On Wednesday, the Yankee effort to strongarm people into buying tickets they don't want became headline news. Later in the day, Lonn Trost, the team's COO, went on WFAN to try and quell a growing discomfort among Yankee fans about the way the team was treating them. He started the effort by announcing that obstructed view bleacher seats would cost $7 less than previously reported.
"Those seats are being sold at $5, not $12,'' he said. "I think some seats may have gone out improperly invoiced. Those are going to be corrected, but those 600 seats are going to be $5.''
That damn Jimmy in accounting and his sloppy invoices! When are they going to do something about him? Please ignore the fact that Trost himself called the $12 bleacher seats a good deal which fans were welcome to take or leave, and don't pay any attention to the team's printed materials and website which both offered the seats for $12. You're all just a bunch of dopes who overreacted to an incorrect invoice.
Trost didn't explain why, in 2009, a team would choose to build a stadium with obstructed view seats. They have them at Fenway, but that was built in the Dark Ages using obsolete architectural practices. The Yankees, on the other hand, made a choice to have the seats so they could build a steakhouse. The steakhouse blocks the view of some seats, but doesn't actually look out onto the field itself which makes it about the same as a steakhouse in Kuala Lumpur.
Trost also addressed the slow sales of the team's so-called premium seats. He admitted they probably would have priced them lower in the current economic climate, but doesn't think that's why people aren't buying them. These venal fat cats just don't want people looking down on them for spending a lot of money during a recession, which ignores all the New Yorkers who are, in fact, spending plenty of money during the recession.
It's more likely that Yankee tickets just aren't that important in the general scheme of things, certainly not when a pair of them sets you back $60,000. They are more important to the guys that spend a fraction of that price, the guys who are being treated like cattle by the team they love. Alas, the Yankees already made it clear that they should just be lucky to get any seat at all.
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.
