To raise prices on a product of dubious quality and diminishing sales is an act of hubris that only a government-subsidized institution (or a monopoly) could afford. Short-sighted and stupid, it reinforces the view that Armstrong and Lincoln need to find another line of work.

I’m with Thoan. After 8 years as a season ticket holder, I can’t see giving the Mariners my time or my money in 2009. For 4 tickets, by the time you added in parking, beer, etc. it’s just too spendy given the entertainment. I’ll predict that the Mariners do not sell out opening day for the first time at Safeco Field.

The last Red Sox game I went to, I was surrounded by New Englanders. Not transplants–people who came to Seattle to watch the Sox. Getting box seats to a Sox game (or the Yanks, especially in the new stadium, or Cubs, or Indians) is hard enough that there’s a cottage industry in sending their fans into the diaspora to watch games. I saw one of the last Expo games at Olympic Stadium, and nearly everyone around me had flown up from Chicago for the game, because it was actually cheaper than getting comparable seats at Wrigley.

So no, they’re not guaranteed a better game. But they’re guaranteed to see their team, and some of them have spent hundreds already just for that.

On the flipside– the discount seats? That’s just an attempt to fill the stadium. Low turnout also means less beer, hats and hot dogs they get to sell. They’d just better hope those games are in mid-summer, when people are willing to suffer a horrible game just to be out in the sun with a brewski. You’d have to pay me to watch an M’s/Royals game in April, at the Safe.

it’s been a while since I took economics, so I don’t remember what that’s called

“Price discrimination”. It’s definitely a mixed bag, in terms of being positive vs negative for fans.

Many of the pros and cons have already been mentioned, I’ll just add a couple more. To the extent that the one-size-fits-all pricing is inefficient (e.g. due to excess demand for some games, but with fewer Mariner sellouts that is less of an issue now), variable pricing raises efficiency and is a good thing. But to the extent that it’s not variable pricing and instead is price discrimination, that’s usually bad for fans overall (although, as others have pointed out, much of this cost might be borne by Yankee and Red Sox fans). More generally, consumers should get nervous when a monopolist finds new ways to jack up prices and increase its profit. Although there’s still a silver lining, if the opportunity for increased profits helps or encourages the team to spend money to put a winning team on the field.

It is exactly what the scalpers in the street, on the web, and sometimes even on craigslist do – sell ‘em for what they are worth. By the team doing it, they take a least a few of those dollars away from those entrepreneurs.

Sure, the money might just go to the team owners’ pockets. Yeah, we’re all paying for Safeco Field in taxes and some families can’t afford to go to games like they should. And yes, I may be assuming a near-perfect market when I say the dollars are primarily coming out of ticket resellers pockets. But if you owned a three-bedroom house in Bellevue, would you be willing to sell it for the same, somewhat arbitrary price as every other three-bedroom in Bellevue?

Free markets and capitalism – what a country!

Ticket sales were down, what, about 12% last year? They’ve fallen over 1M per year from peak sales. The “premium” games (as Derek points out, premium in price, not in quality) have, for the most part, not been selling out.

I’m pretty sure that the Mariners (like most sports francises) do not believe that price is the primary determinant of attendance, at least at the scales we’re talking about. Would more people attend if price dropped? Yes, but probably not enough more to make up for the loss. You could drop prices a lot, but that would be counterproductive.

I guess what I’m saying is that they probably know what they are doing from the business side of things. The baseball side, perhaps not so much.

This way, if you show up and watch the game like a civilized human being you never get hassled, even if you are rooting for the other side. But if you’re going to be obnoxiously anti-Mariner you pay more or get the boot. I call it the “Screw Jerk Red Sox Fans” fee.

Do the premium tickets include watching Holliday in an As uniform?

I assume that will get its own post if it actually goes through and we know who was on the other side of the trade. (Is Beane counting his 2012 stadium revenues before the thing is built? Or is he planning to let Holliday walk at the end of ’09 for the draft picks?)

As DMZ rightly notes, Red Sox and Yankees fans are relatively price-insensitive. The same is not true of Mariner fans, who are much more likely to go see the M’s some night when they don’t have to worry about the stupid price upgrade.

This lets more Sox or Yankees fans in the door at the expense of Mariner fans. (The effect is even more pronounced as the stadium gets closer to capacity.)

Essentially, the Mariners are pricing themselves out of home games. Safeco Field turns into a friendly environment for the visitors. I used to hate this when I was a season ticket holder (’01 and ’02), and having the team encourage this behavior is unsavory.