TwitterMerry Christmas/Happy Holidays!
24 Dec 2008
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From both of us here at the blog, we hope you and your families all have a very happy and safe holiday season. Thank you so much for reading!
One last baseball note, interesting article by Kat O’Brien on the Teixeira negotiations. Up until the end, Boras was playing the Yankees and the Red Sox off one another. If you are a player, why wouldn’t you want Boras as your agent? Look, I don’t like his methods, but he gets his clients top dollar always. It will be interesting to see how he creates leverage for Manny Ramirez because it looks like the Dodgers are the only team left standing in that bidding. (And yes, I would love to see Manny have to take a deal for less than the two option years he had when he sulked out of Boston.)
One last note, for the first time in years (probably 34 years) the Yankees are closing their offices between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That’s a nice move by Hal and it also means you probably will have to wait until 2009 to see Teixeira introduced.
Dec 24, 2008 @ 19:55:08
Happy Holidays
Dec 24, 2008 @ 21:34:10
Thanks for the wishes, guys. Same for y’all as well.
Random thought to counter the current ruminating being done elsewhere. Yankees still need to sign Andy: Joba will have an innings limit as will Hughes. Also, Andy is prone to “tired arm” syndrome, sooooo … we will need 6 starters, so to speak, in order to keep everyone working well. Only the Yankees could afford this arrangement, but hey, at least the owners are spending their revenues rather than pocketing them.
Dec 25, 2008 @ 08:11:03
Mitchell – first off, happy holidays.
As long as you brought up baseball in this post, here is my reaction to your post.
While I agree, teams that spend money they generate on improving their teams are to be respected in one regard. I follow hockey very closely and unfortunately the ownership here in Atlanta are baffoons and do not invest in winning. The fans suffer which turns to negative cash flow for them as well.
The other side of that is the increase in cost of going to games sucks.
I play OOTP which is a simulation baseball game on-line and as GM/Owner you have to maximize revenues by adjusting ticket prices, how you spend etc. One of the cool things about the simulation is it makes you think about pleasing the customer, something few owners in real life worry about.
I have 5 kids, when I want to go to a game, the seven of us, for tickets, parking, food, etc, costs about $500
I realize that is an unusual fan family. The studies of families of 4 are out there though.
Take a team that doesn’t sell out. If they average 25,000 per game and average ticket price of those attending is $10 (for simple math) they are getting $250,000 in gate receipts plus concessions etc.
If they lowered the ticket price to $8, the same 25,000 would generate $200,000 in gate receipts so they would need 6,250 more fans to come to make up the difference. If that happened, you would be ahead because of the money spent in concessions and parking, and would have a better crowd to play in front of.
Teams that are not selling out would benefit by going to a form of free-market pricing. I saw somewhere that a team did that, priced different opponents games differently based on demand. I don’t remember who or what sport it was though.
More of that should be done in markets where the numbers are down. The other side is where teams have so much demand for tickets like the Yankees or Sox. Unfortunately there is no reason for ownership to cut ticket prices.
Add to that dynamic with on-line ticket brokers etc. and ticket prices are out of control for the teams we love here on this board.
I have rambled on and apologize for that.
Dec 25, 2008 @ 10:27:24
Mitchell- You are right about the need for another starter, I am just not sure if it is worth the money to make that Pettitte. Maybe the Yankees should take a look at a cheaper veteran arm?
BL- I think it was the Giants who did the market pricing. The Mets have tinkered with that in the past too, changing the price based on the opponent. When you look at the partnership between MLB and Stub Hub, I wonder how long it will be before every game is sold via an auction?
I have a Saturday package to the Yankees, but I have to admit I don’t go to many games anymore. I love baseball on a warm summer day, but it is much less expensive to just sell the seats and go outside and listen to the game on the radio which I do a lot.
Dec 25, 2008 @ 12:41:03
Hi Guys,
BL? First I don’t find your post to be a ramble at all. Sharing detailed thoughts is why Peter and Andy set this board up, no? It’s fun to think about this team and the game and you can’t always cover it in 25 words or less. LOL.
I understand your pricing elasticity arguments and I agree that the Yankees (and some other teams) run the risk of pricing themselves out of the “family man” attendee – if they haven’t already done so. The prob with that simulation game is that it assumes that lowering prices CAUSES an increase in attendance – and as any minor league ball team can tell you, ticket pricing is not a purely causal elationship. Folks may not want to come watch a bunch of second tier players get creamed; sometimes you can’t even give away seats to get them into a park to buy a $6 bottle of beer. So, it’s a fine line that the owners are walking. We’ll have to see which way it goes for them. I think I recall reading that the Yankees lost money as a franchise but that the family made it back on their YES holdings.
Peter? I would be happy to see them go with someone other than Andy. Wouldn’t even have to be a veteran arm for me: I’d be more than willing to watch someone like Kennedy take another run at starting a few games – as long as they keep him away from the media muffins. I like watching “the kids” try to break in. Aceves also looked good on the mound …
Stay warm, stay dry, stay safe y’all.