Friday, April 7, 2017

Baseball Tickets Now or Later

Antonio Gonzales
Mr. Reuter
Economics
3/20/2017


Baseball Tickets Now or Later?

As spring rolls around fans all around the country are getting ready for the baseball season by buying their favorite players shirts, their favorite teams hats, and food for their cook outs causing fans to look at opportunity costs of choosing their team for the year and most importantly, game tickets. Nothing is better than opening day for stores all around the world. As the demand basebal goods increases the prices begin to rise as the quantity supplied also decreases. Many of these suppliers are places like, Wal-mart, sporting good stores, grocery stores, and many other clothing stores.
The revenue that the baseball stadiums and organizations bring in increases due to an increase in price for season tickets, and game tickets. According to, CBNC, tickets on secondary sites are 144% pricier than regular tickets that are bought closer to the actual game itself. But with the worry of not getting premium seats or seats at all, fans are still willing to pay whatever the price to get their spot in the games. This all leads to higher profits for the producers. There is plenty of price control in this market with limited seats in each stadium which is a big advantage and the producers side. The key is to get the consumers to buy sooner than later.
The key is also to meet the consumer's requests as well. This can be done by meeting price equilibrium. This is done by having the amount of tickets not too many, but not too little, and the price not being too much, but also not too little. This usually happens as game day nears and instead of the prices rising, the prices will go lower because a lot of times and team will have a surplus of tickets and they need to get rid of them to bring in more revenue. Now the real question for the consumers is whether you should buy your tickets now or later.
Many will do it before hand debating whether it is worth it or not. Yet there are a lot of factors that come into play as well such as, weather, seats, and most importantly, prices. Prices vary depending on when you buy the tickets and where the seat is located. According to, Quartz, they state that it is better the buy the tickets closer to game day versus buying them 30 days before hand. They also say that opening games in the beginning of the season are also a lot more pricey than tickets later in the season. This is where people have to look at the opportunity cost. Whether to see the opening games and spend more money, or to wait and save money to see other games. What seems to be the most logical choice is to spend less money to see more game because the consumers will have more money to spend when they do go see a cheaper game. Allowing them to buy food, beverages, and souvenirs. But that is a matter of opinion.

Works Cited
Cameron, Dave, Tz Said..., Marc Said..., JD Said..., Eric R. Said..., Maqman Said..., Pft Said..., Bookbook Said..., Mr Punch Said..., Stephen Zielinski Said..., and Marc Schneider Said... "10 Lessons I Learned About the Baseball Economy." The Hardball Times. N.p., 02 May 2014. Web. 04 Apr. 2017. <http://www.hardballtimes.com/10-things-i-learned-about-the-baseball-economy/>.

Grant, Kelli B. "For Best Baseball Deals, It Pays to Procrastinate." CNBC. CNBC, 06 Apr. 2015. Web. 04 Apr. 2017. <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/02/baseball-season-looms-heres-how-to-get-a-good-deal.html>.

Yanofsky, David. "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Baseball Ticket Prices." Quartz. Quartz, 02 Apr. 2013. Web. 04 Apr. 2017. <https://qz.com/69086/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-baseball-ticket-prices/>.

5 comments:

  1. As a Brewer's Season Seat Holder myself, this is very interesting. I have thought about if buying these tickets are very worth it especially if the Brewers are not doing so hot towards the end of the year. At only $440 for my plan with 20 games, I initially thought it was worth it to go especially since I got one of my friends to also get a ticket. Some of the games are towards the end of the year and I will be in college and probably looking to sell the tickets. It will be very hard to sell them for face value if the Brewers are last in the division with no chance of playoffs. But going to the game is a long lasting memory every time and that is what made my ultimate decision. We have the tickets and believe the marginal benefits far outweigh the marginal losses which is why we love the nostalgic game of baseball.

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  2. I do agree with you that buying tickets earlier than later is the better way to go. Sure there might not be as much of certain products but that is because not supplier wants to sell more of a cheaper item. I have to ask though, what are some or are there any big pluses to buying your tickets later? I do not see any but I feel like that could be something you could add even though most of the facts point towards getting them earlier to same money and you'll have more options when picking your seat or other merchandise. And that just brings up how you have so much more to gain and so much more to lose for buying things later. If you buy later you won't have much options left, the prices will be way more expensive, in the end you would have spend more money on the same things than someone who bought there stuff earlier.

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  3. There is a lot of factors that go into buying a ticket. Generally, MLB ticket prices are pretty low for most stadiums but a lot of that is based on many factors. Even if the team is doing bad, the price will rise for tickets against rivals, playoff teams and such because people want to watch those games. Maybe not for the home team, but the one that is coming from out of town. The demand rising will increase the price of the ticket. All in all, it probably is better to buy a ticket closer to the game since demand would drop off and the sellers would wanna try to get some money back.

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  4. Tickets are sold at a more expensive price before the game, but as it gets closer and closer to game time, they lower their prices to get rid of their remaining seats. They do this because some people like to go to certain games and buy the tickets very early. If they don't sell out by game day, they immediately lower the price to gain more profit.

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  5. I agree, but also the opportunity cost of actually purchasing a jersey from the actual arena than from an fan store is that a typical jersey for like a Bucks game is around $12 at a fan store. When you actually purchase anything that is from or in the actual place that they are advertising the prices will be a lot higher so a Jersey at the BMO Harris Center during a game will increase the price to about $20-$25 each and that is a big difference so people usually try to buy their T's and jerseys before hand.

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