Four days after Riders won the World SeriesAnd two days before winning the presidential election, Donald Trump was the guest on a sports podcast.
The main American sports leagues, he said, have evaluated their most loyal customers.
“The leagues do not take care of their fans,” said Trump on the “Let’s go!” podcast. “They really don’t. They make it impossible. “
Dodgers are the largest show in baseball, with a International tourist attraction at the top of their range. They pack the largest stadium in major leagues every evening.
If tickets for sporting events have become too expensive for the average fan – and 86% of sports fans say they have, according to a Ipsos survey Released last month – then the Dodger Stadium is a flash point in the debate on the question of whether the teams should continue each dollar they can or sacrifice a few dollars so that they can better maintain a new generation of fans.
Baseball, after all, is presented as the last great affordable sport in America.
Fans are more likely to develop a lifetime baseball habit if they Attend a game when he was a childAccording to the research cited by the commissioner’s office. Can a family of four people afford hundreds of dollars to enjoy a day at the stadium?
“This inability to have this family experience is an incredible negative if you are just for green,” said Andy Dolich, who has managed marketing operations for teams in all the main North American sports leagues. “This is where you build your bases of fans of the future.”
In an interview with the Times, Commissioner Rob Manfred challenged the idea that baseball tickets have become too expensive. The 30 major league teams sold a 71 million tickets Last year, the most in seven years and attendance increased each year from the pandemic.
Fans are lining up to buy food at a concession stand before a match earlier this month at Dodger Stadium.
(Kevork Djanezian / For time)
“If we had an accessibility problem, I think you would see it in terms of these figures,” said Manfred. “These figures tell you the opposite.”
According to the League, tickets for $ 20 or less were available for 70% of MLB matches last season. No Dodgers game this season is currently on sale at this price.
“If you want to sit next to Mary HartIt’s expensive, “said Manfred.” I think it is really important to think about it from the point of view of access. “”
Numerous studies on fans costs use the average price of a resale ticket, but a study Released this month used the cheapest price of tickets on official sales sites, such as the sample on a variety of dates this season.
The price estimated for a family of four to see a match at the Dodger Stadium this season – four of these cheap tickets, a parking lot, four hot dogs, two beers and two sodas – was a record of $ 399.68. The league average, according to this study: $ 208.
The price of tickets can increase and lower daily, depending on supply and demand. The day before the Dodgers’ home opening, the Times checked the prices of each game on the Dodgers website.
The cheapest ticket all season, available only for a Wednesday afternoon match against the Miami Marlins, before school lets out: $ 38. For four seats that day, parking, four hot dogs and four sodas, the price would be $ 249.96.
In the County of Los Angeles, median family income is $ 101,800, according to Elly Schoen, deputy director of the data change program for the change of neighborhood at the USC Lusk Center. If both parents work and if they subtracted costs for accommodation, food, childcare, health care and transport, the amount remaining each month would be $ 530.
“I don’t know if you can spend half of your discretionary income for a baseball match,” said Schoen.
The president of the Dodgers, Stan Kasten, said that the team and its corporate sponsors Work to provide free and reduced price tickets. The Dodgers Foundation said it had distributed 64,000 tickets last year thanks to the Commissioner’s Community initiative, described by the League as a program which “provides $ 2.5 million in ticket distribution to the deserving communities on the league level”.
The president of the Dodgers team, Stan Kasten, with Shohei Ohtani after the World Series victory of the team against the Yankees, said that the team and its business sponsors were working to provide free and reduced tickets. Even so, the cheapest price range available per game varied from $ 38 to $ 156.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Kasten said: “We have been very successful in maintaining and even starting to develop our database of youth fans. We are very proud of it, and we are working on it.”
In 2015, the average Dodgers ticket price was $ 29, according to the marketing team. A decade later – after winning the World Series twice and Sign shohei ohtani Like the jewel of the crown of a superstar list – the cheapest price range available per game varied from $ 38 to $ 156.
“You can’t have in any case, right?” Said Manfred. “The Dodgers have made a massive financial commitment in terms of players, and they must manage a company that supports this massive financial commitment.”
Notwithstanding Manfred’s conviction that the MLB has no accessibility problem, a popup survey on the League website last week asked the fans if they strongly agreed, somewhat disagree or strongly in disagreement with this declaration: “attend a major league baseball game.”
If local fans consider the prices of too high dodgers, Manfred suggested where they could find a profitable alternative.
“One of the leaders in terms of reflection on affordability was the other Los Angeles team,” said Manfred.
Shortly after Auto Moreno bought the Angels in 2003 – and with the team that comes out of a World Series championship – the team introduced 3 tickets for children and adolescents one night per week. The angels now offer a $ 44 family pack – Four tickets, four hot dogs and four glasses – to more than half of their home matches. They also have a “Angels Juniors” Kids’ Club, with a subscription of $ 20 which includes four game tickets.
Arte Moreno, who has owned the angels since 2003, on affordability in baseball: “We want everyone to have access to the stadium. We worked very hard to maintain low tickets and bring families in. ”
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
Parking costs $ 20 at Angel Stadium and $ 40 at Dodger Stadium.
“I really think there should be an affordable price,” said Moreno. “We want everyone to have access to the stadium. We worked very hard to maintain low tickets and bring families in. ”
The angels appeared for the last time in the playoffs 11 years ago, the The longest drought in the playoffs in the majors. Moreno did not update the idea that prices could increase if the team returns in the running, but it does not guarantee it either.
“If demand exceeds supply, prices are increasing,” he said. “But, for us, you have 45,000 seats.”
New York Yankees have sold more tickets than any team in addition to dodgers in each of the last three seasons. Yankees sell $ 10 tickets For each match: sometimes a few tens, sometimes a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand, depending on the overall demand for each match. As part of a business promotion, they also sell tickets for less than $ 10 or 50% reduction for a handful of games.
The league maintains a Fan value pageWhere the vast majority of teams display a variety of ticket discounts, concession transactions and family packs. The entry of dodgers on this page presents its promotional program, highlighted by Bobblehead Dolls so coveted that they generate ever higher ticket prices.
On this November podcast, Trump said he knew how to treat high ticket prices.
“I think there are things that should be done,” said Trump.
Manfred refused to comment if he had heard of Trump or he was working with him on the issue.
The Times asked the White House Press Bureau which ideas Trump had to reduce ticket prices and what calendar he could have to pursue such actions. The White House spokesperson Liz Huston, has wrapped six sports sentences in a 48 -words declaration – “intensify the plate” and “the economy of the home run” included – which has not provided questions.
Trump did not say that he would make dodgers affordable again. In Los Angeles, some fans stayed with their team through the Lean years – the years Fox and McCourt, as we call them – to be assessed when the team returned to Glory.
On the podcast, without reference to a particular team, Trump said that fans of the middle class are “your biggest sports fans”.
Trump said: “They are excluded from the search for a team with which they grew up and they like.”