Sports Biz

Published: Tuesday, 15 Sep 2009 | 8:33 PM ET

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The New York Yankees know the recession happened.

Yankees Fans Yankee Tickets

CNBC has exclusively obtained the 2010 ticket price list that the Yankees will send out to its season ticket holders in the coming days and prices for more than 80 percent of the stadium will remain the same.

Some of the highest price seats will see reductions of up to 40 percent, including those in the Legends area and the Delta Sky 360 Suite. The first level of non-premium suites, which are one level up behind home plate, will be reduced from $325 to $250 or $235 per game per seat, depending on the location. To account for the challenging environment, the Yankees had already given some fans in these areas extra tickets to each game.

The only increase will be seen by those who own tickets in a group of 1,700 seats that surround the Delta suite, which currently sell for $100 per game. Those prices will increase to $125 per game next year.

The much publicized $2,500 per game suite tickets, which were not part of the seats whose price was cut in half in April, will cost $1,500 in 2010. That’s despite the fact that many people who bought the suites before the stadium opened this year agreed to pay between 3 and 6 percent more for their seats each year, depending on how long of a commitment they made to the team.

That means a person or company who agreed to buy the most expensive seats in the stadium on a 10-year contract was on the hook to pay $834,300 ($2,575 per game per seat for 81 games) for four suite tickets in 2010, but will now pay $486,000.

Sources say Yankees general managing partner Hal Steinbrenner has been sensitive to the economy and to consumer response and will continue to review the prices on an ongoing basis. That being said, the Yankees are expected to guarantee to season ticket holders that the escalating percentages that ticket holders had agreed to when they signed their contracts will also not apply for the 2011 season.

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The Yankees -- who at 92-52 have the best record in baseball -- have averaged 45,829 fans per game, which leads the Major Leagues. Considering the fact that the Yankees have not sold the roughly 2,000 standing-room seats that were included as part of the team's original reported capacity, the team has filled more than 90 percent of the seats in the stadium this season.

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