The Relationship Between MLB Player Salaries and Ticket Prices

Okay, so today we're going to talk about the relationship between player salaries and ticket prices in Major League Baseball. There's a lot of talk of this going on on Twitter. I see it all over the place. And I found an article on Baseball Prospectus. So I'm going to put the link actually in the description box below if you want to go check it out. It's by Rob Maynes and he goes in depth on how people believe that if players salaries go up that ticket prices will also go up. And so there's been a lot of talk on Twitter when it comes to these collective bargaining discussions that are going on. A lot of people, what I see is people telling the players to stop asking for more money because games are already very expensive to go to, right? Ticket prices are high and you know a hot dog is like twelve dollars and you want to drink a beer and it's you know eight dollars and everything is so expensive and it's difficult for most families to be able to go and watch their favorite teams play because not only is it expensive for a single person but then you think about bringing an entire family to a game and it just costs a lot of money. And so people are saying to players, you know, stop asking for more money. We we want ticket prices to go down and not up and if you ask for more money then we have to pay even more to go to to games. And that's actually not the truth. And this article kind of breaks down a couple of the reasons why and so I want to, I found it very interesting and I want to go through and and give you guys some examples of of why that isn't the case and why player salaries are not, there is no direct relationship between that and ticket prices. So let's get into it right now. All right, so the first thing is if ticket prices are directly tied to player salaries, then those prices should rise and fall based on team salaries rising and falling, right? So just like gas prices are tied to crude oil. If crude oil goes up, gas prices go up. If crude oil goes down, gas prices go down, right? But that's not the way that it actually works and we have some examples here that we're going to go over right now that show that when teams decrease their their payrolls by a lot, they don't drop their ticket prices by a lot. And when teams increase their payrolls by a lot, their ticket prices don't increase by a lot. So here's an example of teams with the largest payroll decreases from 2019 to 2021. So we had Cleveland. They went from 151 million to 49.1 million. That's a 68 percent drop in prices. You have Miami who went from 74.7 million down to 32 million dollars. It's a 57 percent drop. Then you have Baltimore going down 49 percent, Seattle 49 percent, and Texas 47 percent. So they all basically cut their team salaries in half. And so these are some examples of teams not just cutting a little bit of payroll. They're literally just slashing their payroll. Some of these teams are just cutting everything, right? And so again, you would expect that, you know, if people are saying that player salaries going up are going to equate to higher ticket prices, the same should be in reverse, right? You would think, well, if a team just cut their salary, right? If we've got Miami at 32 million dollars now, that their ticket price should be really low. But when you look at it, it didn't happen, right? So the average ticket price for Seattle fell from $37.77 to $35.22, okay? So $2.50 there, okay? So ticket prices did go down for Seattle. And Baltimore actually did decrease their ticket prices by 43 cents, okay? So both of those teams did decrease their ticket prices. But that was it. Those other teams that we mentioned, all their ticket prices went up. And so even though they completely slashed salaries and barely paid anything for players, they still went up. And just those two teams went down by, you know, $2.50 and what, 43 cents, did I say, right? So there is no evidence that cutting prices or cutting player salaries is going to lower ticket prices. And giving players a little bit more money is going to higher ticket prices. So let's go a little bit more in depth in the article, what they talk about, why this is. So we start off with free market competition. So essentially, when you're buying a product, right? Any product, grocery product, you're getting gas, you're buying sneakers, whatever it is, right? There's competition. And so when it comes to gas prices, let's just say gas prices, right? Let's say you're going to, you're going to go fill up a tank of gas, and there's a bunch of gas stations, right? Now there's a certain price, again, depending on the price of crude oil, that most companies are going to be kind of around the same, right? So let's just say for right now, I know gas prices are super high, but let's just say $4 a gallon, okay? $4 a gallon. Now, when you're driving down the road, everyone's probably going to be right around $4 a gallon, let's say. You might have 405 here, you might have 399 here, you know, 407 there. But one of those gas stations isn't going to do, put their price at $8, right? Because if they put their price at $8, well, what are you going to do? You're just going to drive past that, and you're going to go to the next one and get $4, right? The same thing with most things, most, you know, electronics and sneakers and groceries. And so when there's more options, when you can go to different places, you can go to different supermarkets, you know, you can't have a $5 box of cereal here and a $45 box of cereal over here. Nobody's buying that $45 box of cereal if you can get it for $5 someplace else, okay? So hopefully that makes sense. When it comes to Major League Baseball games, there's no other options, right? Like, now I understand if you're in New York, there's multiple teams in New York. But for most places, if you want to go watch a Major League Baseball game, you have one option, right? Like, if I want to go watch a Major League Baseball game, I'm going to a Red Sox game. I mean, I guess I could get in my car and drive all the way down to New York. But realistically, I'm going to one game. And so there's no competition around, right? It's the Red Sox, and that's it. Now, understand that there's other options, entertainment options that I could spend my money on. I can go to the movies if I want. You know, I can go to the park, go to an amusement park. I can go to other things. But if I want to watch baseball, right? I want to watch baseball at the highest level, the Major League level, right? I can go to a college game and stuff, but that's not Major League Baseball. I have essentially, again, I have one option. And obviously there is a limit on what they can charge. So like, you know, if the average ticket price to go to a Red Sox game is $100, let's say it's $100, right? They can't just say, okay, we're going to charge $1,000. Because at $1,000 at that point, I'm probably saying, okay, you know what? I love baseball, man, but I'm not going to watch the Red Sox. Maybe I will just go to Six Flags or something like that instead, right? So they can't just go up to any price they want. So essentially the team is going to try to figure out, okay, where can we price the ticket where we can make the most profit possible while also making sure that there's demand for that, right? We put the tickets too high. There's not going to be very much demand. We're going to have to lower the tickets. And so there's a balancing act there. But player salaries have nothing to do with it. The prices aren't going up or down based on what the players are getting paid. Now, the other reason they talk about why prices won't come down much is because of resellers. There's so many resellers now. And so let's say that $100 ticket, right? That ticket that we talked about, that Red Sox ticket for $100. If late in the season, I want to go to a game, right? And I can't get that ticket, game sold out. I go to StubHub or some other place to get the ticket. The ticket's going to be worth much more than $100, right? Maybe it's $200 they're selling for, $250, $300, I don't know, right? But if there's demand to go to the game, which again, there's typically in Boston, in most places, there's pretty high demand to go to the game, then these resellers are going to sell the ticket for a lot more money. But that money isn't going to, that extra money isn't going to Red Sox, right? It's going to the resellers. And so that $100 that the Red Sox sold the tickets for, if they said, you know what, let's lower the prices down, right? Let's do it for $50. If the demand is still for that August game, right? They do it at $50, okay? Now for that late game that I want to go to, right? That's still sold out. Well, the demand is still going to be there to go to the game. And the resellers, they're not going to sell it for any cheaper. They can still sell it for that same, you know, $200, $250, $300, whatever it was before the same price. And so the Red Sox aren't making any, they've just lowered their price by $50. And they're not going to be making any, they're making less. The resellers are actually going to now make more, right? So, so many resellers, and they go into it more in depth in the article, is another reason why prices are high and it's hard for the team to drop them. They probably will not, will not drop them. So in the end, hopefully this gives you a little bit of insight. I thought the interest, the article was interesting. Again, you can click down there and read the entire thing. But it's, it shows why player salaries are not tied to ticket prices and why I think fans need to stop yelling at players to just take the deal and, you know, stop trying to get more money when I can't afford to go to a game already. Isn't exactly true. So let me know in the comment section below what you think about that. Subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give a thumbs up, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've got hitters that you're looking to improve before the start of next season, this is essential for you. Matt Antonelli here, former major league player, first round pick, and college coach. With this course, we're going to show you exactly step-by-step how to generate power, develop bat speed, and enhance swing mechanics. 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