Finding cheap tickets might be part of the fun for baseball fans in the US, but all the browsing around and waiting for the best deals could actually be hurting baseball, MarketWatch reported Saturday.
Take the New York Yankees.
Two websites that resell tickets to Bronx Bombers games said the average price of tickets to Yankee Stadium fell 10 percent to 20 percent this year, with attendance levels for the team down 10 percent.
Seats for last weekend's series against historical rivals Boston Red Sox were selling online for $18 -- and tickets for the earlier series against the Kansas City Royals could be found for just 35 cents each.
If this is what is happening at the club that drew the biggest crowds for seven of the past eight seasons, it is easy to see how it is a concern for the sport as a whole. Baseball is on course for its fourth-straight year of declining crowds.
The Yankees and baseball appear to be in a bind.
While clubs were raising prices -- average Yankees tickets cost 50 percent more than they did in 2007 -- the growth of secondary-market sites such as StubHub, TicketsNetwork and TicketsNow allowed fans to find cheaper ways into ballparks.
http://sports.mobile.msn.com/en-us/mlb/article.aspx?aid=781547&acid=2&afid=49&pg1=1
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