« ATLANTIC YARDS RATNERVILLE CONSTRUCTION UPDATE |
Main
| Voting Against Atlantic Yards »
August 26, 2008
New Stadium or Old, Seats Cost a Fortune
The New York Times, New Stadiums: Prices, and Outrage, Escalate
No American market has witnessed anything like it: two baseball teams and two football teams will open three new stadiums within 17 months and 20 miles of one another, with everything set to be in place by the fall of 2010.
But even as fans of the Mets, the Yankees, the Giants and the Jets look forward to state-of-the-art stadium architecture, better sightlines, wider concourses and more bathrooms, some of them are also facing startling increases in ticket costs during a serious economic downturn.
The teams are confident market research supports the increases, but season-ticket holders say the price they are being asked to pay in the new stadiums — the Mets’ $800 million Citi Field, the $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium and the $1.6 billion (and climbing) Jets-Giants stadium — is turning them into something other than fans. Instead, interviews with two dozen fans indicated, they are starting to feel like unwitting bankers.
“You’re asking me for money and giving me nothing in return,” said Steve Kern, a construction executive from Boonton Township, N.J., who owns two Jets season tickets. “I won’t be sharing in the revenues or get any perks.”
NoLandGrab: At least Mr. Kern will get to see a Jets game or two, should he decide to keep his season tickets. Millions of taxpayers will have nothing to show for the massive public investment in these projects.
One has to wonder, too, with all these new stadiums coming online, and a head-to-toe makeover of Madison Square Garden soon getting underway, what demand will remain for seats and suites in the Barclays Center?
amNY, Shea Stadium seats selling like hotcakes
Not the right to sit in the seats in the new Citi Field, but the actual physical seats from the soon-to-torn-down Shea Stadium, 6,000 of which sold in the first two hours of online sales yesterday morning.
The Mets struck a deal to sell the pairs of seats, complete with an armrest in between, priced at the hefty sum of $869 in honor of the team's champion years of 1986 and 1969.
The club will split the proceeds from the sale, which is expected to gross more than $14 million, with the city.
As of Monday morning, all of the orange-colored field level seats were sold out, but seats in the loge, mezzanine and upper deck remained.
Other bits of Shea lore, such as clubhouse lockers, are expected to go on sale shortly, as are pieces of Yankee Stadium, which is also closing this year, but final details have yet to be worked out.
NoLandGrab: And why exactly is the City of New York splitting the proceeds with the Mets, when the stadium is ostensibly publicly owned? Too bad we taxpayers don't get to negotiate our tax rates with local government, which appears to be an exceptionally easy mark.
Posted by eric at August 26, 2008 2:16 PM