What the MLB needs to do is go to a pay per performance type of contract. Base Salery is $500,000 and you earn the rest. Hit a home run its $50,000, get a hit get paid $5000 Etc. Then you will really see these guys compete.

What even irritates me more than the high prices at the concession stands is the price of Tickets. It does not bother me that a ticket to the game has a face value of $35 for an Infield Box seat. What gets to me is that you can't go to the box office at Comerica Park or any other sports team and buy premimum seats anymore. Sure you can get upper deck tickets all day long, but try getting Tigers Den or On Deck Circle and there is none available. The only place to get then is online through sites like Ticket Stub Scalper Hub and ebay, and then they want to charge you 3 times face value.

It literally forced me to go and buy season Tickets..

If a miracle happens and the Tigers go to the world series again, there is no way in hell im paying $2200 per ticket to some scalper on the internet for a decent seat. You get season Tickets, atleast you can go to the world series at face value

BTW- concessions don't pay even a small fraction of salaries. Gate receipts are a large part of profits. But the real gold is in product licensing and broadcast revenue.

"This "for the love of the game" stuff is, unfortunately, history!"

That is why I go to minor league games. "for the love of the game" exists there. The players are hungry to make to to the bigs and will play that much harder. The games are more competitive. Prices are MUCH cheaper. The teams provide better between inning and after game entertainment. No high dollar salaries to pay, so fans aren't squeezed for more and more. I'd rather my money go toward the salary of a young/hungry minor leaguer who barely makes ends meet, than a self absorbed, egotistical major leaguer and his greedy billionaire owner.

Baseball IS big business. That's why I lost interest in MLB. The minors remind me of what the game used to be like a long time ago.

Mark

Who do you think really pays for these high salaries. We do, the average fan.
Tiger's payroll for this season is, what, around $130 million? The player salaries DO come from concession sales. Fact of life, man. Same goes for ticket prices. Someone has to pay the bills.

The Tigers and the other 29 MLB teams are in business to turn a profit. Baseball is big business.

This "for the love of the game" stuff is, unfortunately, history!

Paul W--So your reasoning is that the salaries should come out of the concessions at the ballpark and not the pizza empire in general? Doesn't make sense to me. So make the fans who attend the game and already pay an outrageous ticket fee, pay through the nose for a crappy pizza for the players salaries? Okay, go support the Tigers if you want to. I'll pass.

Mark,

Here's the reason the pizza costs near $17 a pie (not $13). Nothing to due with union wages. Well maybe the player's union.
1) Ordonez- 18 million salary this year (cut him now)
2) Cabrera- 14 million salary this year (worth every penny in 2days market)
3) Bonderman- 12 million salary this year (may never pitch again)
4) Willis- 10 million this year (totally useless)
5) Guillen- 10 million this year (career possibly over)
6) Roberetson- 7 million (he's totally useless-injured also)
7) And the list goes on and on and ....

The days when Kaline said he didn't deserve $100,000 a year are ancient history. Imagine a current day player saying he's "over paid", like Al did.

As fans we only have a couple of choices:

1) Say the "heck" with it and refuse to go anymore; or
2) Grin and Bear it as best we can and continue to pay the going price for tickets

These modern day salary issues will never go away. No matter where the Tigers call home.

Mike isn't getting a dime of my money from now on. Outrageous prices at his crappy ballpark--did you happen to notice that his "Hot-N-Shitty" pizzas are $5 at Little Caesars outlets and $13 at the ballpark? That's probably because they're making union wages at Commercial Park. Yea, right!

Check out the TeamMarketing site I mentioned.

Site breaks down the average cost of parking, a beer, a pop, a hot dog, game program etc. Compares all 30 MLB teams for the 08 season and this season also. One can also find earlier year prices.

Average price for Tiger parking this year was $15.

I don't know how this site accumulate's its price lists or if the info is even accurate.

Site stated the avg Yankee ticket went up from $49.00 last year to $73.00 this year. But the avg. Mets ticket only increased from $34 to $37. Sure both of these prices exclude overpriced premium seats.

Check the site out. Its an interesting read.

Take Care

Edited by author 06-30-2009 08:41 PM
How much is average parking? You have to figure in that too. I was seeing $5-8 the last couple years at TS. $20+ near Comerica. Work in concessions as well.

You also have to figure in how many of the cheaper seats are available. Sure, they have $10 tickets, they are very limited as are the $14 and $16 tickets.

2 years ago, I went to a game by myself. $20 ticket, $20 parking, 1 hot dog, 1 beer, Nachos, fries. I spent over $60. Mind you that is just one person. Not to mention that I was assaulted by a gauntlet of beggars outside the park, one fo which tried to steal my wallet. There was ZERO police presence.

I went to a Saint Paul Saints game last week. $5 ticket, 3-$3 hot dogs, 2-$4 beers, $2 nachos, free parking. Great baseball and great between inning entertainment. The team is owned by Bill Veeck's son Michael (The creator of disco demolition night). So you can imagine the antics.

A MUCH better value. And a better time. Safer too!

Edited by author 06-30-2009 06:00 PM
Just some info I've found regarding ticket prices for Tiger games during the 1999 season vs. the 2000 season.

The last year at TS the average ticket cost was $12.00. The 1st year at Comerica it was $24.00. A 100% increase.

Premium seats at Comerica (with waiter service) in 2000 averaged $50-$75 a game. Still trying to figure out why I need a waiter at a baseball game.

Excluding the premium seat rates the avg. price of tickets didn't drastically change the 1st year Comerica opened from the last year at TS.

The regular seat prices at TS averaged between $5-$25. The regular seat price at Comerica was $8-$30.

The average price of a Tiger ticket in 2009 is $27. Not a drastic increase of the average 2000 ticket price of $24. Both were/are in the higher range of average MLB prices.

I'm just comparing ticket prices, not the stadiums. I did round off the prices.

Found this info on the following sites:

1) cnnsi.com (dated April 4th, 2000)
2) teammarketing.com (April 2009)

Just throwing this out here. No judments on my part.

I won't say the seats at Tiger Stadium wouldn't have gone up, but here in KC, The Royals managed to keep tickets available in the View Level at $9-$18. I think in 1999, the prices were anywhere from $5-10.

As for the unofficial games, there is a youtube video of high schoolers playing in Tiger Stadium a few years ago. I'd love to see more footage of the games Peter Riley put on for Michigan and Trumbull. Some had told me that some previous players would show up from time to time and play, but I've never seen anything official on that. Then of course there was the security fiasco, where people paid the security guard and got to play some games inside.
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< replied-to message removed by QT >

Well Andrew, they wouldn't be $8 for sure, they would have gone up. But for sure prices wouldn't be like every other park. Just look at how much prices increased from old Yankee Stadium last year to the New Yankee Stadium this year. Its outrageous. The teams build new parks and use that to justify exponentially raising prices on everything. Prices have been enough to keep me from going to MLB games. $45+ just to walk in the door (with parking). I've been going to minor league games as a result.

My guess about Unofficial games? Someone with a little pull was able to get the keys and probally had some pickup games inside TS.

Some of you guys are dillusional if you think if Tiger Stadium was still open, tickets would be $8 and the old prices.. and not what baseball games go for nowadays in EVERY park.

UNOFFICIAL FINAL GAMES? OK, you've got my attention!

The official last game. I had become part of the street vendors under the overpass for the last few years. And when we wanted to get into use the restroom or get a pop, I would go to my boss, he'd walk me over, and the guards would let us or me in. Sometimes I stayed. On the last day, I came down there, had to park and walk from just under the INCREDIBLE EMPTY HULK, the train station. I helped my boss out selling T-shirts and the game went on. It got down to the 9th, and the cop that always worked over at the Bleacher entrance came over and said he would get me in. We walked to the end of the lower left field where all the players were running out. To see all my heroes come out was truly special. But then that cop turned and said, "I gotta be with my people", and we broke toward the upper Bleachers. When I got there, they were chanting Let's Go Tigers. As the crowd thinned out, it started to hit me, as it is writing this right now. I teared up and made it up to the middle of the upper Bleachers and turned my video camera on. I filmed it from side to side, and then just put the camera down and filmed me crying, AS I'M DOING RIGHT NOW. From that day on, I have never looked at the tape of the final OFFICIAL game, because it rips my guts up.

But today, as I took a relative to the Greyhound Bus Station, we drove near the Kronk Gym, down McGraw, down Michigan and past.......the 300 hundred thousand dollar sex act being done by the demolition team. As we sat in this shack of a bus station, I could still see the Incredible Hulk Train Station, towering in the distance. IT'S STILL HERE AND TIGER STADIUM IS NOT, AND THIS CITY WONDERS WHY IT IS SO CORRUPT AND KICKED IN THE BALLS?
Then we drove back toward the famous Kronk Gym, where the grass is taller than Mike Illitch's curly head. Nobody is fighting in gym anymore, and the kids aren't using the playgrounds. The modern light towered baseball and softball fields have been abandoned, and it is a damn shame we have come to this! There is nothing any one person can do right now. Too many holes in the dam to fill. Right now this city is cleaning itself out, but it's gonna take some time. And when that time comes, we must be ready my friends.

But if anybody ever wants to know about the UNOFFICIAL FINAL GAMES at Tiger Stadium, just ask and I'll be glad to tell you.