I can tell you that as recently as the mid-"80's Winfield/Henderson/Mattingly Era of the Yanks; a bleacher seat was $4 and a upper tier seat on the infield side was $6. I remember because a movie ticket in Manhattan in the mid-late "80's was $9.....ballgame was a much better deal!!
I was thinking the same thing, those tickets were expensive. I remember being with my Dad in 1971 driving to Shea Stadium on a Sunday and buying two great box seats in August to see the Mets and Dodgers and they cost around $4 a box seat. We sat behind the Mets dugout. Kenny Singleton homered off Bill Singer and Richie Allen hit a bomb out by the light towers off Ray Sadecki. $20 went a long way to watch a ball game in 1971 and if you wanted they allowed you to bring in food like subs or deli sandwiches and snacks.
As kids in the early 70s we'd go to Yankee and Mets games. Box seats were out of the question. We paid a buck or less for upper deck or bleachers. The ushers would walk you to your seats, wipe them down, then expect a tip which we at kids never offered.
I went to the last game at the old Yankee Stadium in 1973 .. Box seats were $4.00 .. I took my seat home with me .. Made of wood and steel .. I still have it ... Sec. 33 Box 165E Seat 5
I can back you up exactly. I lived in Flushing in the early 1970s and I could see the lights come on at Shea Stadium. Sometimes I'd decide last minute wise to go to the game. I always bought a single in a field box: $4.75. (Might have been $4.50, I try not to exaggerate.) I think that the minimum wage at the time was $1.90.
Two things that stick with me today; I had NY Giants season tickets in 1988. They were upper bowl, approx 15 yd line, first row, two aisle seats. The price on the ticket (including tax) says $26/each. Then in 1995 I bought tickets (through a ticket broker) for the Stanley Cup Finals without knowing if NJ would even make it to the playoffs (let alone the finals since they've never made it there before). I got two tickets in the upper bowl, center ice, about 3/4 of the way up and the price on the ticket says $40 (for each one). I ended up paying $150 each through the broker & ended seeing NJ win it's first Stanley Cup ever. I looked yesterday at some of the finals tickets on Seat Geek. I think it was either game 5 or 6 where the cheapest ticket just to walk in is over $1000 each. Once I moved to Seattle in 1996 I heard on the radio that Paul Allen lowered the cost of several thousand seats for Seahawks games to $10 each. By the time I got to work myself & some friends bought tickets. At $10 each the entire season cost me $100. I kept renewing them until the new stadium opened up and at that point the tickets were $26 each. Back then games were doable. Now they are out of control with the cost of a ticket, parking, PSL's, food, drink etc. What a shame.
I tried to go to the World Series in 2021 cause I'm a Georgia boy who loves the Braves. But then i found out that the nosebleed tickets were $500 each, and gas is gonna cost right around $140 or $150, the one time i went during the regular season a burrito and a drink costed me $15, beer is $8 a glass, we got lucky on the parking garage it was free, but I'm also gonna most likely get a motel for the night and the cheapest 1 star roach motel you're gonna find is like $50 a night, and on top of all of that all in all i was gonna be driving atleast 8 hours. And that's not including the red lights, the traffic, the stops, etc. So in total I'm driving 8 hours and spending anywhere between $600 and $700 just to watch a game that won't even last as long as the ride there much less there and back. So really and truly i had 2 choices, blow an entire paycheck on a baseball game or use that money to pay bills and be able to stay in my house another month. So i sat my fat ass home and watched the game on tv
@@daltontannery3243 That sucks & is a shame. Other then football, the other sports (as you know) play up to 7 games in the finals. So if you can only go to one game trying to pick THE game where your team wins it is almost impossible (unless you have unlimited $$$). The broker wanted to give me game 3 tickets for the Stanley Cup. I asked if he had game 4 and he said sure & asked if I'd rather have those. My thinking was that if NJ makes it to the finals & some how they win the first 3 games, that I would be at game 4 where they could sweep & win the cup. Well that's what ended up happening but it was sure luck that it worked out that way. Paying $500+ per ticket for a game where the cup isn't going to awarded no matter what is ridiculous (like games 1-3). Also, trying to pick the game your team wins AT HOME is even more impossible. Thinking back when I was kid & could get seats behind the Mets dugout for $9 ea & could sit on top of the dugout during batting practice to get autographs etc seems like not that long ago.
@@jackshittle now that i think about it, me and my papa was going so tickets alone were gonna cost $1,000. So all in all i was gonna be paying anywhere between $1,600-$1,700. And that would've been an entire month of pay so yea to hell with that
Here in Montreal when the Expos played their inaugural season in 1969 at Jarry Park a bleacher seat cost $1.00 (CAN) and a box seat was $5.50 (CAN). Adjusted today (2022) those same tickets would cost $8.00 (bleachers) and $45.00 (box seats)
The first year of the Toronto Blue Jays (1977), ticket prices ranged from $2 to $7 Canadian. A huge Coke could be bought for $2, so could souvenir pennants for every MLB team. Concession prices today are ridiculous by any reasonable standard.
What an excellent and informative video. I remember hearing my mom tell stories of what things used to cost. I really had wondered what tickets and concessions cost in other markets in other eras. Very well done! I hope you do more videos like this one.
I was a student, a starving university student, at San Jose State, in the mid to late 80s. I was starving, but one of my professors played cello for the San Jose Symphony. I got my season tickets 1/2 off....if I remember correctly, about $6 per ticket. I figured that losing 1 meal every two weeks or so, in exchange for some lovely live Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn...was worth it. I'm a lifetime fan of the Giants, the Warriors, A's....since I was born in San Francisco, but I chose music over games. (Tickets were about even, but had transportation costs to Candlestick Park or the Oakland Coliseum. I've only been to one SF Giants game...it was opening day......and I forgot which team would be visiting. Just off work, wearing Levi's and a blue t-shirt....hahaha I had to buy a Giants cap to get the hecklers off my back (wearing blue, in the nosebleed seats, with the Dodgers in town, was a bad idea. The cap blew my budget...and I was 1 meal a day for several days) Fun times
One thing to remember about prices in the 50s and the 60s.........Your dad worked, your mom probably didn't, but he still made enough (even on a blue collar job) to buy a house and send his kids to college....Those days are long gone
If my wife has two arms and two legs and could possibly help double our household income, then I would definitely feel a certain way if she sat around the house all day while I work and her excuse is that she’s doing housework. Put the kids in daycare, ordered dinner from Uber eats, and everybody participates in housework and yardwork over the weekend.
What if your house was spotless, you came home to a home-cooked meal every night, and your children were raised by their mothers instead of some stranger? And on top of that, most everyone in society was well-adjusted? Don’t you think that beats Uber eats and daycare?
Box seats were still only $3.50-$4 in the late 60's at Yankee Stadium. Reserved $2.50-$3. Gen Admission $1-2...and after the 3rd inning you could sit anywhere if the seat were not occupied.
I went to an Indians game and ushers came up to us and said we could sit pretty much anywhere empty if we wanted and this was in the early 00s. Got down as far as we could and watched Alomar smash one out of the park right after hitting a foul off the section of seats we were just at lol
My dad grew up in the 1950s. Unless it was a rare televised game on one of two channels or he read a box score somewhere, the only baseball he could follow was the Yankees on the radio.
I was a kid when the Braves started playing in Atlanta. A GA seat $1 for adults and 50 cents for kids. A field level seat went for $3.50 and a dugout level seat was $5. Later on as a teenager in the 70s and 80s, I remember prices for rock concerts. I remember a Who concert in 1975 was $6.50. Later in the 70s, I paid $3 cover charge to see such people as Billy Joel, REO Speedwagon, Kansas, Bob Seager and many others
@@nominalizeThere were also people who worked odd hours - many factories ran 24 hours a day. If you worked overnight, you could sleep until time to go to the game.
Awesome video. I love these videos where you really get a feel of what it was like to live in times other than ours. People who were there and remember the 60s and 70s - I'm jealous of you!!!
I like comparing the cost of things. Cost of gas in the 1960s. I had a job pumping gas in Brooklyn in the mid 1960s. Gas was .20 to .22 cents. Incredible, the same price it had always been. About 1950 my parents bought a 2 family home in a middle class neighborhood for $8000, and sold it in the 1960s for $14,000. In 1972 I drove cross country in my new car, a full size Ford van just like the ones they make today, with a V8, that I paid $4000 for. I replaced it in 1973 with a Dodge Van, also for $4000. On the 1972 drive I was paying under 30 cents a gallon for gas. There was a price war in Detroit so gas there was 22 cents. So a tank of gas, 15 gallons, was $4.50. But 1973 was the killer year, that's when the Arabs raised the price of oil, and the world changed. Also in baseball, in the mid 1960s I went to a few Mets games at the new Shea stadium, bought the cheapest tickets, and I seem to recall it was $1.85 or so. I took a date one time, and know I would not have been able to spend more than $4 for the two of us.
Yeah Joe Biden claims he and his Dad sat around the kitchen table sweating out gas prices and from 1944 to 1964 gas went from 22 cents to 28 to 30 cents depending where you lived. Ok Joe, keep riding that bike and save on gas.
My dad listened to baseball football and hockey on the radio. He had a great memory for how well a player was doing that season as well as the schools minor and major league teams they had been on . This was not at all I usual back in those days. For a time my folks spent winters in Florida and Arizona and of course were able to watch live baseball for several years. So long ago.
My grandfather,gone since 1992,told me that for him to see the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 20’s to mid 30’s was about 50 cents-25 cents for a steak and a beer at a restaurant around the corner and 25 cents for the game itself.Last time I heard a beer at the ACC is $18.
Well done and put together. You covered everything perfectly! Things really were cheaper back then not just in price but we got more value for our buck. Companies and manufacturers seemed more focused on doing good business and making a good living versus today where they try and make a killing.
Which is exactly why i want to own a pawn shop lol, you bring me a $50 piece and I'll buy it from you for $5. Cause honestly now a days people actually think thats fair.
I paid $16 to attend four games of the 1972 World Series in Oakland. Bleacher seats of course but I got to see Willie Mays get his last base hit ever in a professional game.
Yep it was the 73 World Series I attended. The Athletics had won the 72 as well. I still remember watching Yogi Berra standing ther watching batting practice. After 50 years events tend to run together. Even at $4 a pop, there were lots of empty seats. Mays swung and hit an infield bouncer but he was able to beat the throw. That was his last base hit ever.
I guess the narrator thinks that going to a ball game in NYC is an affordable situation, not even close. Before inflation shot up in mid June, this was still a very expensive thing to do, a family of four going to a baseball game, especially at Yankee stadium will spend no less than $100 easily. While Citifield is only slightly less, you will easily notice that stadiums are rarely ever at capacity, even most playoff games involving teams such as Tampa Bay rays or even the Kansas City Royals or Washington nationals when they were any good, there were still plenty of empty seats and playoff tickets available. I went to my very first playoff game at Yankee Stadium back in 1995 and was surprised to not only get tickets, but the line was relatively short because the Yankees were coming off of 13 straight seasons of playing losing baseball. The very next year, people were wrapped around the stadium camped outside the night before the ticket window opened. And in spite of this, there is no major league Park that plays a regular season game with the ball park filled to capacity, probably not even on opening day anymore. It’s all about NFL football these days, I’m not even sure if major-league baseball is even number three on the list. These days, I live not too far away from where the Miami Marlins play when on an average day, they may even have a paid attendance of over 8000 people with most of them there to see the Marlins opponents
@@nancymilawski1048 From a baseball perspective, they’re the only action in all of Canada, MLB wants to bring baseball back to Montreal, that will come back to bite them in the butt , because although it may attract some folks, they’ll be back to 8000 people a game once again. The NFL must be getting it right because officially as of last week, the Cincinnati Bengals of all teams have sold out all their home dates for the upcoming season
The continuity of eras is amazing. If we watched football from the 20s, its almost like watching a different sport. Virtually no passing, in what is today a passing heavy game. Whereas any one of us could sit down to any baseball game of any of the 3 premiere leagues and just enjoy the game. The greatest game ever devised
As recently as 1984, we could get into Wrigley Field for a $2 general admission... And we were able to bring a bag of White Castle Burgers into the park.
If you had a bag of White Castle Burgers once a week (and a Cubs fan during the last century) you are lucky to be alive in 2022. 😌 I am fortunate to have been able to see a game at Wrigley. Summer of 1979 the Cubbies beat the visiting LAD 2-1 in a pitcher's battle between Lynn McGlothen and Rick Sutcliffe (about 5 years later Sutcliffe joined the Cubs in 1984.
I was stationed at GLakes in 1984. The Cubs had a couple of unknowns, Bob Dernier and some kid named Sandburg, or Sandcliffe, or something like that. Called them the Daily Double! All my Chicago friends said the Cubs would swoon in June. They didn't. 🎵 It was a very good year 🎵
Very cool information. And sad how so many sports events are so insanely over-the-top in cost to see. But demand is so high that prices are simply pushed right up to those crazy levels. My solution is to watch a lot on TV and occasionally pay through the nose for the exciting immersion of a live, in-person game.
If anyone didn’t point it out the tickets for Wednesday, April 18 was either for the 1923 or 1928 season. Also note Yankee Stadium did not open up until 1923 before that the Yankees played in the Polo Grounds
My mother grew up in Brooklyn and often went to Dodgers games. They sometimes had Ladies' Day where admission for girls and women was 10 cents. I used to go to Mets games in Shea when box seats were around $8.
dang i was hyped to see how much the beer would be and then you mentioned prohibition. if i had a time machine i'd love to catch and old school ball game
Great stuff! Thank you so much. I love that you converted the prices to today's dollars. Generally people tend to think things were cheaper back then even though the prices really haven't changed that much.
Baseball used to be the best bargain in entertainment. Here in Chicago, no free TV, no free radio even. And if you go to a game with your family, you're lucky if you don't have to take out a second mortgage and they don't demand the pink slip on your car.
I remember paying 5 or 6 $ in the late '70s for a Dodgers upper deck ticket. Back then we could ride the elevator down to the first deck without security, or travel the maze of stairs and corridors to the 1st deck. Upon which a known usher would let us know which box seat holder was not going to show up for the game. $6 for box seats at Dodger Stadium? Can't beat it.
Early 60s Yankee Stadium. Bleachers 50 cents, cheapest grandstand seats $1.25. We would go to the Sunday double headers and sneak down to the box seats during the 2nd game. Never caught a ball at the Stadium but finally did in 1996 at Fenway park.
At Fenway there is also a reasonable chance to get batting practice balls which are hit over the Green Monster (and over its netting) onto Landsdowne Street pre-game, that left field wall is really a short porch, and probably too short nowadays for MLB.
They didn’t vote in their states to legalize marijuana either but the legislature was smart enough to know that the overall income would bring them as many dollars as alcohol does
In the sixties, Yankee Stadium was $3.50 for box seats, $2.50 for reserved, and $1.50 for general admission seating in the upper deck. Bleachers were $0.50. Shea Stadium was the same except it was $1.30 for upper deck general admission seating. By the late seventies prices were going up a bit, and the owners phased out upper deck general admission seating and made the seats reserved, .as they are now. I think standing room was still considered general admission. With the increase in attendance in the late eighties and the nineties prices were raised even more and continue to go up.
I was listening to the radio broadcast of last Sunday’s Yankee game, and every. Single. “subject” had a sponsor. The lineups. The first pitch. The time. The weather. The broadcast booth had a sponsor. If each “sponsor” or “sale” was represented by a flag, the United Nations would look like a very exclusive club by comparison. The game has been oversold at every possible point of contact. Go to a game, and there isn’t a moment during the game or between innings that you’re not battered by a constant barrage of someone or something hawking something in an effort to climb into your wallet or pocketbook. This blitzkrieg bombardment of commercialism seems to be squeezing every conceivable drop of REVENUE from any nook, crack or cranny; there’s not a stone or a slate unturned in the unending quest for the last dollar that can be squeezed out of the customers. It’s never enough, and never will be enough. Especially when $100 million player contracts are thrown around like the vendors tossing bags of peanuts.
In the mid-80's bleacher seats were $1.50 at Yankee Stadium. And I remember going as a kid in the late 60's to Shea Stadium with my mother bringing a brown paper bag full of sandwiches and soda. You were allowed to bring outside food in back then
Todays pro sports arent worth the trouble. I go to local high school football games, Baylor basketball, baseball and football. Texas is warmer, cheaper and the sports are pretty good too. Little League World Series in Williamsport was great fun also.
During late 50s a school program offered bleacher admission for 50 cents, by the 7 th inning we'd be in lower box seats give a meddlesome usher a folded buck and we were good
As a kid, I paid $2 for a souvenir replica Padres helmet @ 1972. Some guy paid me $5 for it cause he couldn't find one. I thought I made the deal of a lifetime.
Around 1969, Met tickets were $3.50 box seats, $2.50 loge, and $1.50 general admission. Me and my friend would cut school, buy GA seats, and sneak down to the box seats, sometimes a small tip to the usher served to avoid getting booted.
In Yankee Stadium in those years, if you bought a General Admission ticket ($1-2) you could sit in any seat that wasn't occupied after the 3rd inning. Since YS had 67,000 seats, and never sold out... I wound up anywhere from behind the Yankees dugout to near the RF foul pole...which were great seats! Only 296 feet with a 4 foot fence!
I remember in the 1950’s a bleacher ticket at Yankee Stadium was .75 cents . I believe Reserved seats were in the $2.00 range with box seats around $4.00 I don’t think they sell those seats anymore..
Not sure where you are getting your $10 ticket number from. Unreserved grandstand cost $2 in the 70's at White Sox park. Bleacher tickets at Wrigley were around .50 in the late 60s.
I always try to talk myself into seeing a game live here in Phoenix. But then I always realize I can get a nice hotel room and watch the game in comfort, with snacks and a six-pack and a lazyboy recliner... and it's CHEAPER.
I think it's not quite right to do pure "inflation". If per capita income in NY was 15k, today it's over 40k, so the actual relative price is 2.5 to three times it's inflation-adjusted price.
Used to get into Forbes Field to watch the Pirates in the late 50's, early 60's bleachers in right field for $0.25. After the top of the 7th you could walk in free. In the early 70's sat 10 rows behind Red Sox dugout in Fenway for $3.75.
Late 70’s era. Four friends. Two Met fans, and two Yankee fans. We rode the subway to Shea or Yankee Stadium almost every Sunday. 1.50 General Admission seats. That got you in. Then 1.00 for each kid into an ushers palm got you box seats for the day. 1.00 hot dogs. 1.00 cokes. Fifty cent peanuts. Those were the days. :)
@@SurfCityBill dude. It worked every time. If the season ticket holder showed up, they moved you safely. Ask me some day about going to Ranger games at MSG. Lol
Seems like the last 10-20 years has seen exponential cost increase in the tickets. Gee, maybe because the salaries are off the charts these days even for an average player? I was a fan up until about 2005 then it just got ridicules, pitchers making 30 Million? They play every 4 days!
I'm like you. I wish I could see McGraw's Giants at the Polo Grounds, partially for the stellar play and partially to see and hear baseball before night games, loudspeakers, and lights.
Wait till inflation begins to come down..I highly doubt prices on all goods come down with it. Greedy companies will keep prices up as long as consumers keep buying. Everyone should stop buying whenever it’s high and do without for a week or two. The greedy pigs will get the message Nice video by the way👍
tickets used to be cheaper because A) there were less people B) there were more seats(in NY at least) C) most teams were out of contention by Memorial Day take a look at the average attendance in the early 80s and before. We remember the big games and not the tons of other games that had no fans.
1956 left house in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Too Graham Ave. bus to Nassau Ave. Transfered to Lorimer St. Bus. Got off bus across the St. From Ebbetts Field Saw Carl Erskine pitch no hitter against NY Giants. Had hot dog and soda. Left ballpark and reversed bus route to home. Day cost $1.50. Highlight of game was line drive over second caught by Jackie Robinson, saving no hitter
The price of baseball gloves would not shock a modern day person? The top of the line baseball gloves today sell for $450. That's a far cry from "$72 - when adjusted for inflation."
Just for laughs I checked ticket prices for the White Sox and saw the cheapest seats in the upper deck all the way down the foul lines cost $ 12.00, box seats behind home plate cost $71.00.
You can go to a lower ranking teams games for under $20 today and standing room at the Giants stadium is only $7 during the season against lower ranking teams
Baseball is still relatively cheap. Certainly the cheapest of all four major American sports Of course the beers and food is outrageous but you can get a decent seat to any game on any day of the regular season for less than $20 and usually between $5-$15
I grew up in the early 90s. And I remember bleacher seats in RF at the old Stadium were like $18-$25. My cousin and I would go to 4-5 games on average every season.
Right up until 2012, you could get tickets to the right field pavilon or upper deck for $5 at Dodger Stadium. The model under Walter O'Malley was fill the stadium. They'll buy hot dogs and beer. They'll park and buy merchandise. Everything is just so much more expensive now.
It's true enough that housing is more expensive while food is less expensive in 2024, but isn't the Consumer Price Index (www.usinflationcalculator.com/) a useful way of making comparisons?
@@thebaseballprofessor ummmmm food is less expensive? Comparative to my pay and costs even ten years ago ....no..again the modern mainstream calculation of inflation is completely different. Buying power of a dollar or pound or what have you was not split up among different metrics. If you pay more for housing it detracts from the buying power from food. They can not be separated. I see what you are trying to get at but my family could do all this just thirty years ago with five kids where as that is impossible now.
Since I'm a Philly fan, I love Bryce Harper, but 330 million for 13 years comes out to about 40,000$ for every at bat. Who needs that kind of money, I don't care HOW good you are...
I can tell you that as recently as the mid-"80's Winfield/Henderson/Mattingly Era of the Yanks; a bleacher seat was $4 and a upper tier seat on the infield side was $6. I remember because a movie ticket in Manhattan in the mid-late "80's was $9.....ballgame was a much better deal!!
I was thinking the same thing, those tickets were expensive. I remember being with my Dad in 1971 driving to Shea Stadium on a Sunday and buying two great box seats in August to see the Mets and Dodgers and they cost around $4 a box seat. We sat behind the Mets dugout. Kenny Singleton homered off Bill Singer and Richie Allen hit a bomb out by the light towers off Ray Sadecki. $20 went a long way to watch a ball game in 1971 and if you wanted they allowed you to bring in food like subs or deli sandwiches and snacks.
As kids in the early 70s we'd go to Yankee and Mets games. Box seats were out of the question. We paid a buck or less for upper deck or bleachers. The ushers would walk you to your seats, wipe them down, then expect a tip which we at kids never offered.
9$ in the 80's?? Is that true? I think it's still under that where I live now.
@@ct6852 in Manhattan?
@@chrispraz877 College town in N. Cali
I went to the last game at the old Yankee Stadium in 1973 .. Box seats were $4.00 .. I took my seat home with me .. Made of wood and steel .. I still have it ... Sec. 33 Box 165E Seat 5
Wow
I can back you up exactly. I lived in Flushing in the early 1970s and I could see the lights come on at Shea Stadium. Sometimes I'd decide last minute wise to go to the game. I always bought a single in a field box: $4.75. (Might have been $4.50, I try not to exaggerate.) I think that the minimum wage at the time was $1.90.
Two things that stick with me today; I had NY Giants season tickets in 1988. They were upper bowl, approx 15 yd line, first row, two aisle seats. The price on the ticket (including tax) says $26/each. Then in 1995 I bought tickets (through a ticket broker) for the Stanley Cup Finals without knowing if NJ would even make it to the playoffs (let alone the finals since they've never made it there before). I got two tickets in the upper bowl, center ice, about 3/4 of the way up and the price on the ticket says $40 (for each one). I ended up paying $150 each through the broker & ended seeing NJ win it's first Stanley Cup ever. I looked yesterday at some of the finals tickets on Seat Geek. I think it was either game 5 or 6 where the cheapest ticket just to walk in is over $1000 each.
Once I moved to Seattle in 1996 I heard on the radio that Paul Allen lowered the cost of several thousand seats for Seahawks games to $10 each. By the time I got to work myself & some friends bought tickets. At $10 each the entire season cost me $100. I kept renewing them until the new stadium opened up and at that point the tickets were $26 each.
Back then games were doable. Now they are out of control with the cost of a ticket, parking, PSL's, food, drink etc. What a shame.
I tried to go to the World Series in 2021 cause I'm a Georgia boy who loves the Braves. But then i found out that the nosebleed tickets were $500 each, and gas is gonna cost right around $140 or $150, the one time i went during the regular season a burrito and a drink costed me $15, beer is $8 a glass, we got lucky on the parking garage it was free, but I'm also gonna most likely get a motel for the night and the cheapest 1 star roach motel you're gonna find is like $50 a night, and on top of all of that all in all i was gonna be driving atleast 8 hours. And that's not including the red lights, the traffic, the stops, etc. So in total I'm driving 8 hours and spending anywhere between $600 and $700 just to watch a game that won't even last as long as the ride there much less there and back. So really and truly i had 2 choices, blow an entire paycheck on a baseball game or use that money to pay bills and be able to stay in my house another month. So i sat my fat ass home and watched the game on tv
@@daltontannery3243 That sucks & is a shame. Other then football, the other sports (as you know) play up to 7 games in the finals. So if you can only go to one game trying to pick THE game where your team wins it is almost impossible (unless you have unlimited $$$). The broker wanted to give me game 3 tickets for the Stanley Cup. I asked if he had game 4 and he said sure & asked if I'd rather have those. My thinking was that if NJ makes it to the finals & some how they win the first 3 games, that I would be at game 4 where they could sweep & win the cup. Well that's what ended up happening but it was sure luck that it worked out that way. Paying $500+ per ticket for a game where the cup isn't going to awarded no matter what is ridiculous (like games 1-3). Also, trying to pick the game your team wins AT HOME is even more impossible.
Thinking back when I was kid & could get seats behind the Mets dugout for $9 ea & could sit on top of the dugout during batting practice to get autographs etc seems like not that long ago.
@@jackshittle yea and the Braves ended up winning the World Series in Houston so it really would've been a waste of money
@@daltontannery3243 👍
@@jackshittle now that i think about it, me and my papa was going so tickets alone were gonna cost $1,000. So all in all i was gonna be paying anywhere between $1,600-$1,700. And that would've been an entire month of pay so yea to hell with that
Here in Montreal when the Expos played their inaugural season in 1969 at Jarry Park a bleacher seat cost $1.00 (CAN) and a box seat was $5.50 (CAN). Adjusted today (2022) those same tickets would cost $8.00 (bleachers) and $45.00 (box seats)
The first year of the Toronto Blue Jays (1977), ticket prices ranged from $2 to $7 Canadian. A huge Coke could be bought for $2, so could souvenir pennants for every MLB team. Concession prices today are ridiculous by any reasonable standard.
What an excellent and informative video. I remember hearing my mom tell stories of what things used to cost. I really had wondered what tickets and concessions cost in other markets in other eras. Very well done! I hope you do more videos like this one.
I was a student, a starving university student, at San Jose State, in the mid to late 80s.
I was starving, but one of my professors played cello for the San Jose Symphony.
I got my season tickets 1/2 off....if I remember correctly, about $6 per ticket.
I figured that losing 1 meal every two weeks or so, in exchange for some lovely live Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Handel, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn...was worth it.
I'm a lifetime fan of the Giants, the Warriors, A's....since I was born in San Francisco, but I chose music over games. (Tickets were about even, but had transportation costs to Candlestick Park or the Oakland Coliseum.
I've only been to one SF Giants game...it was opening day......and I forgot which team would be visiting.
Just off work, wearing Levi's and a blue t-shirt....hahaha
I had to buy a Giants cap to get the hecklers off my back
(wearing blue, in the nosebleed seats, with the Dodgers in town, was a bad idea. The cap blew my budget...and I was 1 meal a day for several days)
Fun times
One thing to remember about prices in the 50s and the 60s.........Your dad worked, your mom probably didn't, but he still made enough (even on a blue collar job) to buy a house and send his kids to college....Those days are long gone
If my wife has two arms and two legs and could possibly help double our household income, then I would definitely feel a certain way if she sat around the house all day while I work and her excuse is that she’s doing housework. Put the kids in daycare, ordered dinner from Uber eats, and everybody participates in housework and yardwork over the weekend.
What if your house was spotless, you came home to a home-cooked meal every night, and your children were raised by their mothers instead of some stranger? And on top of that, most everyone in society was well-adjusted? Don’t you think that beats Uber eats and daycare?
Box seats were still only $3.50-$4 in the late 60's at Yankee Stadium. Reserved $2.50-$3. Gen Admission $1-2...and after the 3rd inning you could sit anywhere if the seat were not occupied.
A Braves ticket during the 2021 World Series cost $500 just for the nosebleed section
I went to an Indians game and ushers came up to us and said we could sit pretty much anywhere empty if we wanted and this was in the early 00s. Got down as far as we could and watched Alomar smash one out of the park right after hitting a foul off the section of seats we were just at lol
My dad grew up in the 1950s. Unless it was a rare televised game on one of two channels or he read a box score somewhere, the only baseball he could follow was the Yankees on the radio.
This channel is great. Thank you for these gems of knowledge.
I was a kid when the Braves started playing in Atlanta. A GA seat $1 for adults and 50 cents for kids. A field level seat went for $3.50 and a dugout level seat was $5. Later on as a teenager in the 70s and 80s, I remember prices for rock concerts. I remember a Who concert in 1975 was $6.50. Later in the 70s, I paid $3 cover charge to see such people as Billy Joel, REO Speedwagon, Kansas, Bob Seager and many others
A Braves ticket during the 2021 World Series cost $500 just for the nosebleed section
Life was so easy back then
I've always been curious about what game schedules were before night baseball. who went to the game during a work day
People who took the afternoon off. Schoolkids out for the summer. Retirees.
@@nominalizeThere were also people who worked odd hours - many factories ran 24 hours a day. If you worked overnight, you could sleep until time to go to the game.
Just found this and started watching all your content. This is well made and is amazing. Keep it up
Great video. Baseball is truly my favourite pastime
This video is very interesting I was always interested in the 1880s-1959 Baseball and the world at that time so combining both is awesome
Underrated content keep it up!
Always loved the Polo Grounds. Such an odd,but original creation. The outfield was insanely huge.
Awesome video. I love these videos where you really get a feel of what it was like to live in times other than ours. People who were there and remember the 60s and 70s - I'm jealous of you!!!
I like comparing the cost of things. Cost of gas in the 1960s. I had a job pumping gas in Brooklyn in the mid 1960s. Gas was .20 to .22 cents. Incredible, the same price it had always been. About 1950 my parents bought a 2 family home in a middle class neighborhood for $8000, and sold it in the 1960s for $14,000. In 1972 I drove cross country in my new car, a full size Ford van just like the ones they make today, with a V8, that I paid $4000 for. I replaced it in 1973 with a Dodge Van, also for $4000. On the 1972 drive I was paying under 30 cents a gallon for gas. There was a price war in Detroit so gas there was 22 cents. So a tank of gas, 15 gallons, was $4.50. But 1973 was the killer year, that's when the Arabs raised the price of oil, and the world changed. Also in baseball, in the mid 1960s I went to a few Mets games at the new Shea stadium, bought the cheapest tickets, and I seem to recall it was $1.85 or so. I took a date one time, and know I would not have been able to spend more than $4 for the two of us.
Yeah Joe Biden claims he and his Dad sat around the kitchen table sweating out gas prices and from 1944 to 1964 gas went from 22 cents to 28 to 30 cents depending where you lived. Ok Joe, keep riding that bike and save on gas.
These days you wouldn't get a date to a baseball stadium w/o showing proof of a 6-figure income first. 😄
My dad listened to baseball football and hockey on the radio. He had a great memory for how well a player was doing that season as well as the schools minor and major league teams they had been on . This was not at all I usual back in those days. For a time my folks spent winters in Florida and Arizona and of course were able to watch live baseball for several years. So long ago.
My grandfather,gone since 1992,told me that for him to see the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 20’s to mid 30’s was about 50 cents-25 cents for a steak and a beer at a restaurant around the corner and 25 cents for the game itself.Last time I heard a beer at the ACC is $18.
I ain't paying no 6 cents for no coke
"Then you ain't getting no coke", know what I mean?
Well done and put together. You covered everything perfectly! Things really were cheaper back then not just in price but we got more value for our buck. Companies and manufacturers seemed more focused on doing good business and making a good living versus today where they try and make a killing.
They were trying to make a killing back then too. However; back then the people were willing to walk away from spending. Now they aren’t.
Which is exactly why i want to own a pawn shop lol, you bring me a $50 piece and I'll buy it from you for $5. Cause honestly now a days people actually think thats fair.
I really enjoy baseball history. This vid is awesome! Thanks for hustling down the research base paths for us. Atta baby! Low five!
I paid $16 to attend four games of the 1972 World Series in Oakland. Bleacher seats of course but I got to see Willie Mays get his last base hit ever in a professional game.
are you sure that wasn't the '73 series
@@TheBrianFellow Cincinn Reds were the A's National League opponents in '72. You are right, Mays was in the 1973 series with the Mets.
Yep it was the 73 World Series I attended. The Athletics had won the 72 as well. I still remember watching Yogi Berra standing ther watching batting practice. After 50 years events tend to run together. Even at $4 a pop, there were lots of empty seats.
Mays swung and hit an infield bouncer but he was able to beat the throw. That was his last base hit ever.
@@roberthansen9694 I went to my one and only World Series in 73 at Shea. Rusty Staub hit a HR.
As a photographer my favorite thing about this video is all the old photographs.
You took me out to the ball game, you took me out to the crowd. Thanks!
4:10 “Sound familiar?” *me who paid $6.50 a gallon last week “No”
Ouch! Where do you live?
Your videos are well thought out, well researched, and articulate. Keep up the good work. Look forward to more!
I guess the narrator thinks that going to a ball game in NYC is an affordable situation, not even close. Before inflation shot up in mid June, this was still a very expensive thing to do, a family of four going to a baseball game, especially at Yankee stadium will spend no less than $100 easily. While Citifield is only slightly less, you will easily notice that stadiums are rarely ever at capacity, even most playoff games involving teams such as Tampa Bay rays or even the Kansas City Royals or Washington nationals when they were any good, there were still plenty of empty seats and playoff tickets available. I went to my very first playoff game at Yankee Stadium back in 1995 and was surprised to not only get tickets, but the line was relatively short because the Yankees were coming off of 13 straight seasons of playing losing baseball. The very next year, people were wrapped around the stadium camped outside the night before the ticket window opened. And in spite of this, there is no major league Park that plays a regular season game with the ball park filled to capacity, probably not even on opening day anymore. It’s all about NFL football these days, I’m not even sure if major-league baseball is even number three on the list. These days, I live not too far away from where the Miami Marlins play when on an average day, they may even have a paid attendance of over 8000 people with most of them there to see the Marlins opponents
The Blue Jay's have had several sell outs this year, including opening day and July 1st (Canada Day).
@@nancymilawski1048 From a baseball perspective, they’re the only action in all of Canada, MLB wants to bring baseball back to Montreal, that will come back to bite them in the butt , because although it may attract some folks, they’ll be back to 8000 people a game once again. The NFL must be getting it right because officially as of last week, the Cincinnati Bengals of all teams have sold out all their home dates for the upcoming season
The continuity of eras is amazing. If we watched football from the 20s, its almost like watching a different sport. Virtually no passing, in what is today a passing heavy game. Whereas any one of us could sit down to any baseball game of any of the 3 premiere leagues and just enjoy the game. The greatest game ever devised
As recently as 1984, we could get into Wrigley Field for a $2 general admission... And we were able to bring a bag of White Castle Burgers into the park.
B-b-but you can't bring that into the stadium what if it's a _bomb_ or, god forbid, *reasonably priced!*
If you had a bag of White Castle Burgers once a week (and a Cubs fan during the last century) you are lucky to be alive in 2022. 😌
I am fortunate to have been able to see a game at Wrigley. Summer of 1979 the Cubbies beat the visiting LAD 2-1 in a pitcher's battle between Lynn McGlothen and Rick Sutcliffe (about 5 years later Sutcliffe joined the Cubs in 1984.
I was stationed at GLakes in 1984. The Cubs had a couple of unknowns, Bob Dernier and some kid named Sandburg, or Sandcliffe, or something like that. Called them the Daily Double!
All my Chicago friends said the Cubs would swoon in June. They didn't.
🎵 It was a very good year 🎵
Very cool information. And sad how so many sports events are so insanely over-the-top in cost to see. But demand is so high that prices are simply pushed right up to those crazy levels. My solution is to watch a lot on TV and occasionally pay through the nose for the exciting immersion of a live, in-person game.
If anyone didn’t point it out the tickets for Wednesday, April 18 was either for the 1923 or 1928 season. Also note Yankee Stadium did not open up until 1923 before that the Yankees played in the Polo Grounds
My mother grew up in Brooklyn and often went to Dodgers games. They sometimes had Ladies' Day where admission for girls and women was 10 cents. I used to go to Mets games in Shea when box seats were around $8.
dang i was hyped to see how much the beer would be and then you mentioned prohibition. if i had a time machine i'd love to catch and old school ball game
Great stuff! Thank you so much. I love that you converted the prices to today's dollars. Generally people tend to think things were cheaper back then even though the prices really haven't changed that much.
If I recall correctly a hot dog at Yankee stadium was .25 in 1967. That was cheap at the time. They say it converts to $2.20 today.
Baseball used to be the best bargain in entertainment.
Here in Chicago, no free TV, no free radio even. And if you go to a game with your family, you're lucky if you don't have to take out a second mortgage and they don't demand the pink slip on your car.
I remember paying 5 or 6 $ in the late '70s for a Dodgers upper deck ticket. Back then we could ride the elevator down to the first deck without security, or travel the maze of stairs and corridors to the 1st deck. Upon which a known usher would let us know which box seat holder was not going to show up for the game. $6 for box seats at Dodger Stadium? Can't beat it.
My Mom met and shook hands with Babe Ruth at her school it was during the barnstorming era.
Early 60s Yankee Stadium. Bleachers 50 cents, cheapest grandstand seats $1.25. We would go to the Sunday double headers and sneak down to the box seats during the 2nd game. Never caught a ball at the Stadium but finally did in 1996 at Fenway park.
At Fenway there is also a reasonable chance to get batting practice balls which are hit over the Green Monster (and over its netting) onto Landsdowne Street pre-game, that left field wall is really a short porch, and probably too short nowadays for MLB.
I just want to know how people took off work to go to all the day games?
haha... well the lower demand would help explain the prices
1st time I’ve seen something from your channel and this video made me immediately subscribe
Thank you for the excellent and most interesting video. One note: Americans did not vote for the 18th amendment (prohibition). Congress did.
They didn’t vote in their states to legalize marijuana either but the legislature was smart enough to know that the overall income would bring them as many dollars as alcohol does
In the sixties, Yankee Stadium was $3.50 for box seats, $2.50 for reserved, and $1.50 for general admission seating in the upper deck. Bleachers were $0.50. Shea Stadium was the same except it was $1.30 for upper deck general admission seating. By the late seventies prices were going up a bit, and the owners phased out upper deck general admission seating and made the seats reserved, .as they are now. I think standing room was still considered general admission. With the increase in attendance in the late eighties and the nineties prices were raised even more and continue to go up.
Those are the prices I remember. Also, the Jerome Ave el was 20c when I lived there. So it was 90c for a round trip (6 stops) and a bleacher seat!
@@TheBatugan77 It was 15c when I first started going there, became 20c in the mid sixties. But why 6 stops?
I was reading that blip about the murder rate in NYC @1:10 That's fascinating.
Cool video!
It seems you are using a 15x multiplier. How did you arrive at that multiple? Thanks.
Hi Andrew, I used an inflation calculator based on the Consumer Price Index. www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Back in the 20's kids regularly worked, so it's likely a lot of them bought their own baseball gear
I was listening to the radio broadcast of last Sunday’s Yankee game, and every. Single. “subject” had a sponsor. The lineups. The first pitch. The time. The weather. The broadcast booth had a sponsor. If each “sponsor” or “sale” was represented by a flag, the United Nations would look like a very exclusive club by comparison.
The game has been oversold at every possible point of contact. Go to a game, and there isn’t a moment during the game or between innings that you’re not battered by a constant barrage of someone or something hawking something in an effort to climb into your wallet or pocketbook.
This blitzkrieg bombardment of commercialism seems to be squeezing every conceivable drop of REVENUE from any nook, crack or cranny; there’s not a stone or a slate unturned in the unending quest for the last dollar that can be squeezed out of the customers.
It’s never enough, and never will be enough. Especially when $100 million player contracts are thrown around like the vendors tossing bags of peanuts.
Well, John Sterling and Susan Waldman have to get paid some kind of way, lol
My dad would get tickets at Yankee Stadium in the late ‘90s for $5 in the bleachers. Must’ve been a great experience
In the mid-80's bleacher seats were $1.50 at Yankee Stadium. And I remember going as a kid in the late 60's to Shea Stadium with my mother bringing a brown paper bag full of sandwiches and soda. You were allowed to bring outside food in back then
Todays pro sports arent worth the trouble.
I go to local high school football games, Baylor basketball, baseball and football.
Texas is warmer, cheaper and the sports are pretty good too.
Little League World Series in Williamsport was great fun also.
During late 50s a school program offered bleacher admission for 50 cents, by the
7 th inning we'd be in lower box seats give a meddlesome usher a folded buck and we were good
As a kid, I paid $2 for a souvenir replica Padres helmet @ 1972. Some guy paid me $5 for it cause he couldn't find one. I thought I made the deal of a lifetime.
Very cool. Really well put together video!
Around 1969, Met tickets were $3.50 box seats, $2.50 loge, and $1.50 general admission. Me and my friend would cut school, buy GA seats, and sneak down to the box seats, sometimes a small tip to the usher served to avoid getting booted.
In Yankee Stadium in those years, if you bought a General Admission ticket ($1-2) you could sit in any seat that wasn't occupied after the 3rd inning. Since YS had 67,000 seats, and never sold out... I wound up anywhere from behind the Yankees dugout to near the RF foul pole...which were great seats! Only 296 feet with a 4 foot fence!
I remember when a dime bag used to cost a dime.
How much were condoms?
@@BMoney77 He just said they were a dime.
I remember in the 1950’s a bleacher ticket at Yankee Stadium was .75 cents .
I believe Reserved seats were in the $2.00 range with box seats around $4.00
I don’t think they sell those seats anymore..
I went to a game at the Juice Box in Houston 14 years ago.A seat behind home plate was $25Hot dogs were $8 each.I haven't been since.
Great video; thank you, Professor!
Great videos and love your channel!
I wouldn't mind going back in time to watch a few games, but being able to spend today's money.
Not sure where you are getting your $10 ticket number from. Unreserved grandstand cost $2 in the 70's at White Sox park. Bleacher tickets at Wrigley were around .50 in the late 60s.
I always try to talk myself into seeing a game live here in Phoenix. But then I always realize I can get a nice hotel room and watch the game in comfort, with snacks and a six-pack and a lazyboy recliner... and it's CHEAPER.
I think it's not quite right to do pure "inflation". If per capita income in NY was 15k, today it's over 40k, so the actual relative price is 2.5 to three times it's inflation-adjusted price.
And going to Wrigley Field bleachers I think during the 80s was six dollars
Used to get into Forbes Field to watch the Pirates in the late 50's, early 60's bleachers in right field for $0.25. After the top of the 7th you could walk in free. In the early 70's sat 10 rows behind Red Sox dugout in Fenway for $3.75.
Late 70’s era. Four friends. Two Met fans, and two Yankee fans. We rode the subway to Shea or Yankee Stadium almost every Sunday. 1.50 General Admission seats. That got you in. Then 1.00 for each kid into an ushers palm got you box seats for the day. 1.00 hot dogs. 1.00 cokes. Fifty cent peanuts. Those were the days. :)
I was never smart enough to try to bribe the usher. Good move.
@@SurfCityBill dude. It worked every time. If the season ticket holder showed up, they moved you safely.
Ask me some day about going to Ranger games at MSG.
Lol
Seems like the last 10-20 years has seen exponential cost increase in the tickets. Gee, maybe because the salaries are off the charts these days even for an average player? I was a fan up until about 2005 then it just got ridicules, pitchers making 30 Million? They play every 4 days!
I wish I could have went to the polo grounds seen the great Giants teams in the early 1900s
I love baseball history.
I'm like you. I wish I could see McGraw's Giants at the Polo Grounds, partially for the stellar play and partially to see and hear baseball before night games, loudspeakers, and lights.
@@thebaseballprofessor Please make a video about Fred Merkle New York Giants.
Wait till inflation begins to come down..I highly doubt prices on all goods come down with it. Greedy companies will keep prices up as long as consumers keep buying. Everyone should stop buying whenever it’s high and do without for a week or two. The greedy pigs will get the message
Nice video by the way👍
tickets used to be cheaper because
A) there were less people
B) there were more seats(in NY at least)
C) most teams were out of contention by Memorial Day
take a look at the average attendance in the early 80s and before. We remember the big games and not the tons of other games that had no fans.
1956 left house in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Too Graham Ave. bus to Nassau Ave. Transfered to Lorimer St. Bus. Got off bus across the St. From Ebbetts Field Saw Carl Erskine pitch no hitter against NY Giants. Had hot dog and soda. Left ballpark and reversed bus route to home. Day cost $1.50. Highlight of game was line drive over second caught by Jackie Robinson, saving no hitter
The price of baseball gloves would not shock a modern day person?
The top of the line baseball gloves today sell for $450. That's a far cry from "$72 - when adjusted for inflation."
More than 20 years ago, I bought a professional level Derek Jeter glove for about $175
Great research and presentation!
Cheers
I get into Busch Stadium regularly for between $5 and $10 in 2022!
You got a sub!!! Great work my friend!!
That well-endowed lady at :48.
- Big Woody
Just for laughs I checked ticket prices for the White Sox and saw the cheapest seats in the upper deck all the way down the foul lines cost $ 12.00, box seats behind home plate cost $71.00.
Not terribly out of line with what tickets cost 100 years ago in NYC.
@@thebaseballprofessor If you factor in what players get paid today it probably comes out cheaper.
The $3.50-4 a gallon sounding familiar didn’t age well and this is 3 weeks since the upload
You can go to a lower ranking teams games for under $20 today and standing room at the Giants stadium is only $7 during the season against lower ranking teams
Maybe you could do an analysis of the baseball cap, both design changes and the price charged to customers. 😃😃
Cap and/or glove would be cool to see.
Baseball is still relatively cheap. Certainly the cheapest of all four major American sports
Of course the beers and food is outrageous but you can get a decent seat to any game on any day of the regular season for less than $20 and usually between $5-$15
This park has crazy dimensions
Honus does not rhyme with bonus. Think of it as a shorter form of Johannes. (I saw a video where Lou Gehrig pronounced it Honnus.)
Fascinating i love the roaring 1920s
The gouging that companies do for concessions today is reprehensible. This video just rubs salt in the wound.
What a baseball game costs in Los Angeles is obscene and it saddens me because 5 dollar tickets were available twenty years ago
Great video! Thanks for sharing.
Great channel. Thanks
I remember in the 1970s it cost 4 dollars for box seats at Shea Stadium.
Yes take me and my family back to this time !
I grew up in the early 90s.
And I remember bleacher seats in RF at the old Stadium were like $18-$25.
My cousin and I would go to 4-5 games on average every season.
The Yankees in the early 90s certainly have plenty of seats to sit down at on that side of the field
Visited Fenway for the 1st time, in '21. Can't beat the Italian Sausage sandwiches.
nowdays a beer costs 15 bucks
Awesome video!
"the price of gas hovered between 3.50 and 4.00. sound familiar?"
*me, paying 6 dollars a gallon for the past 4 months*: "Pepperidge farm remembers"
Yo if you go to 51 seconds it’s the daily bugle in spider man Tobey magire
iN 1962 a baseball cost $3 and to get a new one was a big deal to the whole neighborhood...
Back in the mid 80’s you could get a back field seat either right or left at Olympic Stadium to watch the Expos for $1, no way that would happen today
Right up until 2012, you could get tickets to the right field pavilon or upper deck for $5 at Dodger Stadium. The model under Walter O'Malley was fill the stadium. They'll buy hot dogs and beer. They'll park and buy merchandise. Everything is just so much more expensive now.
Those inflationary numbers are relative to other costs then and now. The calculation of inflation is very different now.
It's true enough that housing is more expensive while food is less expensive in 2024, but isn't the Consumer Price Index (www.usinflationcalculator.com/) a useful way of making comparisons?
@@thebaseballprofessor ummmmm food is less expensive? Comparative to my pay and costs even ten years ago ....no..again the modern mainstream calculation of inflation is completely different. Buying power of a dollar or pound or what have you was not split up among different metrics. If you pay more for housing it detracts from the buying power from food. They can not be separated. I see what you are trying to get at but my family could do all this just thirty years ago with five kids where as that is impossible now.
@@thebaseballprofessor they changed the metrics to calculate cpi in the mid 00s ....I wonder why....
@@thebaseballprofessor anyway I still enjoyed your video bud. Keep it up.
Since I'm a Philly fan, I love Bryce Harper, but 330 million for 13 years comes out to about 40,000$ for every at bat. Who needs that kind of money, I don't care HOW good you are...