I am going to disagree with the “surprisingly” part of the excerpt below.
Fans aren’t buying tickets as much. Expenses, HDTV blah blah you have read all that elsewhere. I’ll throw in $35 to park and the difference between going to Yankee Stadium 1977 and Fake New Yankee Stadium.
My Yankees fan Mr. Sunshine told me at one point yesterday he saw tickets available on the secondary market for $6.
Surprisingly, Yankee Stadium wasn’t sold out on Friday night.
The team announced a crowd of 47,874 for the first game of the Subway Series.
via No Subway sellout on Friday night – Yankees Blog – ESPN New York.
MLB should be very, very scared. They are not selling out high profile games at reduced prices. Lower volumes of seat sales with lower average price per seat is a very bad situation. Maybe TV revenue can keep them floating for awhile, but the best way to make a kid a fan as an adult is to get them to games in person.
MLB has treated its fans like walking wallets for years.
They’re finally getting to the point where we either don’t have the cash or aren’t sure if the prices they’re charging are really worth it.