With the MLB playoffs in full swing, baseball fans across the country are treated to exciting, drama filled affairs on a nightly basis. If you have ever attended a live playoff game, you quickly get a sense that the atmosphere feels different. Each pitch is pivotal, each at bat could decide the outcome of an entire series.
Over the course of 162 regular season games, it is impossible for this postseason electricity to be consistently replicated. Fans contribute significantly to this atmosphere. You will rarely spot an empty seat come October. It is also not uncommon for spectators to remain on their feet for the majority of the game.
The players feed off the energy of the crowd, and the crowd in turn feeds off of the intensity of their heroes. In Chicago, the Cubs shoulder the expectations of eradicating a curse that is 108 years in the making. Generations of fans have lived and died without seeing their beloved Cubs win a title, and this intensity has only been amplified with the team on the precipice of a World Series berth. Progressive Field in Cleveland was routinely a ghost town for much of the past decade, but the fans have swarmed to the stadium in droves with their Indians a win away from the World Series.
However, the fans who have flocked to baseball stadiums in the thousands this fall have paid an exorbitant price for their efforts. Tickets for the National League Championship Series (NLCS) this year have ranged from an average of over $500 per ticket in Chicago to approximately $200 in Cleveland. While ticket prices for regular season action are substantially less, it would still cost a family of four approximately $170 dollars to attend a game in 2016.
Many simply do not have the type of disposable income to afford a trip to the ballpark, a scenario which would have been unfathomable just decades ago. When analyzing the development of baseball in the United States, it is important to note that it originated as a leisure activity for the urban working class.
The technological innovations of the 1920s fostered the emergence of mass consumer culture on a scale that was previously unprecedented in American society. This rapid wave of commodification soon intersected with the emerging culture of leisure that would have a transformative impact on the way people regarded sports. As American cities grew into bastions of industrialization, workers streamed into these metropolises along the Northeastern and Midwestern corridors. Since many of these jobs were becoming increasingly monotonous, workers turned to sports, cinema and other forms of amusement as a means of entertainment.
Baseball was at the forefront of this new model of sports consumption. It was the dominant pastime during the decade in which sports culture permanently transitioned from embodying leisure to serving as an outlet of entertainment for the working class.
Baseball stadiums within these cities became the epicenters of their communities, places where entire families could enjoy a wholesome day at the ballpark. In this era, the sport of baseball and its stadiums were inexpensive outposts of leisure designed for and catering to working class populations.
This contrasts significantly to the state of baseball stadiums in the modern era, which is reflective of a sports industry which has become saturated with greed and disconnected from the interests of average fans.
This is epitomized by the Legends Baseball Club behind home plate in Yankee Stadium, which is divided from the rest of the stadium via a towering wall. Prices for these premium seats run as high as $1800 apiece for regular season contests and are amplified when the postseason rolls around.
It is estimated that over 75 percent of Americans do not possess the discretionary income necessary to attend sporting events in person, whereas 10 years ago it was cheaper to go to a baseball game in half of the big league markets than to watch a movie.
Even family members of all time Yankee greats, including the granddaughter of the esteemed Babe Ruth himself, have revealed that they now cannot afford to attend baseball games at Yankee Stadium.
Live sporting events no longer serve as an escape for working class individuals, and modern stadiums are predominantly filled with the most affluent members of society. Many of these modern fans have connections to Wall Street and the banking industry and use tickets as a means to court and lavishly entertain clients.
While stadiums of earlier eras were often located in the heart of America’s metropolises, many sports franchises have begun to transplant their arenas to suburban locales. Perhaps most prominently, the Atlanta Braves have decided to abandon Turner Field in downtown Atlanta for a new stadium site located in the northern suburbs of Cobb County.
The Braves justified the decision by asserting that “The current location has certain issues that are insurmountable and will only become more problematic over the years. These fundamental issues involve how you, our fans, access Turner Field.”
The majority of Braves season ticket holders now live outside of Atlanta city limits, primarily residing in the suburbs to the north of the city.
As a result of the decline of the American manufacturing industry in the latter portion of the 20th century, most sports franchises’ ticket purchasing fan bases are from the outer rings of their metropolitan areas. Baseball stadiums are no longer designed for city dwelling, working class fans.
They now serve as a diversion for the affluent rather than the common people, and many will never be able to afford a family outing to the ballpark unless the MLB and all other American sports leagues return to their roots and make the stadium experience affordable for all.
