Actually I take my kleen kanteen to the game, filled with delicious tap water, and it doesn't require any cleaning, really - it's water after all. I take public transit to the game and don't spend a penny on concessions. $6.50 for a coke? I'll sneak in a couple beers and take a burrito with me.

I can't imagine what circumstances would get me to pay for a $925 nose ring. Well... I can imagine them, but this is a family website.

Glad to see you around Gary. Any chance of a SF/Bay Area Pizza Feed sometime soon?

Gary - good article(not as good as the fantastic article in BP 2009), but, if I understand your premise, most consumers at recreational locales (theme parks, sporting events, movies, casinos, etc.), are captive consumers, with limited choices related to food, drink, souvenirs, et al., so the vast majority of them don't care that they're paying $6.50 for a keepsake plastic cup of watered down soda, $8.00 for lite beer filled with preservatives, or $7.00 for stale popcorn, since they care more about the experience than the stuff they purchase. In my mind, the stuff I eat, drink, or purchase at the ballgame is a major part of the overall experience.

Perhaps I'm the rare exception to the rule, but, when I attend a game at Wrigley, the Cell, new Busch, Miller Park, or PNC Park, I do care about how much stuff costs, for two reasons. If possible, I'll take public transit, unless I'm tailgating. For sustainability reasons, I'll pay $2.00 to take a bus or light rail rather than pay $15-$30 for parking. I grant that places like Dodger Stadium are not accessible easily by public transit, but, if i'm meeting friends at Busch, Coors Field, or Wrigley, I'll propose we meet either before or after the game at a nearby bar or restaurant where the food and drink are probably a little cheaper, there're more choices on the menu, and we can choose which establishment to patronize.

Secondly, almost all the parks I've been to in the past five years have made great strides in providing a a better variety of beer and food. In PNC, for example, I'll pay a buck more and walk farther within the park to buy a micro-brew on tap than a crappy Miller or Bud. At Wrigley, I'll go down to the first level and buy a brat rather than a hot dog. The White Sox, overall, have better public transit, food, and drink options than Wrigley, and that's why the overall experience, including the ballpark architecture, is better on the Southside.

Perhaps I'm a snobby old urban dweller, but the experience definitely includes quality food, drink, customer service, and transportation.

Here's a data point...I live within 15 minutes of a major league ballpark and work within walking distance of it. I subscribe to BP, buy the annual, and read just about everything I can get my hands on about baseball. Yet I attended only 1 game (free ticket) and watched fewer than 20 innings on TV.

Neither decision was driven by the price of admission.

That's partially a product of my refusal to hand over cash to the Pirates and partially a product of having 3 kids under age 4. But I've often thought I must watch less MLB than any other BP subscriber.

There's a new gadget at some baseball parks (I know its at The Ballpark in Arlington, or whatever they're calling it this week). Its Valet parking. For $40 (or free if you drive a Lexus, who sponsers it) you can get out of your car standing next to the stadium and allow someone else to park it. If you know where your seat is and are smart about where you drop your car off you have to walk about 45 to 50 feet to your seat. Compare that to spending $20 for the exercise of walking a mile and a half. If you are truly lazy, or have small kids (guilty on both accounts) then the money is well worth it. Especially since you can pick up your car right outside the stadium too.

Interesting article. Interesting to me, anyway, because this is exactly the kind of analysis I do for a living. (Not exactly the escapism I usually get from BP, where's the baseball?)

But (to address the first post) the point is not what marketers "think." It's what marketers have empirically demonstrated. Just like the "old school" vs. sabermetric perspective on baseball, you can act on what you "think" or you can do the research and analysis without pre-conceived ideas about what is true or not.

Just like BP can make pretty solid probabilistic estimates of how a player will perform (PECOTA), I (and plenty of others like me) can make pretty solid projections of how consumers will behave. Maybe not individual consumers (you may very well be the exception) but prevalent enough to maximize profits.

If you buy at all into an analysis-based or "Moneyball" approach to baseball, don't think for a minute the same thing isn't going on in the world of marketing.

It seems like you are describing how marketers are capitalizing on societies unyielding path towards total dependence on the industrial machine's ability to fill up every concievable circumstance in which individuals can quit thinking and just rely on a sort of managed havoc known as our modern economy. I don't think that marketers depend on taking advantage of these circumstances as much as intentionally propogating them. I think it is sad when individuals lose control of their ability to reason.

Good story though.

...of course there is much to celebrate in the progress certain industries have carried us too, and I am not advocating a return to nomadic foraging, and I understand that to extricate a logic in our decision making is absurd considering how complex our economic matrix is, but why must we rely so heavily on this matrix. Lets start thinking about what we want, not what is convenient.

As someone who appreciates the game of baseball for it's inner richness, and not just a means of escape, the current avenue that baseball organizations and there stadium ventures are headed on is not going to satisfy.

I haven't gone to a game in years. When I did go, I bought very little (maybe a soda, maybe a pretzel), precisely because I do care that concessions are wildly overpriced. It irritates me - it's not that I couldn't afford it. I sat in the upper deck ($20).

I don't go to games anymore for basically 3 reasons:

1) I used to live ~1.5 hours away from Yankee Stadium. I now live ~3 hours away.
2) It used to be that you could get Yanks/Sox tickets without herculean effort. It's not just the price, it's the insanity. It's even worse if you want to go to Fenway (which I also used to do).
3) I get YES. I get to watch the games in HD in my living room. If I want a beer, I go to my fridge. If I want a snack... etc.

I'm also dubious about the design of the new stadium. I will probably try and get to a game next year. But if it's too much of a hassle, bah.

Two things. First, I’d like to offer my own experience as a counter to the thrifty fans who’ve chimed in so far.

I see at most one baseball game a year. Why? Because to get there I take a 90 minute flight and then a 3-hour drive.

Because it’s such a big deal to go – and yes, an escape – I couldn’t care less what the prices are at the ballpark. I pay far too much for my tickets via StubHub so that I can be close to the action (more than I’d spend if I attended games regularly), and eat and drink whatever I want.

As a fan, I’m in the market for a perfect moment. I got one on July 15, 2005 when I watched Rafael Palmeiro get his 3,000th hit. The later scandal did nothing to diminish my memory of the experience.

So for those in the ballparks who are tourists – and there must be many in New York, Boston, Chicago and LA – I think there’s a pretty low sensitivity to price.

The second comment is in response to Gary’s client, who said "They'll never make the kind of volume they're forecasting unless they charge a lot more than that."

There are a lot of products where lower price diminishes sales, because it reduces status. And some products only get taken seriously once they hit certain price points (think: fine art).

On the ballpark side, if a luxury suite was priced so that you or I could buy it, it wouldn’t be a luxury suite anymore. It’s not about the views or amenities, it’s about the exclusivity of the hosting experience.

But if the financial crisis blows a hole in your target market – if there aren’t enough investment bankers left to buy the suites, or enough price insensitive tourists to buy souvenirs – then what do you do with your product? Hopefully Gary has some ideas he’ll share in the next instalment.

Wonderful, wonderful article - I've been waiting for a write-up on this aspect of the game experience for quite a while. I have always thought concession prices were overly exorbitant and generally do not eat or drink (save perhaps a Sprite) when attending games. I'll have my alcohol before or after the game. Same with the food. Street meat at $2.50 is much better than stadium meat at $5.50. Bigger, tastier, smaller wait times for eating and more condiments. The stadium itself seems to be designed in a way to get you - the consumer of the live baseball experience - to funnel your money out.

And yet, for all of my seemingly sensible refusals, the lines for bad food and overpriced, watered-down beer are nearly two-half innings long. I realize that prices will not go down until more people start acting like I do. But I'm not holding my breath - which waits abated for the continuation of this piece.

People are ambivalent in some aspects and fickle in others. They complain about the price of gas, but don't notice the increased prices of food. They'll wonder how someone can spend $100 at a casino, but throw $100 themselves at lotto tickets. However, once a person makes a decision to do (or not do) something, they will go to any length of excuses to support their position. They won't attend the baseball game because Opening Day tickets jumped up to $100, decry the billionaires paying millionaires and ruminesce about the good old days. Check them later on, and that $100 goes towards some other luxury item such as Itunes downloads or new rims or $300 football tickets.

I smoke cigarettes bit have been a bit miffed about my health (and particularly my stamina). The latest stimulus package increased my cost per carton by $8. So, I've decided to try cutting back, if not quit, smoking. I thought to myself about the money I would save and all that yadda, how I would save myself trips to the store for cigarettes and all that jazz. Yet, to support my transition, I spent $100 on an e-cigarette, which is a fancy term for a nicotine vapor machine that runs on batteries. Could've thrown the money I spend at patches, or at gum, or some other method, but the novelty helped to give me some interest and incentive.

Of course, I could've just quit cold turkey and saved that money, but I believe it is hard for any person to remove a luxury they like (and I do like smoking) without replacing it in some fashion.

The point is that people are creatures of habit, to an extent. Tell them watching baseball is wrong when that money could go towards feeding the poor or funding our schools and they'll give a blank stare. Tell them that they shouldn't complain about being broke when they go out and party every night, and they'll argue vehemently about it. But, if maintaining that habit becomes uncomfortable or difficult, either because of increased prices, lack of access, or a bad experience, then people will vote with their dollars elsewhere. In quite a few cases, the money will go back towards a luxury unless there is some philosophical change or some life-altering event that changes a person's priorities.

Or, I could be wrong and kept typing this ramble to avoid smoking a cigarette ;)

Great article, Gary. To me, it's all about the price/value equation of the item in question -- specifically, the ticket prices themselves. A great example is the Yankees' "once in a lifetime opportunity" to buy "tickets between the bases" for 20 home games. The field-level tickets are $350 per seat per game - games that include such gems as Baltimore on a Tuesday night in May. Now I love a midweek home game in a great seat as much as anyone, but $350?

The Yankees were betting that in the era of conspicuous consumption individuals and corporations would buy those tickets "in spite of rationality." Today, it's a different story.

As for me, I put the value of Yanks/Baltimore in a great seat on a Tuesday night at about $35. Throw in a $9 beer and I'm all set.