Money, Baseball, 
& Ticket Price

Baseball is America's game. Or at least it once was. Dubbed "America’s pastime" long ago, it has consistently been the benchmark for all sports to live up to in this country. However, like many things in today’s world, sport is now driven by money – and loads of it.

In 2015, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. made a whopping $300 million in winnings and endorsements. Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Dodgers are spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars to field a 25-man baseball roster. And most importantly, the popularity of sport is often determined by television viewership, which is precisely where baseball falls flat.

Football television ratings continue to dwarf baseball ratings. Super Bowl 50 averaged about 112 million viewers. Comparatively, last year’s World Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets had better television numbers than the past six Fall Classics, but still only an average of 14.7 million people tuned in. You can attribute this discrepancy to any number of factors – there are fewer NFL games in a year, baseball games are too long, the sport itself is old and too traditional.

But anyone that says there’s no money or future in baseball is crazy. According to Forbes, gross revenues increased by about $500 million for the 2015 season, and league entered this year with total revenues approaching $9.5 billion. Bryce Harper, the figure many consider the future face of Major League Baseball, recently inked the highest-paying endorsement deal in the history of the league. The way baseball is being consumed is certainly changing – with MLB Advanced Media having 3.5 million subscribers last year to its services like MLB.TV, which allow fans to watch games mobile devices – but the sport remains very popular.

Sports journalist Tim Healey, who is an editor at Sports on Earth and a contributor to The Boston Globe, had some encouraging comments about the future of baseball in this country.

“Baseball will always have a place in America. Yes, people complain the games are too slow – and that's true – so I look forward to seeing how the league's continued pace-of-game initiatives develop. I think another key to making baseball cool again – or making baseball fun again, as Bryce Harper's hat put it -- is to allow stars like Harper show their personalities. Football allows it. So does basketball. Baseball is behind the curve, too easily acquiescing to the Goose Gossages of the world who don't like bat flips. That will change in time.”

"Bautista is a f---ing disgrace to the game," Gossage said in an interview with ESPN. "He's embarrassing to all the Latin players, whoever played before him. Throwing his bat and acting like a fool, like all those guys in Toronto. [Yoenis] Cespedes, same thing."

Healey certainly knows a thing or two about the game, having grown up as an avid Red Sox fan. One of his recent pieces was an oral history of what some consider to be one of the most outrageous events in Red Sox history, the Doug Mirabelli trade. Fans love great stories like this, and the stories in baseball aren’t going away anytime soon. Additionally, baseball remains one of the most fun sports to watch live. Nothing compares to sitting in the ballpark on a hot summer day, hearing the crack of the bat, and having a hot dog.

Teams realize this, and looking to capitalize on its live appeal, ticket prices continue to go up every year. The Red Sox are the best example of this: ownership continues to field a quality product each year and Fenway Park is the oldest stadium in the game (dating back to 1912), so ticket prices can be through the roof. The Red Sox average ticket price in 2016 is $54.79, the highest in baseball … but that's not all. When you account for the ticket, parking, food, and beverage, it could cost someone up to $157 to attend a Red Sox game, which is also the highest in the league.

"I don't expect ticket prices to affect baseball's future," Healey said. “Despite ticket prices, stadium attendance goes up every year. And even if people did start going to games less often, ticket sales pale in comparison to the money teams make off their TV deals, which are huge.”

But what do the fans think? Is there a correlation to be found between ticket prices and fan attendance? Let’s take a closer at the Red Sox specifically to uncover the secret.

What better place to start than Fenway Park itself to get some insight? I talked to some fans, Red Sox employees, and even a ticket scalper to get their take on rising ticket prices in the game.

“People come to less games than they would,” John from Dorchester, a scalper, said. “Considering there’s like 80 games in a year at home, if they would normally go to 30 of them, they might only come to 15 of them because the prices are so high – to park its $40-50, the beer is $12. You spend a hundred before you even get in there.”

This may be true, but the fan experience, especially at Fenway Park, is so rich that many fans don’t mind spending the extra dollars to enjoy the atmosphere. Aside from being the oldest stadium in baseball, it is also one of the most historic. In fact, Fenway is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Green Monster stands 37 feet tall, and many fans claim that there’s no better place to watch a game in all of sports than atop the Monster. Generations of some of baseball’s most famous names have called Fenway Park home, from Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski to Pedro Martinez.

“When you pay for a ticket in Fenway Park, you aren't just paying for a ticket to a Red Sox game,” Red Sox tour guide Evan Creedon says. “You are paying for the pinnacle of a baseball experience. Every seat in the park makes you feel close to the action. Also, the nice thing about being the oldest stadium in the country is that there is a story behind every section of the park. Whether it's the monster, the bleacher seats, the grandstand seats that have been around since 1933, or right up to the playing field, there is something fun, unique, and interesting about every aspect of the ballpark.”

Creedon, a native of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, is actually not even a Red Sox fan himself. His allegiance lies with the Sox’ arch-rivals the New York Yankees, but as an avid fan of the game of baseball, he respects the history that both the Red Sox and Fenway Park bring to the table. His love of the game led him to pursue a job as a tour guide for Fenway, and he has nothing but great things to say about the park and fan experience.

“I walk into Fenway through the tunnel leading up to the seats behind home plate about five times a day on average, and I still have to catch my breath every time I catch a glimpse of the park in all its magnificence. That view alone is worth the price of admission. Also, ownership is very committed to fielding a competitive whenever they can.”

"When you pay for a ticket in Fenway Park, you aren't just paying for a ticket to a Red Sox game, you are paying for the pinnacle of a baseball experience." - Evan Creedon, Red Sox tour guide

Red Sox fans can complain about ticket prices all they want, but they certainly can't complain about the team ownership’s lack of commitment. When the team endured one of the most historic collapses in all of sports at the end of the 2011 season, ownership really turned things around. The current ownership group under John Henry has brought three world championships to Boston (2004, 2007, and 2013), and the team seems to be well-positioned to contend in future years.

The Red Sox are often criticized for their tendency to go out and spend, and spend big. They consistently have one of the highest payrolls in baseball, and whenever a big name free agent hits the market, the Sox are rarely not discussed as a potential destination. An example of this can be found just last winter, when the team signed David Price, a former Cy Young Award winner, to a seven-year $217-million-dollar contract. That being said, according to MLBPipeline.com, the Sox have the sixth-best farm system in the game, so their player development is not lacking, either.

Ownership’s dedication toward fielding the best possible product certainly plays a role in rising ticket prices, though. The $166-million-dollar payroll must be paid for somehow, and a large portion of funds come from ticket sales. Red Sox chairman Tom Werner, who has been a part of the ownership team alongside Henry since 2002, spoke about this issue at the first-ever Boston University Sports Communication Summit: Play It Forward in April.

"We are all sensitive to the costs of tickets," Werner said. “But we’re working to try to make it as affordable as it can be.”

A $55 ticket to a baseball game is not the most affordable option for the average middle-class family, and thus many fans are being squeezed out. Despite this, there are ways around the ticket price dilemma. For example, college students in the Boston area can purchase $9 standing-room only tickets, and still enjoy the Fenway experience.

Simon Kienitz-Kincade, a sophomore at Boston University, spoke about how rising ticket prices affect his experience as a fan.

"It does not detract from my enjoyment, mostly because the majority of those costs don't apply to me," he said. “As a student, I can take advantage of $9 student tickets on many occasions, and I live close enough to the stadium to not have to worry about transportation or parking.”

For those that do have to worry about transportation and parking, though, a day at Fenway Park can put quite a dent in the wallet. However, ticket price is far from the only thing that affects the fan experience. A common gripe among fans is that baseball games are too slow. The league has instituted a number of changes recently to mitigate the pace of play problem, and last year's changes shaved six minutes off the average game time.

Fan safety is another growing concern. Last June, a woman at Fenway was severely injured after a bat came flying into the stands and struck her. Because of this and other related incidents, the MLB implemented a policy to better emphasize safety for all 30 teams. As a result, the protective netting at Fenway Park has been extended to both dugouts this season. While some fans may complain about the obstructed views now caused by the netting, they generally accept that safety should be the primary focus.

“You have to take the good with the bad,” Healey said of the netting. “It sucks, but at least people probably won't get hurt. I talked to some fans sitting down there about the new netting on opening day, and the general sense I got was they were less than pleased about it but understand the larger safety concern.”

All these factors are important, but at the end of the day, a fan's decision to attend a baseball game is mainly influenced by cost. The data speaks for itself. I ran a Twitter poll that concluded 58% of people consider rising ticket prices to be a "big factor" in their decision to attend, or not attend, games.

That does not mean that fans feel they are being slighted in terms of value; it just means that it is making it harder for fans to attend multiple games.

“Value is relative I feel,” said Kienitz-Kincade. “The food and merchandise at Fenway or any other ballpark isn’t really a good value compared to the prices you could get somewhere else, but going to Fenway is always an occasion, and I am willing to spend amounts of money on things I might not in other places.”

What about the correlation between ticket prices and fan attendance?

After researching the average ticket price for a Red Sox game from 2006-2016, I compared this data with the average attendance at Fenway Park during the same period. The correlation between the two was found to be -.28, meaning there is a slight negative correlation between them. 

This does not mean that as a general rule rising ticket prices lead to fewer fans in the stands, but the two are certainly related to a certain extent. Although other factors such as team success are at play here, I found it interesting that with ticket prices now higher than they’ve ever been, attendance is the lowest it has been since 2003 (albeit a small sample size).

Sports are just as much a part of American life as cheeseburgers and apple pie, but if these recent developments tell us anything, it’s that ownership groups should always be working to improve the fan experience and mitigate costs. Billy Beane was onto something when he coined the phrase Moneyball; maybe the term would be better served as another name for America’s pastime.

Data from statista.com was used for the reporting of this article. Video filmed and edited by Nick Neville. Additional images courtesy of Getty Images.