New ownership and $1 million in capital improvements to Richmond County Bank Ballpark hasn’t stopped attendance for the Single-A Staten Island Yankees (New York-Penn League) from dropping by 1,631 per game compared to last year. The dip is being blamed on the economy and this summer’s extreme heat. Read comprehensive coverage here.
Attendance for Baby Bombers Slips by Nearly 30 Percent
Filed under Rankings & Attendance
ballparkbiz.wordpress.com 
I agree with Dan. Mandalay sells a lot of tickets and are good at it, but they also pump up numbers. THey “claimed” to have sold-out 20 or so games before. I think they did well, but I highly doubt that.
There should not be any reason why tickets are $20 at a minor league baseball game, whether or not you are in New York, Boston or San Francisco. Why are tickets not as pricey in Brooklyn or Long Island-who are both rank high in attendance in their respective leagues.
Hudson Valley and even Brooklyn, where they get real sellouts, have tickets that are pricy – I get it, it’s NY – but their cheap seats are still $9. I think SI does it to offset their lame all-you-can-eat tickets. Someone said it’s because they have six NYPL titles. Really? If it’s performance based, shouldn’t the fact they have the worst record in the league actually lower the price then?
Day of game tickets at Winston-Salem are $13 and $15.
Everything is more expensive around NY – should we really be shocked that SI is trying to get $20+ for tickets ? Like I said, I assume they have done research and priced their tickets where they think they can maximize profits. Do you really want MiLB regulating ticket prices ? If you do, then you must want teams to go back to playing in rickety parks like they did in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
They can charge whatever they think the market will bear. Perhaps the team thinks they can make money by charging $20 per ticket rather than $10-12. Since the team doesn’t seem concerned about the drop in attendance, my guess is that it is not affecting the bottom line.
I agree that the $20-22 is out of line, but a lot of teams are charging too much these days – Staten Island is not the only one. Hudson Valley and Winston-Salem are two others that come to mind – both are charging $15+ for some of their tickets.
I looked up Winston-Salem’s ticket prices ($10-15) and part of the reason are the service fees charged by Ticket Master. However, they are still not $20-22 a ticket and the last time I looked, parking and toll charges do not hovering around $30 when attending a game in Winston-Salem.
When you charge $20-22 for tickets for a Single-A minor league game, then your are out of touch with reality. Minor League Baseball should step in and do something about this nonsense in Staten Island. If you cannot lower your prices, then we are going to take away your team!
I think the real reason is new ownership is accurately reporting attendance this year. I’ve gone to plenty of SI games where they’ve announced a sellout (7,171) and there was half that in the park. Also it might have to do with the highest ticket prices for minor league ball. Cheap seats start at $17.
Dan,
That’s probably part of it. See below from the story:
“Mandalay, which she [Jane Rogers, the team’s current president and general manager] served as executive vice president and general manager, gave out more tickets to corporate partners to increase the team’s attendance numbers, even though those tickets often weren’t redeemed at the gate. Attendance reported to the league includes complimentary and donated tickets, she said.”
Alan