Where Have All of the Cubs Fans Gone? (BCB in the News!)

I posted a mini-rant there, because I couldn’t help myself:

What if Toyota raised the sticker price of the Camry (the best selling car in the world) from $30,000 to $80,000, and then Motor Trend published an article speculating that the reasons behind a resulting drop in demand were somewhat mysterious, but could be due to the Accord winning Car of the Year in 2005, customer dissatisfaction with the Camry’s low-tech navigation system, or a lack of popularity in driving overall, despite all the traffic on the roads? We’d probably say that while those things might be true, spending ink on anything other than Toyota’s dramatic price increase still misses the point entirely.

So it is with the Cubs. In 2000 – when one could still walk into the ticket office and buy season tickets on the spot – the fan cost index for Wrigley (a widely cited measure developed by Team Marketing Report that reflects the total cost of tickets, food, and merchandise one would be expected to purchase in a day at the ballpark) was $135.52. Last year, the index hit $329.74, reflecting an increase in costs nearly 150x the U.S. inflation rate, and we saw a secondary ticket market awash in unused tickets and below market prices – for every series but the "marquis ones".

In 2011, as you wrote, the Cubs kept ticket prices flat overall, but dramatically increased prices for the marquis series, beyond even 2010 levels. And proving that the laws of economics have not been suspended in Wrigleyville, demand for those series has dropped.

So unless it’s appropriate to say the Camry is less "popular" if sales fall after Toyota more than doubles the prices, it’s not appropriate to say the Cubs are less popular, either – but rather to say that the Cubs have simply raised prices to something approaching the market clearing price.

After all, surely if bleacher tickets to the Cardinals series still cost 20 bucks as in 2000 – or even last year’s prices – they’d be long gone, and the Cubs would be just as "popular" as before.

It’s not a perfect analogy to the extent that the two products aren’t identical, but it’s plenty close to make my point. MLB can add more teams, more games, build bigger stadiums, expand overseas, etc. Sell not just one but 81 tickets to everyone on Earth. Locally, the Cubs can go play in Soldier Field if they want, or build a bigger stadium.

Like building an automobile factory, none of these options is simple or without startup costs and time, but at the end of the day, the limiting factor on any of these options isn’t anything structural in the market, but the nature of the demand for tickets itself — which is the point.

we were the best fans in baseball???? what happened.

spring training crowds appear way down in Mesa too, I believe only one game over 10,000. Only 5,500 showed up on Weds. The Giants and probably Dbacks with the new stadium willl def beat the Cubs in attendance this year.

If the Cubs get off to the same start as last year, I wonder if they even draw 2.7 million.