Baseball Opening Day: NYT: Welfare for the Wealthy - Taxpayer subsidized tickets for Biz

[Captain Hilts]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/opinion/05schmalbeck.html?ref=opinion

UNTIL the 1970s, Major League Baseball was a populist sport. Bleacher seats cost as little as a dollar, meaning middle- or even working-class fans could afford to take their families to a game a few times each season.

But in the years since, tickets to baseball games — along with other professional sports events — have skyrocketed in cost. Over the last two decades, the average ticket price for a Chicago Cubs game has increased 265 percent, more than four times the inflation rate. Add in parking, concessions and souvenirs, and a family trip to one of this week’s opening day games could easily cost a few hundred dollars.

There are many reasons for the price explosion, but a critical factor has been the ability of businesses to write off tickets as entertainment expenses — essentially a huge, and wholly unnecessary, government subsidy.

These deductions have led to higher ticket prices in two ways. On the demand side, they have fueled competition for scarce seats, with business taxpayers bidding in part with dollars they save through the deductions.

...

ME: Luxury boxes have made sitting in the upper deck a waste of time/money at any modern park. They're now MUCH farther away from the field.

[Neecy]

1. K&R

My dad was a Cubs fan and every weekend the Cubs were in town we were at Wrigley. It was cheap entertainment for a family of five and the 1969 season (I hate you, Mets) was my most vivid memory as a kid. I can still name every player on that 69 Cubs team.

I doubt there are many families out there who can afford two games a week for five people. There are promotions out there that make a game or two a year affordable, but it's a shame that not only is baseball priced out of many family budgets but to even watch the games you have to have cable.

[Captain Hilts]

2. And the cheap seats are just not worth sitting in. Too far back and too far up

to see anything now. Those luxury boxes have had a zero-sum effect on the game experience for less wealthy fans.

[Neecy]

3. Yep.

Candlestick Park used to be a terrible place to watch baseball - cold, windy, crappy parking. But you could get cheap tickets with decent sightlines from pretty much any seat in the park.

Then they opened AT&T and the cheap seats with good views disappeared. The upper deck is so steep that's it downright scary. To their credit, Giants ownership didn't stick San Francisco taxpayers with the bill for the new park but that's the exception. Now most taxpayers are paying for new parks that they're priced out of - a double insult. I expect when the A's finally build their new park a lot of blue collar A's fans will be priced out of it as well.

[unblock]

4. toss in tax breaks and eminent domain used to build the stadium in the first place

and you've got one big stinking corporatist pile.

the argument has always been that the professional sports teams are a boon to everyone in the city, but i've never bought that argument. i fail to see how anyone outside of a consumer of the local sports events (who should of course pay for that) is benefitted.

hindered by snarling traffic is more like it.

i don't see a positive externality that would justify internalizing by using taxpayer funds and government powers to facilitate the building of stadiums and subsidization of tickets.