The Major League Baseball lockout delayed Opening Day until April 7 this year. I passed on attending. Long ago in grad school, I postponed graduating until August so my neighbor and I could do a driving baseball trip. The schedule was almost perfect: a game in St. Louis, the next night Kansas City, then Seattle, the Bay Area, Southern California and Dallas. Right as we were about to leave, the players went on strike. Aargh! Ultimately 713 games were canceled in 1981. I’ve never forgiven the players or their union.
I’m still a fan. Back in my New York days, I tried and failed to get tickets to opening day at Shea Stadium between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets. Fortunately, I scrounged up tickets for the next day. Rodney Dangerfield threw out the first pitch—marketed as “No Respect Opening Day.” Just my speed.
That’s how I feel about baseball: I love the game but have no respect for the money side of the business. As NBC producer Don Ohlmeyer told reporter Tony Kornheiser when asked about the problems in sports, “The answer to all your questions is: Money.”
The constant bickering over revenue sharing and minimum salaries and luxury taxes is tiresome. It’s not as if players are exploited workers sweating on an assembly line—the lowest-paid player got $570,500 last year. It’s now $700,000. Yes, I’m aware there’s no crying in baseball, but every strike and work stoppage ups salaries, and then prices spiral higher—tickets, beer, dirty-water dogs, Cracker Jack, media rights—to pay outrageous contracts such as newly minted Met Max Scherzer’s $130 million three-year deal.
Meanwhile, baseball is struggling to get fans out to the old ballgame. Forget the Covid years: Total attendance at regular-season games peaked in 2007 at almost 80 million, and in 2019 only 68.5 million went to games. Maybe that’s because average ticket prices in 2007 were $22.77 and are now up 50% to $34.21. The Yankees raised nosebleed ticket prices 40% between 2018 and 2020.
Because of this and media rights sales, Major League Baseball revenue nearly doubled, from $5.4 billion in 2007 to $10.4 billion in 2019. Good luck maintaining that. Eventually price hikes stop working.
