The not so cheep seats: Why Boston's Sports teams are making us broke

The average American household earns approximately 48,000 dollars a year.

The average 26 year old American earns approximately 20,000 dollars a year.

Over 90% of New England and upstate New York's are loyal to Boston sports teams.

Red Sox tickets are the most expensive in baseball.

Life in the cheap seats. 20 years ago, it is what you did. Walk up to the Box office buy a ticket and worship the baseball, football, or hockey team that you grew up loving. It was the way life was and it was how Fenway became America’s most beloved ball park.

Through thick and thin, the fans never died down, they always came back and cheered so loud their throats burned like fire by the end of the night. They cheered their team to victory and watched every moment of

the famed decade of dominance that brought this town a Stanley Cup, 2 World Series, 3 Super Bowl titles and appearances and 2 more in 2007 and 2011 respectively.

Through thick and thin they were there. They filled TD Garden time and time again even after the Bruins blew a 3-0  series lead against the Flyers. They packed Gillette Stadium following the David Tye Ree catch that ended New England’s bid for a 19-0 season and they returned after so many Red Sox playoff losses to the Yankees, only to see the Sox do the unthinkable and win it all in ’04.

For 820 games, Fenway Park was packed to capacity as Boston Sports fans flocked to the ballpark and helped build the largest sellout streak in sports history.

Following the Marathon Bombing’s Boston fans sung their hearts out at TD Garden rallying around an aucapella national anthem as they watched their Bruins glide to the cup finals for the second time in 3 years.

Boston sports fans are often labeled as the most loyal in all of professional sports but while they won’t say it, a clear question still rises from this glowing orb that is our city of championships. Are the same teams that pick these fans up from the ashes of bombings and defeat also ripping them off?  

In the year 1991, you could go to a non-divisional Red Sox game and on average pay just over 10 dollars a ticket. At that point, that price was already 2 dollars more than the MLB average but by 1995, that difference had grown…to almost 4 dollars. Then by 2001, the Sox had successfully increased average ticket prices to almost 37 dollars…an increases of about 250% in just 10 years. 12 years later, prices have still continued to rise. According to the Red Sox box office, the average price for a Tuesday night Fenway game between the Sox and Orioles is….79 dollars. By comparison, the price for a game against those same Orioles at Yankee stadium would cost just between 35 and 40 dollars for second deck seating and as little as 15 dollars for bleacher seating.

But in the world of high ticket prices, the Boston Red Sox are not the only villain. In fact when it comes to insane ticket prices, the New England Patriots may be the kings.

According to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED writer: Greg Cohen's breakdown of the Patriots home games against AFC opponents, the large majority of average prices per game is between 290$ and 390$ with the cheapest seats often sitting around 100$ and 150$. I don’t know about you but in my book 150$ for a sporting event is not ‘cheep’.

By comparison, those prices are almost double of that of the Miami Dolphins average of just over 120$. Crazy right?

So by now I assume you have gotten the point. In order to bring a family of 4 to Gillette Stadium you need to fork over get this, 1,500$. Boston’s sports are overpriced but why?

If the Patriot’s manage to sell out each of their 3 games against AFC visitors (almost always the highest priced games), they will haul in 72,240,000$ that amounts to just 61% of the Patriots payroll as the mega salaries of guys like Brady and Wilfork account for almost 30 million dollars right then and there.

When you look at the Red Sox earnings, they haul in about 2,923,000$ per game. When multiplied by 81 (the number of home games in a season), the Sox have the yearly capacity to earn 236,763,000$ a year solely off of ticket prices. Those 236million dollars account for almost double what the Sox pay their players and staff.

But for baseball fans part of the thrill of going to a pro game goes beyond simply getting in.

Weeks before the game, you want a jersey, something to wear to the game. According to Amazon.com, a site notorious for selling products for well, less than the pro shop, a Dustin Pedroia replica Jersey costs nearly 50$. A baseball cap…25$.

Now statistically speaking, yeah the Sox do not get 100% of those income’s earned by Amazon but they do if you are foolish enough to buy your memorabilia within the walls of Fenway or Gillette.

According to a SPORTS ILLUSTRATED report, in order to buy a hot dog, prime ticket, and  ball cap at Fenway Park you have to pay 235$. That number almost doubles if you are in Gillette. It costs134$ to buy a Tom Brady Jersey, and well we have already talked about ticket prices.

“They’re kind of selfish.” 8 year old Keegan Antelman said when I asked him how he felt about high ticket prices.

Now granted the wonderful thought process that is ‘kid logic’ can be flawed but the premise that this 3^rdgrader outlined reigns supreme.

Do the Boston Red Sox really need almost 300 million dollars a year? Long story short, no. Why you may ask. Because they didn’t need 300 million dollars 10 years ago and things have not changed that much in such a short amount of time.