Ballpark figures

[CHIMO]

The Major League Baseball season is about one month old, and while the competition on the field is as compelling as ever, the story is in the stands. Actually, the story is what's not in the stands: paying customers, especially in several high-profile and higher-priced new ballparks, notably the brand new Yankee Stadium.

The recession is impacting every sport, in a variety of ways. The NBA had to extend emergency loans to several franchises, while even the 800-pound gorilla known as the NFL has had to layoff dozens of employees. But baseball is in the most precarious position.

The every day nature of its season results in the perception that few of the games are particularly meaningful. When the country's discretionary income swirls down the drain, that extra baseball game or two is quickly dispensed with. Whereas the short season and week-long buildup inoculates football from those same pressures, baseball is like a long-running soap opera – the fan can drop in occasionally and still get the gist.

Of course, baseball has weathered hard times before: the Great Depression, the second world war, Astroturf. The difference today is that the economic blow coincides with a frenzy of stadium construction. Cities from coast to coast, including San Diego, St Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Washington, have opened new parks in the past few years. The doubleheader in New York, with the Mets also opening a stadium in Queens in the shadow of the monolith in the Bronx, caps the construction boom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/29/baseball-stadium-economy-ticket-prices

There are the pyramids, and there are the coliseums and there are the stadiums.

[islandmkl]

1. about the

i submit that NO modern sports stadium will be evident to our ancestors in 200 years...these are buildings constructed only to make money, not be lasting monuments to any society...

which might be a good symbol of the futility of cherishing money...

[rurallib]

2. I stopped watching baseball about 15 years ago

after a strike. Millionaires striking against billionaires. Banjo hitters and itinerent infielders making millions.
As many before me I kept saying they would price themselves out of business someday.
For the past decade or so the cost of going to a major league game is way out of the price range of about 80% of Americans.

[pscot]

3. That strike did it for me also

I haven't followed the game since. I have to believe that sports have been hurt by the decline of the newspapers too. The sports pages used to provide daily reinforcement, now, in a lot of places, that's gone.

[lostnotforgotten]

5. Millionaires Complaining About Their Salaries Has Left Me Cold For All Professional Sports

eom

[classysassy]

4. The last straw

for me,when the yankees gave that repug loving greedy A-fraud,27 millions dollars a year to play a kids game.

[lostnotforgotten]

6. Best To Close All The Ball Parks And Televise Only On TV

eom