Season Ticket Dodger Blues

 I got my Dodger invoice last Saturday and I've heard plenty of complaints from other season ticket holders. On one extreme you have me, who has the cheapest Dodger package available. I buy the 2+2 plan, which means you buy two seats and get two seats free. My seats are in the 3rd row of the loge section staring right down into the bullpen. In 2004 when I 1st purchased the tickets it came to 7.50 a seat. With the latest increase it is now 12.50 a seat. That is still a reasonable deal and I won't hesitate to renew, as I love my seats. On the other extreme you have a season ticket holder for 50 years who has seen the price increase from $30 a seat in 2004 to $75 a seat in 2008. From $60 to $75 in 2008 alone. Their increase was larger then my total per ticket price.  They sit in Section 1, field level with a 4 seat package and they have probably finally been priced out. The Dodgers will be celebrating their 50th year in Los Angeles without one of their original season ticket holders.

I've seen story after story about ticket increases at major league stadiums across the country. At the same time I keep hearing about how each team is going to get a windfall of 25 million from the operations of mlb.com and that each team is flush with money to stupidly overspend on free agents this year. Seems to be a disconnect to me but what do I know. I keep hearing that this 6 billion dollar industry is not driven by ticket sales but by media contracts. If so, why the need to keep increasing the ticket revenues in such large percentages year to year?

I can compare these prices to other sports programs. The Lakers will cost you $105 for a seat behind the basket on the 1st level starting around 10 rows back. Since they moved into Staples they have increased the season ticket by at least $5 every single year except one so that a $60 ticket is now a $105 ticket. The Clippers will cost you 50.00 for the same seat and the price has increased from 2000/2001 of $35 to $50. Donald Sterling may be the most ridiculed sports owner in LA but he's won more playoff games then the Dodgers this century and he's increased his prices at a much lower percentage then anyone else. These are behind the basket tickets. Not even what I would call "good" seats.

I would hate to be a parent these days who wants to take his kids to a game and sit somewhere between the bases. Figure the cost of around 160.00 for tickets, 15 for parking. At least 15.00 per kid to keep him happy with food and your looking at a 200.00 night just for a simple baseball game. Plus they would want to leave by the 7th innings and would spend most of the time texting their friends or getting excited about a beach ball. It would make more sense to not got to two games and buy them a WII instead.