MLB Opening Day Offers a Summer of Affordable Entertainment
It’s likely that Ben won’t even read this article because baseball puts him to sleep, but I have to give my thoughts on the start of another long baseball season. I hate to admit the amount of time I spend each summer watching baseball, but it’s really something I enjoy and I’m lucky because it’s one of the cheaper sports to watch—especially this year, as teams are slashing ticket prices in an attempt to fill the seats.
Although I shy away from excessive TV cable packages, I get suckered into buying the MLB package every year, which costs me $169. In reality, the amount of time embarrassingly spent watching the package, truly makes the purchase worth the cash (for me). My only complaint with the baseball package available to most of us is that it doesn’t not come in HD!
I love physically going to baseball games and living so close to Baltimore and DC provides me the opportunity to see mediocre baseball (depending on who they are playing) in incredible stadiums. The cost to attend most games will run you cheaper than a movie if you plan it right. For example, most teams offer baseball packages, which consist of usually $300 in tickets at a cost around $40-50. If you know you are going to be attending multiple games, look to purchase one of these packages at the start of the season.
Because there are so many games throughout the year, teams often will have mid-week specials to try to garner attendance. Usually, these discounts will be around $5-10 per ticket and $1-2 hot dogs—in my opinion, you can’t beat that. Keep in mind, that you should avoid buying baseball tickets from Ticketmaster, the fees alone can out price the tickets. Only in a few stadiums do the tickets actually sellout. Because of this, you can always purchase tickets at the stadium the day of the games, but without the added Ticketmaster fees. If you trying to save money, then avoid buying the absolute best to mediocre seats? Unless you have the cash to spend, buy the cheapest seats and move around as the game plays on.
The current economic environment has MLB executives searching for ways to get cash-strapped fans into the ballpark. For us, if you pay attention to promotional games, can mean savings. For example, the Minnesota Twins (my favorite) have set aside 6,500 tickets that are tied to the success of the stock market—tickets will cost whatever the Dow closes at. For example, if the Dow closes at 7,500 then the tickets will cost $7.50. The Milwaukee Brewers have $1 seats and the Houston Astros are selling season-ticket packages for low as $76!
Now, the moment you haven’t been waiting for, my predictions for the 2009 season…
American League
East – Boston
Central – Minnesota (can’t help it!)
West – LA Angels
Wild Card – Yankees
National League
East – NY Mets
Central – Chicago Cubs
West – LA Dodgers
Wild Card – Cincinnati
Related articles you might be interested in:
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader or email.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment