jim wrote:
And I don't know if it is just baseball popeye. I've heard raves about PNC from every person that has been there, and similiarly with Comerica. I've never had a bad seat at Wrigley, and the one time I went to Fenway as close as I was to the field those would be labeled box seats at B3 (they were not box at Fenway).
Keep in mind the economic factors for each of these cases.
PNC is very nice (I've been there), but it seats only 38,000. Seats are cheap and there are few "premium" areas because there is very little demand for Pirates tickets. They support a payroll of less than $50 million. If the Cardinals stink for nearly 20 years and slash payroll, we could have a nice affordable park like this too.
It costs $36 to sit in the Wrigley bleachers now for "regular games". Given, because of the history or whatever, those are "prime seats", but their prices across the board are higher than Busch, and wheels are already in motion to "modernize" Wrigley in terms of advertising, etc.
Fenway has the highest average ticket prices in the majors. They keep sticking premium seating anywhere they can. First they glassed in the area behind home plate. Then seats on the Monster. Then the roof deck seats. I'm sure more and more advertising will find it's way into Fenway too.
I don't think Busch III is the best ballpark in the majors. I think the seating and pricing sucks, and I rarely go to games anymore. But I realize that's the nature of the beast. You can't just build a Fenway or Wrigley and suddenly have 90+ years of tradition. Baseball is too popular in St. Louis to build a PNC. If the Cardinals have a $100 million payroll, they have to make that money somehow. Do the average fans get squeezed? Of course. But it's not all bad--with HD, watching games for free at home gets better and better each year.
I'm certain that if you compared $ price as a function of distance from homeplate, B3 would be >> then Fenway and Wrigley. The Bleacher seats are a different animal at Wrigley - and they are ridiculously overpriced. And with the club seating at Fenway, the key for me they are putting those things on top of the stadium. Put all club seats you want out in the LF upper deck - fine by me.
I would have embraced B3 if they chopped off the 4th deck, put all of the club and party suites up there, and converted the current club/party areas to plain old regular seats. If they did that, I'd be singing it's praises. I don't like the scoreboard etc..., but that's not the main issue with me. It's the seating and pricing, which as you say sucks.
cardinalkarp wrote:I'll have to give a big thumbs down to the crowd as well last night. Yeah it was cold, yeah it was rescheduled but GD its Opening Day and we're down by 1 run w/ two innings left. I would say 1/2 the crowd left after the top of the 8th and another 1/4 left after the top of the 9th, it was pathetic.
I am bracing for really bad crowds this season. They've been bad in recent years when they were at least winning most of the time. I don't think a lot of the bandwagoners can handle the losing.
As much as anything, I'm hoping this down year washes away some of the chaff in the fanbase.
I don't think it will be just the bandwagoners, in this economy I don't think real fans are going to be as eager to shell out major bucks for tickets to watch a mediocre team. Throw in the highway 40 construction which makes the trip down to Busch a big hassle for a lot of people, and yeah I'm prepared for a lot of bad crowds as well.
cardinalkarp wrote:I'll have to give a big thumbs down to the crowd as well last night. Yeah it was cold, yeah it was rescheduled but GD its Opening Day and we're down by 1 run w/ two innings left. I would say 1/2 the crowd left after the top of the 8th and another 1/4 left after the top of the 9th, it was pathetic.
I am bracing for really bad crowds this season. They've been bad in recent years when they were at least winning most of the time. I don't think a lot of the bandwagoners can handle the losing.
As much as anything, I'm hoping this down year washes away some of the chaff in the fanbase.
I don't think it will be just the bandwagoners, in this economy I don't think real fans are going to be as eager to shell out major bucks for tickets to watch a mediocre team. Throw in the highway 40 construction which makes the trip down to Busch a big hassle for a lot of people, and yeah I'm prepared for a lot of bad crowds as well.
think Dewitt will care about that enough to actually spend some money next winter?
Throw in the highway 40 construction which makes the trip down to Busch a big hassle for a lot of people
Yeah, that caused me to get alot less tickets this year. My drive which used to be straight down 40 to now being down 70 isn't that big of a deal. But I dropped off a buddy that lives off Kingshighway and my trip turned into 44 to 270 to 40 which is a major inconvience.
