets I bought off stub hub. I thought it was a greart night out and I think the new stadium is gorgeous. The old place, while great becasue of all the memories was a shitty run facility and bad business on the part of the Yanks.
It pisses me off a bit that people are lining up to knock the new stadium… the same fans want to bitch are the same fans that think our team is entitled to sign every all star free agent.
There are plenty of cheap seats to be had on stubhub and the like… Instead of moaning – support your team and get to games. That’s my advice.
Exactly. People complain about the team maximizing revenues when they also want them to go out and sign everyone. People just want to knock the new place to rip a team that looks greedy in this economy.