Win, Lose, Drew by Drew Litton for February 20, 2019

And that is why I don’t go to American Football games, and only go to one baseball game a year (something to do for my birthday in the early summer)

Yes. You have to take out a second mortgage nowadays to be able to afford to take your family to a ball game.

And God forbid your team wins the World Series or Stupid Bowl – it is a virtual lock on having the ticket prices jump up significantly next year.

I have better things to do with my time than watch a guy get paid millions per year for throwing, hitting, catching, carrying, or kicking a freaking ball.

It is absolutely ridiculous — and this ’Toon shows it perfectly ♥ Excellent job Drew, as always.

Yet, as fivestring says, fans keep buying the tickets!

This is absolutely wrong. Player salaries aren’t the reason for high ticket prices. Massive TV contracts, licensing, merchandising, and sweetheart stadium deals are. The money is there, and the players are the ones people come to see, so why SHOULDN’T they make as much as they can? Moreover, if they DON’T make those salaries, the money is NOT going to be used to reduce ticket prices. The owners will keep it. Or did you think the owners are somehow less rich than the players? (Check Darren Rovell’s Twitter today: Three NFL owners just bought yachts – Jerry Jones for $250 Million, Arthur Blank for $180 Million, Dan Snyder for $100 Million. And you’re angry at the PLAYERS?!?)

If a business owner approached you and said they will pay you $10 million a year to come work for them, you are going to say “No, that’s too much money”? Riiiight….

I gave up on baseball the year that the players went on strike and ruined the season. I figured if they didn’t care enough to show up and play (for their millions of dollars) I would have to be some kind of idiot to care enough to watch.

We are close to having the first half billion player! Way too close.

Athletes have a shorter work time span. They are the top elite in the world. The owners have enough money to pay them and still make a lot of money. In the NFL the argument can be made, that the owners don’t share enough. The players are employees. As an employee myself, I want to get paid well, and still provide a reasonable profit for my employer.

wow that’s a lot i don’t know how he is going to carry it.

Dumping all the money into just a few sports is killing Olympic sports in America. Every year colleges drop more and more Olympic sports teams

I go to minor league games.

From der Googles on the interwebs:

The price for an adult ticket is $8 or less at nearly 80% of Minor League Baseball’s stadiums. The average cost for a family of 4 for a night at a Minor League ballpark ranges from $68.00 for a Triple-A game to $53.03 for a Short Season A/Rookie contest.

Supply and demand. Simple capitalism. Thank you Don, Sandy and Curt.

Airline food, TV dinners, athlete salaries. Ah, the go-to,jokes of humorists who’ve run out of ideas.

I get to see the Texas Rangers on cable TV. Of course I do have to pay for the cable but I would be doing that anyway. The commercial breaks take care of most of the cost.

I will say, though, that baseball is the easiest sport to watch on TV. There are enough natural breaks between half innings and during pitching changes that would be there anyway. These are used to cram in the commercials. They might stretch the breaks out a little more, but it is not much different. Most other sports they have to have special media time outs for the commercials.

As far as the players salaries, they have the right to get whatever the market will allow them to get paid. No one is being forced to go to the games or even watch them on TV.

Weird that no-one complains about the huge profits the owners take out of the game. At least the players are creating the entertainment. If you don’t think you’re getting your money’ worth, don’t go. If you do, just think about those profits.

Finally this is brought to our attention! I’ve always had an issue with salary disparities, whether it happens in sports, entertainment, politics, educational institutions, and the corporate world; it has gotten way out of hand, and we the consumers are paying with our hard earned cash. This is especially truth in America! Thank you Mr. Litton for spreading the issue.

I live outside of Boston so tickets for all 4 major sports teams are expensive and hard to come by if you want good seats. I haven’t been to a Pat’s game in many years. Not only are the tickets tough to find and ridiculously expensive, it’s not that enjoyable to sit there in the cold. I get to maybe one or two Bruins games/season and that’s when my brother calls me up because his boss gave him tickets. Celtics, not that interested. Red Sox, same deal as the Bruins. I go when a free ticket lands on my lap. Even then, after paying for parking and eating (I don’t drink) it’s still not cheap. I’d go to more games, particularly the sox, if the tickets weren’t insane.

That looks heavy. Why doesn’t the guy drop it?

People also complain about the cost of concert tickets these days, but as long as these events consistently sell out, what’s gonna change?

The market for direct entertainment is pretty straight forward: There are X number of entertainment seats and Y number of people who want to occupy them. The price of a seat rises until Y is a bit less than X. As a consumer you can have an effect only on “Y”, which you can do by just not buying a ticket. Of course as a voter, you can sometimes have an effect on X by voting against giving away huge amounts of money to sports franchise owners.

Alas, direct entertainment is not the way most folks get their (pro) sports: They watch the television which is funded by ads paid by companies who have a very good idea how many people are watching and what they are (or can be convinced to be) interested in paying for. That revenue stream is a lot harder for consumers to influence. To that end, however, I always recommend that if you are ever asked to take a poll, it is your civic duty to either lie (political polls) or slant your answer toward what you think the world needs to believe about the polling group. Polls are, imo, inherently more on the side of evil than of good.

You can also add the cost of the multi-billion dollar stadium the team owners demand to keep the franchise in the city.

We can’t go to the ball game. We don’t make that much cash. Dad only makes 50 grand a year. That only pays for the popcorn and beer. So, to all you crybaby players.Who say you don’t make much cash. You make 1…2…3 mil a year So just kiss my A$$

I watch all 4 major US sports all year round, and none of the leagues get a nickel of my money (although I did buy an officially licensed t-shirt when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, so they did get $18.00 from me). Nobody says you have to go to the games, you can watch them in your own home.