With all of the hoopla about ticket prices and availability for Yankees games this season, the one saving grace was that it was still perfectly fine to sit down in front of the TV and watch the Yanks in all their glory. How could a sparkling new stadium look anything less than magnificent, especially with the help of flatscreens and HDTVs?
Not so fast, my friends. Peter Abraham of the LoHud Yankees Blog reports that YES Network and ESPN are unhappy with the camera positions in the new stadium. The most glaring error seems to be the shot from behind home plate, a camera angle that comes up quite often during telecasts of games.
The camera behind home plate, for instance, will have to shoot through the protective netting. Unlike the steeper old Stadium, there is no position to get a clean shot from that angle.
That's a pretty big screw-up, especially when you consider how important YES is to the Yankee brand. Shots through netting are just not acceptable, and aren't something that people are going to suffer with gladly. Most likely these things will get dealt with in the two weeks between the exhibitions with the Cubs and the home opener, but the Yankees seem to keep stepping on landmines when it comes to the new digs.
All of those stumbles -- camera positions, obstructed-view seats, nightmarish relocations -- were par for the course, but it doesn't help that all of them affect the people who aren't paying the premium for a chance to go to Yankee Stadium. Nor does recent word that the team will close the field level concourses to patrons who don't hold tickets for the field level.
That totally defeats the purpose of constructing a new park with grand public areas. That's been the trend in new stadiums, from Camden Yards to Safeco Field. It may be because teams want people to shop and eat at the various concession stands, but it fosters a terrific atmosphere that the Yankees will lose if they close off the meat of the stadium from two-thirds of the ticketholders.
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.
