This Is Why People Hate Economists

Ike Brannon, writing in the Times, floats an idea to fund the stadium using nothing but personal seat licenses. While, I like the creativity and the idea of letting those who actually use and support the team be the ones to foot the bill, the idea of PSLs has always ticked me off. It’s a case of the team extracting money for nothing while the loveable chumps in the seats more than willing to ante up.

He gives a decent rationale for PSLs though--an argument I hadn’t heard before: it’s the team’s way of recouping some of the profit they’re going to lose because of scalping. I’d be willing to entertain that argument, I suppose. But, I’d love to hear the team say it.



A year or two ago, the NY Mets, like many other teams have done, went to a tiered pricing schedule, where games at premium times or against premium opponents were priced higher and games against the Brewers were cheaper. They were slaughtered by the NY Press as being greedy and arrogant by sportswriters who probably have never got into a game without their press passes.

I don’t think a team would be able to ever go to a total free-market solution, with auctions for tickets or something similar, but some sort of sophisticated pricing schedule, such as that tiered system is doable and probably makes sense for a lot of teams. The team that figures out how to make it work will definitely benefit from the increased ticket revenue.