The Associated Press just ran a throwaway piece on the rising cost of attending an NFL game that only tells a part of the story:
The average cost for a family of four at an NFL game this season will be more than $300, according to the Fan Cost Index compiled by TMR [Team Marketing Report]. That's up 4.3 percent from 2003 and includes four tickets, two small beers, four small soft drinks, four hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least-expensive, adult-size caps.
I don't doubt that when TMR crunched their numbers, that these figures came tumbling out of their MS Excel spreadsheet, and is now available in print or on CD-ROM for a few hundred bucks (after all, TMR doesn't mind promoting one of their properties with a storyline that's designed to hook the lazy reporter). But then again, just how many average familes of four actually attend an NFL game at the average ticket price?
Consider this for a moment: most likely included in the calculations for the price of an "average" ticket, are high-priced seats located in luxury boxes and premium seating areas -- seats that didn't exist in many cities even 10 years ago. That's bound to increase the "average" price of a ticket to an NFL game. But the fact of the matter remains that the average ticket is merely a figment of TMR's spreadsheet. But if you step into the real world for a moment, you'll find that attending an NFL game might not be such an expensive proposition after all.
I'll use an example I know best, the Baltimore Ravens. I've been a season ticket holder with the Ravens for seven seasons now, with the ticket price for my two seats in the North end zone now costing $48 each -- a $17 increase from when I first purchased the tickets seven seasons ago, during their second year in Baltimore at Memorial Stadium. In addition, I've also paid a personal seat lisence of $250 on each seat.
Is that a lot of money? You bet. But in the ensuing years since I've purchased the season tickets, the Ravens have gone to the playoffs three times, won a Super Bowl, and generally played an entertaining brand of football at home -- believe me, watching Ray Lewis make plays is worth your hard earned dollar.
Over the course of the past several decades, the NFL has steadily worked to create a unique and compelling entertainment experience that few others can readily match. And if you want to play, you've got to pay.
But my ravenous hunger for NFL football has created a ready market for the sports bargain hunter. For example: besides eight regular season tickets, I'm also forced to purchase tickets to a pair of exhibition games at the same price. And in the seven years I've had these tickets I've never attended an exhibition game.
Just a few weeks ago, I put up these tickets for auction on eBay just to get rid of them -- and did just that at a 50 percent discount off of face value, far below the average cost of $54 each that TMR cites in its report.
Here's another example. Just before the Ravens Super Bowl run, the team made a limited number of additional playoff tickets available for sale to season ticket holders. Jumping on the chance, I ordered a pair of tickets that were comparably priced to the pair I already had, thinking I'd be able to sell them at face value to a pair of friends who wanted to attend the game.
Luckily for me, or so I thought, I won the lottery, and was allotted a pair of seats -- in two parts of the stadium that couldn't be further from one another. All of a sudden, the idea of helping out my friends was out of the question, and with the game only a few days away, an auction via eBay was all but impossible.
Hence, on my way to the Stadium for a Wild Card game between the Ravens and the Broncos, I had two extra tickets in my pocket for the game that I didn't need. But because they weren't together, in effect they were worth far less than face value. In essence, they were a sunk cost for me -- one that I unloaded at a substantial discount to my original investment.
There are other things you can do to cut the cost of going to the game for this mythical family. As my own parents taught me, going to the game doesn't mean I get to bring home a souvenir or eat a stadium hot dog. Eating at home, and telling junior no when he asks for a $45 fitted cap at the stadium store goes a long way toward controlling your game day budget.
The only piece of your game day dollar that is practically impossible to cut is transportation. Whether you drive to the game and park for $20, or load the crew for a bus or train trip, the cost is essentially the same. And if you manage to save money by using public transportation, the loss of time in terms of opportunity cost is mighty high (ask anyone who uses the Washington Metro and bus to get to FedEx Field in Suburban Maryland and you'll see exactly what I mean).
There are other factors, such as the fact that a scalper with a pair of tickets in his pocket two hours before kickoff is a lot easier to deal with 10 minutes before kickoff. Tickets to a 4:00 p.m. kickoff are easier to score than tickets to a 1:00 p.m. kickoff. Ditto September games in the Sun, against December games played in Winter twilight.
Simply put, if you want conveniece, certainty and comfort, be prepared to pay for it (or just make friends with somebody who has access to the corporate box). But make the decision to rough it, and you may very well find yourself a bargain.
Why bother noting this? Because an AP story like this one tends to germinate -- and unthinking sports desks around the country are already following its lead.
After all, writing about a family of four that doesn't exist anywhere but inside a spreadsheet is an easier story than the one I just laid out.
The short explanation for why media outlets buy into the “family of four” model is that most people don’t distinguish price from cost. Example: A friend of mine got four tickets to a Redskins exhibition game and invited me to join him. The “price” of the ticket for me was zero, but the cost was whatever the initial purchaser paid.
Prices are dynamic and subjective. Costs are presumed to be fixed and objective, which is why its simpler for the press to focus on costs.
I think you really should look at costs for ducats in on a per hour basis. Football tickets, by their nature, are the cheapest around.
The reason is because so many folk want to use a lot of time at games. For example, one of my more daring friends plans on getting to the Bills/Jags opener at 7am. He’ll spend $50 on a ticket…and leave the game at/around 5pm. $5/hour doesn’t seem so bad, does it? That may not include parking and driving, but you get my gist. I think the value an individual puts on the tickets is much more important than the “spreadsheet” you refer to.
I hate those average cost things. Since people are so different, and tailgating may reduce the in-stadium cost of attending a game, it doesn’t seem relevant to me.
Two problems with the tailgating benefit: 1)There’s additional expenses involved in it that increase the cost/hour. 2)I understand that it ties in with the game to be 1 event, but you can hang out with your friends, drink some beer, grill some sausages, listen to the pre-game show and toss around a football without spending $50 for the privilege of doing it in a parking lot near a stadium.
The more I think about this, the less irritated I am with the AP story.
Here’s why you can’t win when you’re a journalist. What AP has presented here is a simple fact — too simple to tell the whole story, yes. It simply says that if you bought X, Y and Z in 2003 and then again in 2004, you paid a little more in 2004.
Of course, there’s more that can be said, and of course, fans have wildly divergent tales of how they got tickets and how much they spent at the stadium. But if the writers and editors tell all this or follow Eric’s lead here to tell about the entertainment value of the Ravens, then oh no … they’re offering “analysis,” and they’ll surely be told (perhaps not by Eric, but by someone else) to stick to the facts. “We don’t need you to think for us, you naughty little journalist,” will be the response.
So the journalists are in trouble one way or the other.
In this case, I don’t have a problem with the numbers as presented as long as they’re comparing apples to apples. If the cost of tickets, food, souvenirs and so forth went up X percent in a year, then so be it. If I’m not buying hot dogs or caps, then I’ll be happy to know that I’m saving that much more money.
There’s only so much we can do to personalize such a story for each fan. If it were up to me, I’d say forget the price — what happened to the Molson at MCI Center? How do you watch a hockey game with drab American beer?