Its no secret the Yanks overpriced the seats between the bases. Seems like everyone is talking about it these days. The Yanks have been running ads in the NYC area for the past month trying to sell them, apparently without much luck. They were previously only available as full season packages and now can be had as partial plans, yet fans still aren’t biting.
Fans who’ve complained about the high prices on those seats always struck me as short sighted and having a conveniently short and selective memory. First, the high prices on those seats allowed the Yanks to maintain the low prices they had in the Bleachers and Grandstand in the old Yankee stadium. So if you were railing against the $2625 seats and sitting in the upper deck, you were arguing for your own price increase next year. Also, most of those seats between the bases were always owned by big corporations and weren’t available to the average fan, even at the old stadium. So building a new ballpark had nothing to do with their availability, and has the oddly had the unintended consequence of making them available for the first time in generations, just at a price that no one is willing to pay.
Its certainly embarassing for the Yanks to have this beautiful new ballpark with the best seats in the house unfilled. Makes the place look dead on TV broadcasts. So what to do? Before you can answer that, we need some unpack a few things about the situation the Yanks are in.
The easiest thing to do would be to lower prices immediately. But that would mean that the guy in the $500 seat would be sitting next to someone who just paid half as much for the same section, which will certainly (and justifiably) make him upset. Others have suggested they can hand those seats away to big sponsors/charities. While that would fill those seats, it doesn’t help the Yanks with their balance sheet, except for some possible tax write offs that wouldn’t be realized anytime soon.
My suggestion is as follows. Call the season ticket holders who purchased the seats at full price and offer them the opportunity to purchase a limited amount of seats at a substantial discount. You’ll need to limit the number of seats initially so everyone gets a crack at it. That will raise some cash for the Yanks on their unsold inventory and placate the people who’ve already paid full price by effectively lowering the price per seat they paid. For example, someone with two $300 seats who purchases another two at $150 has now lowered the price per seat to $225 per game. I’ve heard many people call in to radio shows who have those seats who said they had to cut back on the number of seats they bought this year due to the price increases. This would give them the chance to get back in at a price that works for them. Also, at those prices they may be able to defray some of the costs on the secondary market by selling off the high demand games against the Red Sox and Mets. Depending on how successful this is, the Yanks could go back for another round of discounted seats without any limitation, and the brokers should soak up any remaining seats.
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0 Responses to What to do about the empty seats?
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TIQ IQ
Nice post Steve. I’ve actually heard rumors that the Yankees are lowering the prices for the close seats, yet they will be offering a refund in the amount of the difference to the people who already bought those seats. Sounds like a good idea, but I’ll wait and see how smooth that exchange goes before I comment further.
You do bring up a great point about how people love to point out that those seats are empty. Hey its the yankees right to charge whatever they want, but obviously today’s economy is having a negative effect. I’m sure eventually those seats will be selling for more than $2,000 a game once everything gets straightened out. But for now they just have to lower expectations.
Also you’re right about the fans that complain, when in fact those pricey tickets are keeping their bleacher tickets cheap. It’s the same fans who complain about the advertising signs all over the stadium. Hey if you want your team to spend $200 million, they have to bring in money someplace else. You can’t have it both ways.
Exactly. Fans complain about the expensive tickets when those are the ones that keep their ticket cheaper. I wonder if the Yankees will seek to make up for the lost revenues due to dropping the luxury seat prices by raising the upper deck prices.
I definitely agree with the excellent point about the high priced seats paying for the low ones, but if they raise them too much, expanding the number of high priced seats while reducing the number of cheaper seats, that’s really going to drive away the true fans. It seems like there are a lot more expensive seats and a lot fewer cheapies, but I could be wrong on that.
I was let into one of the lounge/restaurants on Sunday because the doorman said it wasn’t crowded and I talked to a guy who had seats that belonged to the lounge. He said that he was forced to pay an extra $50 per ticket just to sit in those seats, regardless of whether he wanted to use the lounge or not. He was pretty ticked off because the Yanks told him these seats or nothing. I think little things like that might wind up alienated some folks. It seems pretty exorbitant for access to a crummy lounge where you still have to pay for stuff. It seems like the Yanks tried to get a little too cute with their revenue generating schemes.
I think many Stadiums have this kind of stuff, the Yankees just picked the worst probably time to implement these exclusionary policies.
Well I sit in the bleachers, so they can raise the upper deck seats all they want, lol. Seriously though this is going to become an interesting situation for the Yankees. I’m sure in the long run they’ll make money hand over fist, but they could see some serious short term losses. That could effect next season’s payroll, perhaps the Yankees spending big on a new left fielder.
Who would have thought the economy would create its own salary cap for baseball.