Baseball: Business or Game?
This Friday evening I will head south. Through Rhode Island and down towards south-western Connecticut for a weekend “home.” Home in thus regards is my parent’s house in the town I grew up in, but the real reason I’m going home is to go out to the ball park with my dad as part of his birthday present.Said ball park will be Citi-Field, the brand new home of my beloved New York Mets. Previous to Citi-Field, the Mets had played at Shea Stadium, a brightly colored, somewhat dilapidated, absolutely enormous ball park, since 1964. Shea was a dump, but it was our dump. Each tier of the stadium boasted a different obnoxious color, the bathrooms often had plumbing issues, and overall it was regarded as one of the least liked stadiums in the majors. Not to me though.
I loved Shea. The bright colors were fun, it had some tradition behind it, and above all, the tickets were really well priced. To the envy of my Bostonian friends, I could go out to the park, buy some 8 to 12 dollar seats, move up a section, and thoroughly enjoy a baseball game for 10 bucks. Sure, nicer seats became pricier over the years, but they were still manageable. Fifty bucks got you really good box seats. They could do this, because A: it was a forty+ year old park with limited accommodations, and B: because it held over 60,000 fans. Higher supply, with a constant demand yielded lower prices on seats the average park.
Enter Citi-Field. Citi-Field, opening this year in Shea’s place, has slightly different configurations. Dropping 15,000 seats, the park has far less seating, with new luxury boxes in their place. As it is a brand new, state of the art park, ticket prices have for the most part, rose dramatically. You can still buy upper tier seats for 12-20 dollars a pop (not too far off from the 8+ before), but box seats can now command over $500 dollars a seat if not far more!
I don’t mean to single my Mets out, most teams with new parks have been doing this: making a clear separation between the patrician boxes, and the plebian upper tank folks. What I am thankful for, is that you can still bring your own food to the ball park. This can’t be said for Fenway, or most of the parks of MLB teams, as food sales rake in a huge amount of money. I’ll give Fred Wilpon (the Mets principal owner) the credit for that, if only that. He’s been dubbed by much of the fan base Fred “Coupon” as he does anything in his power to make a buck over going for quality and happiness among fans. Which brings up the big ol’ question in the title: Is baseball a business, or a game?
Let’s take a rewind back to the title of the stadium: Citi Field. The “Citi” (not “city”) refers to Citibank. At the time the naming rights for the new park came up (as the Mets cannot finance their own ball park), and CitiBank won, I was ok with the decision. While I hate corporate naming rights as a whole, if it had to happen, I was ok with CitiField. Aside from “MetLife Park”, it sounded fairly ideal. Sure better than Enron Field, Minute Maid Park, or Coors Field for sure! Fast forward a year or so though, and we come to our current economic climate of bailouts and bankruptcy.
CitiBank has come under serious economic bad times. Being a greedy corporation like so many other banks, Citibank essentially went under, and had to be given funds in the government bailout of Wall Street. Let me paint you a word picture:
Tax Payers give money to Gov’t -> Gov’t uses money to subsidize banks -> CitiBank gives money to Mets for ball park.
This chain has caused somewhat of an uproar among congress and taxpayers alike. Some argue Citi should back out, others argue the Mets should back out, others (usually jokingly) suggest it be called Taxpayer Field. One of these congressmen is my political hero: Dennis Kucinich.
Ultimately bringing me to a tough decision in my head. Do I support my beloved Amazin’ Mets, or my man Dennis? The answer really comes back to the title’d question. If baseball is a business, then the Mets need to back down, because CitiBank sure won’t, and set the record straight that they don’t support a shady deal like that. If it’s a game though, then I have to support my team, the blue and orange!
I really want, as a longtime fan, to think of baseball as a game. The purpose is to have fun and win, not to make money. As I get older though, and see how evil big business can be, I see more and more that the financial bottom line seems to always take precedence.
Lastly. In past weeks, myself and a few of my friends have been discussing the possibility of down the line owning a minor-league baseball franchise. One of them has spent considerable time interning and studying the business of baseball, and all of us have a good amount of knowledge on the game. Minor league teams routinely sell for $25,000 to $1,000,000 for the smaller level clubs. The plan would be to have a group of 10 or so folks each pitching in funds so it could only cost a few thousand a person. Only time will tell if the plan will happen, but that’s the dream you know, to own a baseball team. The key though, is just separating the business from the game, and making sure it’s a fun experience for everyone. Because while running it is a business; in the end its two sets of guys in jerseys playing a game. It should be fun.