Randy Smith: Ticket Prices Are Out Of Hand

My family and I just spent a week at Spring Training in Florida. It was a wonderful trip and my son and his family saw two games, while my wife and I saw one. The weather was perfect all week long and of all the trips I've made through the years, this was the best. However....I was extremely surprised about the cost of tickets. For a reserved ticket to see the New York Yankees face the Baltimore Orioles in Tampa, the cost was 185.00. That's not for four tickets that's for one. If you buy four, it was 740.00. By the time you've paid to park and bought concessions for your group of four, you've spent a thousand bucks. One thousand dollars and if you're lucky you got to see several of the starters play a couple of innings.

For game two of our baseball trip we traveled to Clearwater to watch the Philadelphia Phillies face the Boston Red Sox. Reserved seating was about the same as it was at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, so we purchased general admission seats for 50.00 each and sat in the " Berm " which is the area that stretches from foul pole to foul pole, with a grassy knoll to sit on and watch the game. There are also a few picnic tables for the old folks like me and there are several bars on the " Berm " as well. For this game, we paid $18 to park, seven general admission tickets cost 350.00 and we spent about 150.00 on concessions. That's 518.00 for seven people for a day at the ball park....half as much as four people spent in Tampa two days before.

Either way, that's a lot of money and I can't believe families of four can go watch Major League Baseball games more than once a year. Keep in mind these were exhibition games and meant nothing at all. So, now you may understand what I mean when I say, ticket prices are out of hand. Of course it's understandable when you think about the recent contract signed by Shohei Ohtani with the Los Angeles Dodgers to the tune of 900,000,000.00 over ten years. That's almost a a billion dollars to one player.

The highest payroll in the Major Leagues is the one turned in by the New York Yankees at almost 275,000,000.00 annually. There is really no need to go through all the team payrolls because they're all exorbitant. By the way, that amount of money covers just the 26 man roster. There are hundreds of other employees in each organization which makes the entire scenario almost unfathomable.

I'm sure that Abner Doubleday had no idea that baseball would turn into such a big business with out of hand ticket prices when he invented the game more than 150 years ago. I would suggest that all true baseball fans who can't afford to go to MLB games, turn your attention to high school baseball and youth baseball games. You'll spend a lot less money and enjoy it just as much or more.