Sensible Pricing at the Ballpark

Photo: thebittenword.com

When I was a kid, tickets for grandstand seats at Comiskey Park (where my team, the White Sox, used to play) cost the same regardless of who the opponent was (only 7 possible in those days), the time of day or day of week. At a recent Minnesota Twins game I learned that MLB has gotten smart, pricing differentially depending on the identity of the opponent and the date/time of the game.
For games in the same one-week period a home plate view grandstand seat in Target Field ranges from $36 to $45, with a higher price for night games, weekend games and, most important, for more attractive opponents (sadly, higher, other things equal, for the Red Sox than the White Sox). Probably aided by web technology, teams can do a better job of equilibrating demand and the (fixed) supply of seats, although the current price range and the partly-empty stadium in the game I saw (against the last-place Kansas City Royals) still doesn’t seem great enough to accomplish this completely.