The Detroit Tigers are baseball's feel-good story of the year, since they've come out of nowhere to put up baseball's best record and in doing so, have captured the hearts of a fan base that had watched nothing but bad-to-mediocre teams since the team's last post-season appearance in 1987.
Of course, it had to be too good to be true. The Tigers aren't about to collapse on the field, but if you want to see the team in the playoffs, maybe you should find out if it's hiring extra people to work on the ground crews at Comerica Park.
The Tigers may charge $175-$250 per ticket for World Series games. Considering what a charmed year the Tigers and their long-suffering fans have been enjoying, it leaves a sour taste. But not to worry, the concession stands at Comerica Park probably sell an $11 premium beer that can take care of that.
By comparison, the News says the Chicago White Sox charged $125-$185 for World Series tickets last year. (Granted, their hands were tied, since most of the people in the stands were actually Cubs fans.)
The Tigers haven't released a playoff pricing structure yet, but a fan named Phil DeShong who has four season tickets in the $8 bleacher seats (all terms U.S.) got a sneak peek over the Internet and told the Detroit News all about it.
DeShong said he learned his $8 seats will cost $40 each in the Division Series, $80 in the American League Championship Series, and $175 in the World Series, if Detroit gets that far. That's five, 10 and 22 times more than what they cost him in the regular season.
(No telling what scalpers and ticket brokers will want, of course.)
Under that price structure, it will cost him $4,592 up front to secure his regular four seats for Detroit's 11 potential home playoff games. No word on how long it will take to send out refund cheques for games that aren't played, of course.
It really seems like the Tigers are sticking it to their not-so-rich fans (DeShong can't be doing too badly... he commutes from Nashville to see his beloved Tigers play), since the cheapest tickets in the park are apparently going to jacked up beyond all reason.
What would the seats behind home plate go for if the Tigers applied the same price hike there? Those seats, which cost $58 a pop for season-ticket holders, would go for $290, $580 and -- hope you're sitting down -- $1,268.75.
That needs to be written out: One thousand, two hundred sixty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents.
Naturally, the people (more like corporations) who can afford the best seats in the house aren't getting dinged like their poor cousins out in right field. The Tigers are planning more modest increases to $110, $150 and $250.
This is nothing new and should come as no shock -- the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes were especially shameless this spring in raising their ticket prices as the playoffs proceeded. You've probably heard about what a ticket for a Yankees-Red Sox game can cost.
To put it in perspective, though, if the Tigers go through with this, the worst seats in the house will cost almost as much as what the White Sox charged for their best seats last October. (Of course, the White Sox couldn't charge too much, since half the fans were just slumming Cubs fans who were watching what, to them, must have been a second-rate fantasy.)
Bottom line, you can't say "shame on you" to a corporation, but this seems excessive, especially considering how Tigers fans in Michigan, southwestern Ontario and all points around the globe have stuck with this team through two decades of mostly bad baseball.
The topper may be that you already know what the spin will be if the Tigers suddenly have trouble filling the ballpark in the playoffs. Some nattering nabob in the media such as Joe Buck who never has to pay for a ticket will say how it's astounding that after all these years, that the Detroit Tigers can't sell out a playoff game.
Many of us will know better. Hey, maybe Michael Moore can buy up a block of seats and give them to the real fans.
(Howard Bloom's Sports Business News was invaluable in this report.)
JOHN GIBBONS WATCH
Yours truly made the tepid statement yesterday that it's hard to imagine the Blue Jays would want John Gibbons back as manager in 2007 . Now the Toronto Star's Richard Griffin is calling for Gibbons' firing. Dave Perkins is all for it too, but notes it's only an "easy beginning" for the Jays.
(By the way, how could I have forgotten that back in '05, I started to have doubts about Gibbons when his profile in the program said the person whom he most admired was George W. Bush? Like his idol, Gibbons isn't having such a great August either. Of course, Bush hasn't had a good August since 2001, and you know what he let slip past him then.)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment