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Past and Present: The Fans

By ScubaSteve, Section Site related
Posted on Sun Aug 24 2008 at 2:33 PM EST
More on: (all tags)

I never thought I would turn this into some kind of series, but writing "Past and Present" got me thinking about how the modern business of sports has affected the fans. Ticket prices are higher than ever, stadiums are getting smaller in favor of more luxury boxes, and sometimes it seems as though the players, owners, and leagues don't care about the fans.

I am currently a season ticket holder for both the New York Mets and New York Jets. Both teams desperately need a new stadium, especially the Mets. For the biggest city in the world New York has been way too far behind other cities in terms of having the types of stadiums their fans need and deserve.

My tickets in the upper deck for the Mets went up in price about $600 a seat. Really this isn't too bad, but it was more than I was expecting. Naturally, ticket prices should go up when a new facility is being built but in some of the other areas of the stadium tickets are going up in price about 200%. My brother-in-law's friend who has had season tickets in the loge since 1985 will not be able to afford his seats in Citi Field. That's a fan that has been through some awful seasons as a Mets fan and now he will be shut out from similar seats in Citi Field.

That's a loyal fan. He goes to most games, has seen the likes of Bobby Bonilla, Mo Vaughn, Jeremy Burnitz, the failure of Generation K, and what is his reward for enduring this misery? A 200% price increase to retain his season tickets in the new stadium. He did see the Mets play in two World Series, but his 200% ticket price increase is taking effect now, not 10 or 20 years ago.

Citi Field will now hold 15,000 less people than Shea Stadium so plenty of people are possibly losing out on the new stadium. These days it appears as though the only people who make out on a team playing a game are the players, the owners, the Players association, advertisers, networks, and corporations.

Moving over from the Mets, what the Jets are doing is equally, if not more disturbing to the common fan. If you don't know season ticket holders for the Jets (and Giants) will now be required to purchase a Personal Seat Liscense (PSL) to keep their season tickets. The Jets have not sent out any information on this but rumors are that the PSL's will range from $1,000 to $20,000 per seat. Another rumor is that only 1% of the stadium will have to pay $20,000 for the PSL and a majority of that 1% is made up of club seats.

Jets fans are a little more "Blue collar" than Giants fans, and I can only assume that there will be thousands of people who will not be able to afford their PSL. It's heartbreaking to me that the new stadium won't be filled with people who are just dying to see the Jets play every other Sunday because they couldn't afford to go to the game.  

I understand that with a new stadium demand for a product, even if it isn't a great product, increases and so naturally the price of tickets increase. These teams should make money and they do have to pay ridiculously high salaries, but at the same time they are losing out on the common fan. The die hards are, for lack of a better word, dying.

The Jets and the Mets are crazy. The Mets are raising ticket prices on a fan base that had to endure the worst collapse in baseball history while the Jets haven't put a great product out on the field in I don't know how long. Not to mention the fact that the Mets haven't won a World Series since 1986 and the Jets haven't won a Super Bowl since 1969. Ticket prices naturally go up because of inflation and operating costs, but it seems like these days teams are just flat out fleecing their loyal fan bases.

The owners of the Mets, Jets, Yankees, and Giants have every right to make money. I assume that is part of the reason why the invested in their teams. But when is enough, enough? The Yankees are valued at about a billion dollars. Do they really need to raise ticket prices astronomically simply because the demand is there?

I'm using New York as an example because this is really the first time I have seen something like this. I'm sure that in every city where a new stadium is built that fans of that city endure some kind of financial injustice.

I would love a fan wide strike but unfortunately us season ticket holders would be the only ones losing out on that deal. It is a fun idea to think about even though its completely unrealistic. We've seen strike shortened seasons and lock outs; wouldn't it just be great to show them what the sports world would be like without the fans? One can only dream of that day.

I could make the argument that sports wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for the fans and someone would argue that conversely sports wouldn't be where they are today if it weren't for the athletes. Either way you'd probably be right, it's kind of like the question what came first the chicken or the egg? But it is my opinion that if stadiums were empty, sports would simply no longer exist as a business.

We as fans deserve very few things from our teams. We deserve to see our teams play hard and with passion. We deserve a stadium that isn't falling apart and that can accommodate all of our needs. Most of all as fans; we deserve to be able to afford to see our favorite teams play without going into debt. Right now there are just too many parents telling their children, "We can't go to the game today because..." well, these days finishing that sentence has become a little more complicated than it should be.