The new baseball stadia in Queens and the Bronx were built thanks to nearly a combined $2 BILLION ($2,000,000,000) in tax-free bonds, which will end up costing the New York City alone about $500 million in forfeited tax revenues on top of the $150 million in state and city tax money that directly subsidized the projects.
Much like war profiteers and Wall St., the business of sports represents the socialization of risk and the privatization of profits. How much reverse Robin Hood plundering can we take?
What do the denizens of New York City get out of all the hundreds of millions in public money that's been poured into these entertainment venues?
A ticket in the front nine rows at the new Yankee Stadium can cost as much as $2625 a game. The highest priced Mets' ticket is a mere $495... though at least their lowest ticket price is $11.
By contrast, the highest price ticket to next year's soccer World Cup final is $2500. So attending the world's most prestigious single sports contest costs less than an May game between the Yankees and the mighty Kansas City Royals.
The good thing is that the fans voted with their feet. Not many of them seem willing to take out a second mortgage on their home to buy a ticket to a baseball game... to say nothing of exorbitant parking and concessions prices.
Major League Baseball's talking head Bud Selig is meeting with the Mets and the Yankees. Apparently Selig is among the many who's noticed the rash of empty premier seats in Gotham's newest coliseums.
Still, an ostrich speaking on behalf of the Yankees removed her head from the sand long enough to refuse to comment. "We’re still not talking about ticket prices," she quacked.
American sports are awash with socialistic ideas like salary caps, luxury taxes, college drafts (the worse you are, the greater your potential reward), massive public subsidies for private venues scam to say nothing of the anti-meritocratic concept of playoffs and the closed, cartel structure of the entire franchise system. Some of these restraints are designed, proponents claim, to keep expenses down. If they're so effective, how come ticket prices continue to skyrocket?
This is in stark contrast to soccer in Europe and most of the rest of the world which has none of this (except public financing of stadia in some places and playoffs in a few) and is much more meritocratic in its overall operations. Incidentally, soccer tickets in most parts of the world are still fairly reasonably priced. The notable exception is England, which has seen ridiculous ticket prices in recent years and, not coincidentally, decreased attendances for many clubs.
That said, it's nice to know that a tiny bit of capitalism still applies in American sports... even if the fans are the only ones applying it.
2 comments:
I agree with most of this article. Public funds for private sports stadiums is absurd, particularly in what are supposed to be belt-tightening budget years. But I have a question: how are playoffs anti-meritocratic?
Because it devalues the regular season. In 2005, Los Angeles were the 9th best MLS team out of 12 (in a league where only 8 teams make the playoffs) and became champions. In 2006, the Cardinals were the 12th best MLB team out of 30 in the regular season but ended up winning the World Series. The next year, the Oilers were the 15th best NHL team out of 30 and came within 2 goals of winning the Stanley Cup. To the extent I like football, I'm a Giants fan, but can anyone really claim that the 15-5 Giants of two years ago had better season than the 18-1 Patriots? But they had a slightly better January and that's all that matters.
In the 13 years since baseball implemented the wild card, 4 wild card winners won the World Series (including of course the Red Sox in '04). They weren't even the best team in their own division of their league but they became "world champions."
With playoffs, you don't necessarily have to be good during the regular season. You just have to get hot at the right time. A game in October means a lot more than a game in April.
The European soccer structure is meritocratic. You play every team home and a way, 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw. Whoever has the most points after all this is champions. A game in May affects things the same as a game in August.
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