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April 22, 2009
Is This Seat Taken? In Front Rows of New Ballparks, No
The New York Times
by Ken Belson
More evidence that the financial premises underlying Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, which were shaky to start with, now bear no relation to reality.
After spending $2.3 billion on new stadiums packed with suites, restaurants and the latest technology, the Mets and the Yankees expected fans to embrace their new homes and pay top dollar for the privilege. Almost every team that has built a new stadium in the recent past has seen an immediate surge in attendance.
Instead, the Mets and the Yankees face a public relations nightmare and possibly millions of dollars in lost revenue after failing to sell about 5,000 tickets — including some of the priciest seats — to each of their first few games after last week’s openers.
The empty seats are a fresh sign that the teams might have miscalculated how much fans and corporations were willing to spend, particularly during a deep recession. Whatever the reason, the teams are scrambling to comb over their $295- to $2,625-a-seat bald spots.
...But the slow start in New York is striking considering how much the teams here spent to build and promote their parks. Like airlines that break even on economy tickets and rely on first-class travelers to turn a profit, the teams need to sell their most exclusive seats to help repay the hundreds of millions of dollars of tax-free bonds they issued to finance their new parks.
NoLandGrab: Let's not forget how much the taxpayers kicked in, too. And all this stadium-building is supposed (wink, wink) to have a net positive effect on the city and state treasuries.
Posted by eric at April 22, 2009 11:05 AM