A Winning Tradition Has Its Price

When I was a kid, I had a choice. Did I want to become a Mets or a Yankees fan?

It usually begins with your father. Well, that was a non-starter since my father grew up in Chicago and I wasn't going to be a Cubs fan. Eventually, at the age of six, I decided I'd give my allegiance to the Mets.

Conveniently, the next year, they won the World Series.

I mention all of this because I just got a sent the list of average ticket prices by Team Marketing Report. If you're a New Yorker and you've chosen along the way to be a Mets fan like I did, consider yourself blessed.

The average price to go to a game at the new Yankees stadium is $72.97. The average price to go to a game at the new Mets stadium (Citi FieldMets stadium (Citi Field) is $36.99.

That's a 49 percent difference.

Team Marketing Report notes that the Mets classify more areas as "premium seating," which the TMR breaks into a separate category. On that comparison, the Yankees average premium seat cost $510.08, while the Mets average premium seat costs 149.54 — a 70 percent discount.

The Yankees obviously feel like they deserve that premium and I don't blame them at all for charging what they do. If they can get it, all the power to them.

But it's still interesting to see what the difference is when the stadiums become the control part of the experiment. Stadium capacity of course is not a constant. The Mets tickets are more scarce given the fact that Citi Field has about 10,000 fewer seats than the new Yankee Stadium.

Although the Yankees haven't won the World Series since 2000, they won four times in five years. And they of course picked up their last trophy by beating the Mets, who haven't won since the year after I decided to become a fan (1986).

It's not only tickets. According to Team Marketing Report, the Yankees will charge $1 more for a 12-ounce beer and $5 more than the Mets for parking.

The real price I'll be monitoring is the premium on the secondary market — that will determine what, in the end, is the true value of these seats.

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