Improving America’s Pastime: Baseball | Suggestion #9 – Affordability

By Martie Hevia | Blue Beach Song™

Suggestion #9: Make It Affordable for Families

“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
~Yogi Berra

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We really need to work on this one, from tickets to hot dogs – we need to lower the cost of attending a baseball game. It costs a relative fortune for a family of four to attend a ballgame, consider the $50 ticket, the $20 parking, the $7 game program, the $6 hot dog, the $5 soda, the $3 ice cream cone, and how about the souvenir $20 “cheap” baseball cap.

In fact, the Team Marketing Report‘s 2012 Fan Cost Index for Major League Baseball shows that the average cost for a family of four to go to a 2012 major league ballgame is $207.68, up 2.4% from last year.

Depending on your hometown team, a family of four could spend, on average, anywhere from $337 (on the high end) to watch the Boston Red Sox to $146 (on the low end) to watch the Arizona Diamondbacks. Here, in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can choose to pay, on average, $225 to watch the SF Giants or $187 to watch the Oakland Athletics.

We’ve lost the affordability for an average parent to take their family to a ballgame. America’s pastime has become cost-prohibitive for most families. I wonder what will happen to Baseball’s popularity when average Americans, especially young Americans, are no longer able to afford to go to ballgames?

How will the young ones develop their love for the game when there are no memories of attending a major league ballgame with their mom and dad; no memories of walking into an enormous and majestic ballpark as the ballplayers warm up on the field; no memories of singing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame‘ with hundreds of thousands of other fans?

Hmmm… Soccer, anyone?

Martie Hevia © 2011 | All Rights Reserved

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