Wednesday, April 14, 2004
The Baseball Stat You Don't Want to See
The Christian Science Monitor, which really ought to know better, publishes the annual Baseball Economics Article I Don't Want to See: a piece that uses Team Marketing Report's Fan Cost Index to lament how MLB is pricing itself out of the reach of families.
I'm working on a series of articles for Baseball Prospectus about the problems with the FCI and what more meaningful team-by-team cost estimates would look like. For now, suffice to say that when the Monitor writes:
"On average, a family of four will spend $155.52 for a day at big-league ballparks this year,"
what it's actually saying is: "a family of four that buys four average-priced tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular hot dogs, two programs, and two of the least expensive adult-sized adjustable caps, and parks in the stadium lot, will pay an average of $155.52 for the privilege."
The Monitor also quotes one Peter Roby, president of the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Northeastern University, who insists, "We are pricing the poorer population of America out of the national game." To support his point, Roby doesn't cite evidence about actual attendance at major league games, instead noting that participation in baseball has been declining for years. Roby also projects a number of his own issues onto the general populace:
"Players used to live in the same neighborhoods as their fans. Now we have the alienation gap with fans increasingly resenting astronomic salaries, performance-enhancing drugs, and socially aberrant behavior by players."
Players haven't "lived in the same neighborhoods as their fans" since their wages began approaching the market value of their services, some thirty years ago. And how does this alleged "alienation gap" affect baseball more than the other major team sports -- all of which started out, and remain, far more expensive to attend?
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The Christian Science Monitor, which really ought to know better, publishes the annual Baseball Economics Article I Don't Want to See: a piece that uses Team Marketing Report's Fan Cost Index to lament how MLB is pricing itself out of the reach of families.
I'm working on a series of articles for Baseball Prospectus about the problems with the FCI and what more meaningful team-by-team cost estimates would look like. For now, suffice to say that when the Monitor writes:
"On average, a family of four will spend $155.52 for a day at big-league ballparks this year,"
what it's actually saying is: "a family of four that buys four average-priced tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular hot dogs, two programs, and two of the least expensive adult-sized adjustable caps, and parks in the stadium lot, will pay an average of $155.52 for the privilege."
The Monitor also quotes one Peter Roby, president of the Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Northeastern University, who insists, "We are pricing the poorer population of America out of the national game." To support his point, Roby doesn't cite evidence about actual attendance at major league games, instead noting that participation in baseball has been declining for years. Roby also projects a number of his own issues onto the general populace:
"Players used to live in the same neighborhoods as their fans. Now we have the alienation gap with fans increasingly resenting astronomic salaries, performance-enhancing drugs, and socially aberrant behavior by players."
Players haven't "lived in the same neighborhoods as their fans" since their wages began approaching the market value of their services, some thirty years ago. And how does this alleged "alienation gap" affect baseball more than the other major team sports -- all of which started out, and remain, far more expensive to attend?
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