Watching Clayton Kershaw and Yasiel Puig is going to be a lot more expensive next season, but the Los Angeles Dodgers say they're actually doing their fans a favor by hiking ticket prices in 2014 by as much as 140 percent.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the Dodgers are indicating that supply and demand is forcing the price of their tickets to go up, not a skyrocketing payroll.
According to the Times, the franchise is increasing prices in each of the 20 ticket categories it made available Friday; the increase in 10 of those ticket categories is 50 percent or greater.
David Siegel, the Dodgers' vice president of ticket sales, told the Times that the new prices reflected what he called "unprecedented" demand for tickets. In the announcement Friday, the Dodgers said available tickets would start at $12 per game - up from $5 per game in 2013 -- which Siegel said constituted adequate disclosure of the price hikes "although we didn't spell it out."
The team announced it had limited the number of season tickets available but did not reveal a significant price increase for each ticket.
Last season, the Dodgers' cheapest ticket was $5.
"We were trying to be transparent," Siegel told the Times.
The Times reported that Siegel said the Dodgers usually can sell 3,000 to 5,000 seats based on fans declining to renew season tickets. With a renewal rate exceeding 98 percent this year, he said, the Dodgers could not accommodate fans wishing to add season seats or upgrade from a partial-season package. If all those fans were accommodated at the original prices, he said, the Dodgers wouldn't have anything left for group sales and individual game sales..
"We always try to take care of our season-seat holders," Siegel said. "We've learned a lot from the process. As always, we continue to strive to be better."
CBSSports.com defended the Dodgers, saying "If teams could raise prices any time they needed additional revenues, then, suffice it to say, they'd raise prices a lot more often. What the Dodgers are doing is a simple response to what they perceive as increased demand."
The team went on a spending spree last season for ball players and reached the National League Championship Series but insist payroll is not a factor in the team's decision to raise ticket prices.
© 2023 Sportsworldnews.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
