Bigger and Fancier Doesn’t Mean Better

Once a year, I use some airline mileage and go back to Boston, where I settle into a little B&B on Bay State Road, an easy ten minute walk to Fenway Park. That is not a coincidence. I’m a lifelong fan of the Red Sox and these annual trips are to see them play three or four games in what has to be the most enjoyable venue in all of sport. Fenway Park is small, old, and crowded … and it’s wonderful!

Meanwhile, the New York Yankees opened their 2009 season in a palatial new ballpark – the New Yankee Stadium. It’s huge, it’s new, it has all the fancy amenities … and it isn’t crowded. For good reason, too: while the corporate bigwigs bask in their luxury boxes, the ordinary fans are getting screwed.

Take a look at the photo I came across yesterday …

That guy waving his arms told the New York Times that his seat – high up and far back in the left field grandstands – cost $60. And a beer will cost you ten bucks.

Prime seats behind home plate were originally being offered at $2700. That’s for one seat for one game. The greedy Yankees were embarrassed because – what a surprise! – people didn’t buy them. And TV cameras covering the games also showed lots of those prime-but-empty seats. So they cut the price in half, which pissed off people who had paid less (but still too much) for seats not quite as good.

The New Yankee Stadium does have one big plus: it’s just one more reason for my loathing the damn Yankees. I have a list.