Yankees Match Great Food Selection With Absurd Prices
By Scott Kornberg
During my trip to Yankee Stadium this past weekend, one of the first things I noticed about the new ballpark in the Bronx was the incredible amount of different concession options that fans are able to choose from. Fans can choose from classic baseball foods like hot dogs, burgers, chicken fingers, pizza, and French fries, or order less traditional ballpark foods like sushi, Southern barbeque, deli sandwiches, and even fruit and vegetables from a stadium farmer’s market. However, fans better be ready to pay ridiculous prices for whatever they decide to order at the New Stadium.
The Yankee Stadium experience in general is extremely expensive. A good parking deal is about $20, and that comes after ordering baseball’s third-most expensive ticket. Fans are not allowed to bring any food or drinks into the stadium, which forces their hands shell out big bucks to the concessions scam artists: $9 burgers, $7 milkshakes, $10 pulled pork/chicken sandwiches, $15 deli meat sandwiches, $10.75 cheese steaks, $5 fries, $9 burritos ($6 queso is sold separately), $5.50 hot dogs (compared to $2 dogs outside the stadium), and $6.50 ice cream sundaes.
The Yankees are the poster child for absurd food prices, but most professional sports teams share similar issues with their fans. However, other teams do make some conveniences to fans. The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals do allow fans to bring a sealed bottle into games. When prices inside a stadium are almost three times more expensive than at a normal restaurant, and stadium rules prohibit fans from bringing their own food or drinks, fans are being taken advantage of. To add insult to injury, the statistics on health code violations with concessions vendors will make any fan think twice about running to the ATM machine before the game.
A solution for this issue would be for teams to either allow fans to bring their own food and drinks, or to lower concession prices to a more reasonable rate. It has become a major expense for fans to attend a sporting event. They already have to pay for their ticket, and in most cases, parking. Charging fans absurd rates on concessions has made attending a game an economic burden. While teams like showing off their diverse concession selection to fans, they completely turn their head on the cost of these concessions, making fans pay a completely unreasonable rate for food and drinks that they could have just brought into the stadium themselves.
Scott Kornberg is a sportscaster for WMUC Sports (www.wmucsports.com). He hosts his own sports talk show, and announces baseball and softball games for the University of Maryland. He covers Maryland’s football and basketball writing for www.turtlesportsreport.com part of the scout.com network.
I’ve always complained about prices at Nats Park. Until now. Next time I go to the ballpark I’ll think about these prices and complain less
This problem is a little less magnified at Camden Yards, where I can buy a bunch of dollar hot dogs and sodas on the outside and bring them into the park. Allowing fans to bring in their own food and drink is one of the few things the Orioles have done right in terms of fan relations over the past 13 years. Bringing in your own food and drink is a baseball tradition. There’s no excuse not to let fans do it.
But, if these teams lowered their prices on food and drink (a ballpark hot dog at Camden Yards costs almost as much as the kind of ticket I buy), I’d be much more inclined to skip the outdoor vendors and just buy on the inside. Buying food right near my seat is much more convenient than buying it outside the park — but encourage me to do it.
Luke
The Yankees have had the same prices since the old Yankee Stadium, the real problem is just how they can turn a profit from it.
The only reason they’d change their prices is if they stood to make more money off of it, and clearly fans are still paying out for food at extortionate prices.