Monday, July 21, 2008
THE OBLIGATORY CITIFIELD POST.
Earlier in the season, TBF and I found ourselves at Shea with time to kill, so we got in line for the Citi Field preview center. I didn’t expect much - I mean, the finishes of the various suites aren’t going to impact me, now, are they - but I had hoped to learn something.
For the most part, my assessment was correct. (They should really offer two levels of tours - one for those who are seriously interested in suites or boxes, and one for people who just want to see the circus.) They started the tour by saying, “I’m sure some of you are season ticket holders or plan holders and have a lot of questions, and we’ll answer those questions later in the year, we can’t answer them now.” So I expected the tour to be largely irrelevant to TBF and myself.
What I didn’t expect was to walk out of there completely fucking devastated.
The most relevant (and also the most interesting) part of the tour is when you walk into a room that two rows of actual future Citi Field seats of different types and quality. They even (allegedly) replicate the future legroom. You then get to sit there and watch a pretty cool virtual reality presentation on the wall, where they can show you the view from just about every level at Citi Field.
And that was when it hit me.
It isn’t just that we’re going to end up in the last rows of the upper deck. It’s that every seat, from the far edge of the Mets’ dugout to the far edge of the visitor’s dugout, on every single level, will be a club seat.
Period.
So even our humble but enjoyable seats in the current mezzanine reserved, right up from third base, will be off-limits to us in Citi Field.
LOVE OF THE COMMON MAN
The prevailing rumor in the stands is that the Mets are not going to be offering partial plans. This aligns with my core belief that the Mets do not want to deal with individual ticket holders, except in a full season form. It is not cost effective to have multiple ticket reps to deal with every cranky plan holder demanding upgrades and parity and everything else that we call and bother Vito or Harry or whichever newly graduated Sports Marketing major is answering the phones out in Flushing. On a ROI basis, it only makes sense to have those people dealing with the big cheeses, who are buying a full season. Why?
Because the big cheeses don’t care much whether the Mets win or lose. They are buying the tickets as a business investment or some kind of writeoff. They’re going to be like the person who sits in front of us in row D, who we refer to as ‘the Walrus’ because of his appearance and because of his gruff demeanor. He has four tickets and almost never shows up, except for big games. He’s not going to call and complain if the ushers are apathetic or ridiculous, he’s not going to care about the ticket price, he’s not going to bitch about anything. He uses it for clients or employees and for the playoff rights. Period.
This is the Mets’ idea—hell, all of MLB’s idea - of the ideal account holder. And before you tell me that I’m wrong, back in May, when we were in the Bronx, we found ourselves in the middle of the identical conversation that we’ve been having with our neighbors at Shea. TBF found tickets on Ebay from a long-time account holder, and so we were right behind home plate with people who have had their ticket plans at Yankee Stadium since as early as 1979. Despite the rumors that the Yankees had been communicating openly with their plan holders and they knew exactly what was going on and when it was going to happen, we found out that they’re in exactly the same boat that we are - if not worse. The folks in section 601 know that they don’t stand a hope in hell in getting those same seats in the new Yankee Stadium - just like we know we can’t even get a seat up the third base line in Citi Field.
Misery loves company.
BACK TO RELOCATION
I remember my friends in Seattle suffering through the Kingdome to Safeco debacle. The people who were willing to fork out major cash were accommodated nicely. The people with no money - like my friend who had a season ticket seat in the front row of the upper deck right behind home plate - were royally screwed.
When the Nationals began their relocation process last year, I tipped TBF off and he actually went through the process to see what they were doing. The Nationals created a web application that surveyed plan holders about their preferences for the new park: did they want better seats? did they want to stay with the people around them? did they want to buy more ticket? what was their preference? Before you say “Who cares about that, I just want to know where my seats are,” understand that to some people, it’s a big deal. The Yankees fans we sat near were all very much willing to take a downgrade in seating quality if they could just remain with their neighbors, since they had known each other for 30+ years and had a history of weddings and bar mitzvahs and divorces and real friendships that meant a lot to them.
There are things that could be done to accommodate the non-corporate user base; the New York teams just don’t have to bother.
SEASONS
As referenced above, the prevailing rumor at Shea is that the Mets have no intention of offering any kind of partial plans next year. Mr. D. in the row behind us is of the opinion that they are going to do everything they can to get as many full seasons as possible, and then, once we’re resigned that we’re not going to be in the new ballpark, they’ll start calling up partial planholders and offering them some kind of partial plan.
It irks us beyond belief that the Mets aren’t more flexible or creative with plans and can’t or won’t offer some of the options that other teams do: what about a half-season plan? What about a quarter season? None of those are out of the question, even in New York - they just require more work than the Mets want to do in order to fill the stadium.
A few months ago, I ran into a post on Craigslist, where someone writing a book about Shea Stadium memories was asking fans to send in their memories, and everyone who contributed would be put into a lottery to win a weekend plan at Citi Field. I found it very curious and wrote to the gentleman and asked how he could possibly offer a weekend plan in Citi Field as compensation when weekend plans were not going to exist in Citi Field. His response to me was that he had corporate connections with the Mets and he had been promised a plan. I’m not taking it as a sign of anything, because they could very well offer weekend plans to select VIP’s without opening them up to the general public (or this could just be untrue - it is on Craigslist after all).
CONCLUSION
So what’s a Mets fan to do? We’ve looked at it long and hard and considered going in on a full season plan with someone, except that brings up the sticky playoff rights issue. There’s also the fact of coming up with the scratch to make the purchase. If we could genuinely afford it, we would already have one.
My suggestion to TBF has been that we take the money we would have put towards a ticket plan and instead use it to plan ahead and buy single-game tickets and bank a playoff fund just like we do every year, with a cushion to allow us to go to the secondary market if necessary. It’s not what we want; it’s not what we’d like; it’s not anything we’re enthusiastic about. The choice, of course, is to sit on the outside, which we’re also not willing to do.
The whole reason I got into this mess is because I wanted TBF to be inside the new ballpark. It’s kind of ironic that after all that we aren’t any closer than we would have been if we hadn’t bought a ticket plan. I don’t regret doing it for one second, I’m just sad for him, or for anyone else who has been through years and years of famine only to find themselves deliberately excluded from walking through the Jackie Robinson Rotunda on a regular basis. One of TBF’s curmudgeon buddies compared it to Broadway attendance - MLB wants to accommodate the middle-class fan, but only a few times a year, carefully planned in advance. They don’t want walk-up, day of game sales. They don’t want cranky fans on the phone. They don’t want the headache of parceling out the park in anything less than a full season. This is about the time I earn my own curmudgeon stripes and talk about baseball being a game for the rich, to which you will all pat my on the head and say, “Doh.”
So when they released the seating chart for Citi Field over the weekend (anyone else surprised that they released it after the 10-game winning streak? anyone else think they’ve had it for a while?), TBF went to work. Everything that follows is his detective work.
The seating chart for Citi Field is here.
CONCOURSE LEVEL (Lower level):
Sterling Club Seats
First 20 rows of seats, directly behind home plate (between the dugouts)—approximately 1,600 seats in total
Rows 1-2 ("Platinum"): $495
Rows 3-8 ("Gold"): $375
Rows 9-14 ("Silver"): $225
Rows 15-20: $175
Ebbets Club Seats
Next 8 rows of seats, directly behind home plate (between the dugouts)—approximately 600 seats in total
Rows 1-2 ("Gold"): $250
Rows 3-8: $200
Metropolitan Box Seats
The four sections of field level seats closest to the Sterling and Ebbets Clubs—Approx 3,500 seats in total
Rows 1-2 ("Platinum"): $375
Rows 3-6 ("Gold"): $225
Rows 7-12 ("Silver"): $175
Rows 13-31 ("Box"): $150
Field Box Seats
Next four sections of lower level seats-- Approx 3,500 seats in total
Rows A-E ("Gold"): $225
Rows 1-6 ("Silver"): $175
Rows 7-31 ("Box"): $125
Baseline Box Seats
Next four sections of lower level out to the foul poles—Approx 3,500 seats in total
No pricing information provided yet.
Left Field Reserved / Right Field Reserved
Approx 5 sections in LF and 3 sections in RF; seats in fair territory in the OF—Approx 4,750 seats in total
First two rows ("Gold"):
Rows 3-19:
No pricing information provided yet.
Big Apple
3 sections in CF closest to the Apple—approx. 1250 seats
No pricing information provided yet.
Bridge Terrace
2 rows of seats above the bullpens in right-center field
No pricing information provided yet.
EXCELSIOR LEVEL (Middle level):
Excelsior Club Seats
Approx 4000 seats in total
Rows 1-2, behind home plate ("Platinum"): $175
Rows 3-6, behind home plate ("Gold"): $150
Rows 1-2, behind dugouts ("Silver"): $125
Rows 3-12, behind dugouts ("Bronze"): $115
Rows 1-12, the remaining 4 sections from infield out to foul poles: $75
Left Field Landing
Above left field reserved—approx 2000 seats total
Rows 1-2 ("Gold"):
Rows 3-14:
No pricing information provided yet.
Right Field Porch
Above right field reserved—first few rows overhang field—approx 1800 seats total
Rows 1-2 ("Gold"):
Rows 3-16:
No pricing information provided yet.
PROMENADE LEVEL (Upper level):
Split with “boxes” at front and “reserved” in back, similar to current Shea setup
Promenade Club
All boxes on infield—approx 1800 seats
Rows 1-2 ("Gold"):
Rows 3-5:
No pricing information provided yet.
Promenade Boxes
All remaining boxes from bases to outfield - approx 2250 seats
No pricing information provided yet.
Promenade Reserved Infield
Highest level of seats, infield—approx 5700 seats
No pricing information provided yet.
Promenade Reserved
Highest level of seats, outfield—approx 5700 seats
No pricing information provided yet.
You can learn all about the seats you’ll never be able to afford here.
Posted by MG at 11:54 AM
Wow, this is crazy. seems like this is a no-win situation for most “regular joes and josephines”.
As a tv-watching fan, 2 things strike me about the seating chart:
1) although i know it’s not “final”, didn’t *anyone* say *anything* about the fact that it looks like the 3rd base and 1st base seats in the outfield are actually “in play”
2) next year, will Adam Dunn be able to play that kooky curved right field? =)
I guess I had better get my impulse games in this year while I still can :-(
I knew things would get more pricey in the new ballpark, I just had no idea it would be to this extent.
I saw this disaster coming years ago. The silence of Mets fans is deafening. I despise the Wilpons. I despise their Ebbetts Field fetish. I despise their greed. And on September 28, 2008, MLB baseball dies in NYC. I can afford the tickets, but I will choose not to buy them. Sadly, that HR Hole the Sillies play in may be the only venue real Mets fans can see them in the future. Sick, pathetic, and thanks for writing about it. Metsblog has done a zero job of defending Mets fans...gee, I wonder why?
The one thing Cerrone has posted, and that I refrained from including in the article, was “I’m not going to worry about it until I’m standing outside and can’t get in.”
At the time I told him that that was like the music critic for the New York Times saying that they’d wait and see if the ticket prices for the Madonna tour would be too expensive for them to afford.
I check metsblog often; I do recall that sad statement by Cerrone. And who can blame him?---if he keeps his SNY connection, he can score more than a few tickets. I also got nauseous at the lack of empathy and “free market” myths Mets fans were spitting out. There is no “free market” when a middle-class fan is competing for a seat with a multi-billion dollar corporation. The Mets.com site is nauseating, too. The “sell” revolves around bars, eateries, shopping, and the wonders of climate control---yeah, that’s the ticket! Mets fans allegedly now want to go to Mets games in order to be in a virtual dream living room. I have my 9/28/08 tix...after 38 years at Shea, it’ll be a sad day. But I won’t weep long---it’s hard to miss an organization that no longer wants you. Again, at hundreds for a ticket, one might as well rent a car, drive to Philly, give Philly their $$$, drive home, and still save $$$ over the odious and obscene pseudo-Ebbetts Field prices. And where’s Gary Cohen, who romanticizes his $1.30/seat days at Shea in the 1970s??? Now that he’s established, he should cut out the schtick. Every Mets blogger should have a headline: METS TO REAL METS FANS: DROP DEAD!
MetsGrrl,great post as usual.
My kneejerk reaction to the announced prices was similar to yours and I agree with your thoughts for the mostpart. It should be noted, however, that the Mets have yet to announce prices for nearly 30,000 of the seats/standing room at Citi Field. 95% of these seats will be priced below $75 and a great majority of those will be priced below $45. In all likelihood, the so-called cheap seats (about 33% to 50% of capacity) will range from $20 to $50 per ticket.
Soothsayer: The trend of increasing ticket prices stinks but the price of everything else is also rising. Not to stand on too much of a soapbox here but its hard for me and other fans to get worked up over baseball ticket prices when millions of Americans cannot afford to pay their medical bills.
Finally, I’m going to go against the prevailing sentiment regarding whether Citi Field will have partial plans. The ticket office’s desire to sell as many tickets as possible trumps the desire to deal with strictly full season ticket planholders. As a result, I think that there will be partial plans at Citi Field but that we might see 40 game plans (half season) instead of the Tuesday/Friday and Mini Plans and 20 game plans (quarter season) instead of Saturday and Sunday Plans.
Of course, the Mets will keep us in the dark about this as long as possible because having partial plans goes against their goal of increasing their full season ticket base. Interestingly enough, a person can purchase today a full season plan for the remainder of this season (28 games) and get priority for full season tickets at Citi Field but a person who has had a Tuesday/Friday Plan (26 games) for this entire season and/or prior seasons doesn’t have any priority with respect to Citi Field.
CP, thanks for contributing. The only point of your I take issue with is Not to stand on too much of a soapbox here but its hard for me and other fans to get worked up over baseball ticket prices when millions of Americans cannot afford to pay their medical bills.
By that logic one could say what’s the point of writing a blog about baseball when there’s a war going on, gas is inching towards $5, and the MTA is going to cut service and increase fares?
See what I mean?
You can’t really claim some kind of moral superiority if you’re following professional sports in the first place, unless you completely eschew going to games, ever. If you care enough about MLB to post on fan blogs then you’re in the soup and yes it matters.
CP, thanks for your contribution, but I go to Shea to FORGET about rent, health care, war, and other problems. I think the Mets intentionally released the initial prices because the Giants PSL fiasco was announced the day before. And quite honestly, I think the only seats below $50 will be non-seats---the 2,500 standing room tickets that’s included in the announced seating capacity of 45,000. Congratulations, Mets---you’ve built a Midwest-sized ballpark dedicated to a half-century-dead Brooklyn team in Queens and you’re charging Manhattan prices. Priceless. Priced-out. And obscene.
MG,
I understand your point. As someone who has attended between 20 and 30 Mets games a year over the past 5 years, I fully appreciate that ticket prices and availability matter.
My point (which I stated inartfully) was that the ticket price issue matters less to some people than other issues. Regardless of the relevant importance of ticket prices in any given individual’s priorities and concerns, concerns about ticket prices are indeed a legitimate concern.
While fans should be proactive in raising those concerns, we also should do so armed with as much information as possible (which is difficult given the Mets usual silence on these issues as well as the fact that prices for 66% of the seats at Citi Field have not yet been announced). In any event, thank you for your response and I look forward to your posts in the future re: this and other things pertaining to our Mets.
Soothsayer,
Great point about why we go to Shea. Given the Mets track record when it comes to customer relations, you have good reason to be pessimistic about the yet to be announced ticket prices for other sections of Citi Field. That said, I’d be pretty surprised if very seat at Citi Field (other than standing room) was over $50.
The reason for my optimism is that the Mets ticket prices have been below the ticket prices of that other NYC team for at least the last decade. When prices for their new stadium were announced, one of their execs tried to deflect criticism of their prices by stating that 90% of tickets at the new park will cost no more than $100, and 55% will be priced at $45 or less. I can see the Mets doing this as well in order to respond to the criticism and sticker shock with respect to the announced prices for the initial 15,000 seats.
Well, I hope you’re right, CP. I’m cynical. And in a sense, as a two-plan holder, I paid my proxy-PSL to the Mets along with thousands of others. They upped the ticket prices in 2008 to “relieve the seat-hike burden in 2009.” That’s bait-and-switch, as it only means the Mets will get higher revenues than deserved after the collapse in 2008 in 2008; what one pays in 2009 will be well above the “20 average increase.” This new pseudo-Ebbetts Field is a real turnoff; it’s not NYC baseball. Maybe I’m just an old dog who knows that in 1970 $1.30 bought admission, a game, a scoreboard, and passionate baseball; $4 could but you a seat behind home…
I am a season ticket holder and am waiting for my “packet” in the mail. My rep won’t tell me anything about prices of my current upper box seats, which scares the life out of me.
I’m starting to think I will be priced out for next year, and I have already started gauging interest in a partnership for my seats for next season. That’s how concerned I am. I can’t imagine how they expect the common fan, who stretches their dollar for season tickets, to pony up all of this money in the next few months, in addition to the playoff tickets we all know we are going to get charged for as long as they are within 5 games of the division.
Kevin---Can you be kind enough to let us know what the prices are when you receive them? Thanks. And again, thanks to this blog---out of the dozens of Met-based blogs I read, MetsGrrl seems to be the only one set in reality, save for a fantastic essay in Faith and Fear last year on what a turnoff the Wilpon’s Folly Field hustle was when the writer visited the sales/presentation area in Loge.
Soothsayer,
I’ll be sure to share the prices when I get them, as I will be actively looking for people to commit to buying games from me. It’s the only way I am going to be able to afford them.
On your other point, I happen to be a big fan of metsblog among other posts. All have their own particular space in blogosphere.
I am very appreciative of all the compliments but would really prefer if the discussion not degenerate into a defense of Metsblog or a dissing of Metsblog. Metsblog is Metsblog. No one else even comes close.
However, on this issue, Matt is not going to be the best source. Even if he didn’t have the SNY alliance, he lives in Connecticut and isn’t thinking about life as a planholder because that’s not his frame of reference. I wish he would realize that, though, and not act like we’re freaking out for no good reason every time someone mentions ticket prices.
I’m an avid reader of metsblog and admire it greatly. What perturbs me is the lack of empathy amongst Mets fans, and I think a lot of those views appear on metsblog. Our society as a whole lacks empathy. I feel empathy for Kevin, even though I can afford wonderful seats at Wilpon’s Folly in 2009 if I so choose. I feel empathy for the Giants and Jets fans who are being buggered by unreal PSLs, even though I can never bring myself to pay scalpers’ prices to attend an NFL game. Richard Neer on WFAN feels empathy for the death of affordable, populist baseball in NYC. Even the Village Voice in this article by Barra:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-07-09/news/the-houses-that-ruthlessness-built/
In general, everyone lived in denial about what would happen when the new “ballparks” in NYC would finally become a reality. It’s reflective of a society that fights pseudo-wars on borrowed dollars, gives out pseudo-loans to homebuyers, and empties the treasury so that much-needed social and infrastructure programs die. My praise for MetsGrrl to allow this discussion is not a dis of metsblog.
In summation, in 2009, every Mets fan like me who attends 25-35 games a year has a decision to make: Do we fork out $50 to $100 for a product we can get for as little as $5 in 2008? My guess is that the vast majority who say “yes” will be corporations with no imvestment in the Mets and will use the seats as tax writeoffs. And for NYC, this is tragic.
It appears that the ticket office is now in the process of contacting full-season ticket holders who have tickets in the Upper Deck. According to a few of these season ticket holders, they are being relocated to the Promenade Reserved Infield Seats and those seats will be $25 per seat.
Over the next few weeks, I imagine that other pricing information will be released. If you are a full-season ticket holder who has yet to hear from your ticket rep, I suggest putting in a phone call to them since sources (various posters on various message boards) have indicated that the Mets now know exactly where each full-season ticket holder will be relocated should such season ticket holder decide to keep their plan at Citi Field.
I am a Saturday plan holder and I hope they give us some clue about what is going to happen to the partial plan holders. I think that the people who were partial plan holders (although I am not critisizeing them) who upgraded to full plans actually hurt us all by doing so. If everyone stood pat or stands pat, their will be over 17000 available tickets for each game. Roughly 25000 current season ticket holders - 42000 seats at Citi. I believe 17000 seats per game should be enough to accomadate partial plan holders. The mets could get creative and offer instead of a Sat. plan a Sat. and Tuesday plan or 1/2 Sat and 1/2 Tuesday to round out the 13 games. Partial plan holders please do not cave in to the Mets tactics and hopefully they can be reminded that its the real mets fans, not the corporations, who are their best customers.
I need to make my own blog post about this, but anyway.
It seems Upper seats are going to be able to be had for $25. There will inevitably be deals and the like (LIRR for example) that knock them down to $20. There are issues with overall pricing, there are issues with people that go to 30 games now, maybe onlyg etting to 15 next year. There are very few people that are actually being ‘priced out’ of the Citi.
I know for sure I’m going to be occasionally buying Standing Room tickets and finding a seat in one of those ignored corporate boxes (on the higher levels of course) It’ll be a lot harder to sneak down to the behind dugout seats next year (but I literally got kicked out of Shea last year for doing that anyway), but it won’t be impossible to get to the games. Especially after ‘the new stadium smell’ wears away. I love Shea, but every time I look at the Citi, and then spend a day fighting my way around Shea, It feels like the difference from a penthouse apartment to my parents basement.
I’m having a really hard time seeing how buying a $15 standing room ticket and sneaking into a better seat isn’t just proving the point that people are going to be priced out of the new ballpark. It’s not a sustainable plan for 99% of the people going to games. It’s not sustainable for families. It’s not sustainable for someone coming from work. Hell, it’s not sustainable for me.
It’s like the Michael Cohl method of pricing concert tickets - he puts two rows at the very top of the venue behind the stage on sale for $65, so he can put in the press release “we have tickets from $65 to $450, we are affordable for all Rolling Stones fans.” but the reality is that TWELVE tickets in the ENTIRE venue are $65. that’s not being affordable, that’s spin.
Not saying it’s a legitimate option for families, but if there are really a lot of corporate seats, there will be plenty of opportunity for a single or couple of persons to sit down elsewhere. Plus the entire stadium provides plenty of good views from standing.
$25 is UR Infield. there will probably be a cheaper section too. Taking a family of five to a game for under $100 is perfectly affordable, maybe not as affordable as other things, but with the cost of living being what it is, that’s not that much. Sure, you still have to park and buy food, but if you’re really on a budget, you make do. I rarely ate at the ballpark when I came as a kid, we brought in sodas and snacks (and still do often), and there hasn’t been any rumors that the Citi is going to do away with allowing you to bring in that stuff.
And it’s not 12 tickets that are going to be $25 and up, it’s probably upwards of 10k.
too many people are jumping to conclusions about this place and it’s cost and it’s design (Other than a facade and the names of a couple of sections, which are meaningless, what about it has anything to do with the Dodgers/Ebbets field?) Give the place a chance, just like you did/should/will give new players a chance. A year from now you’ll probably love the place.
sneaking around the ballpark and sitting in seats that you didn’t pay for is not how 99.9999% of people watch a ballgame. i’m not above sitting in a upper deck box in april, but i don’t count on it.
i’m really not sure anyone here is denigrating the physical plant of the stadium. what i don’t understand, however, is your continual willingness to blindly swallow everything that sterling enterprises, LLC foists upon us, whether it’s the music used during games or the ticket prices.
when i see an official price list from the mets and find out what they are doing, then i will accept the ticket prices as actual. right now it is just conjecture.
i trust that someone else will assist me in explicating fred wilpon’s obsession with the brooklyn dodgers. writing off the entrance to the stadium as “just a facade” is missing a huge point here. my father, an original brooklyn dodgers fan, is deeply offended by their insistence in trying to make it into another ebbett’s field. he won’t talk much about the dodgers but he’s made this point repeatedly - and he doesn’t care that much about baseball these days.
there are no conclusions being jumped to here. we are discussing actual facts: ticket prices RELEASED BY THE METS. a design for a stadium that everyone can already see. fred wilpon’s well-documented dodgers fetish. just because you’re unaware of it or don’t recognize it doesn’t make it conjecture. you can disagree with it, but don’t insult it by calling it conjecture.
Come on! okay, maybe I’m extrapolating based on the season ticket holders saying $25? Fine, I’m as anxious to see the total price scheme as the next person. But I don’t see why they’re lying, and if they aren’t, there are certainly going to be some tickets available at a reasonable price for the average fan to see a game. I’m as annoyed at the 45k as much as anyone else, because what they fail to recognize is that while “every seat is good” those last 10k would rather see facing a wall inside the Citi than be at home.
But that’s how they chose to do it, for business reasons I’m sure. It sucks that you won’t be able to get to the ballpark for $5 anymore, but if you think about it, $5 was an exceptional bargain, and it’s no surprise that it doesn’t buy what it used to.
I feel it’s you that’s jumping to conclusions. Like it or not, the Dodgers and Giants factor into the Mets history, right up to their uniforms and insignia. So far all I see is a facade designed to look like Ebbett’s field, a dedicated rotunda to a Dodger player who actually transcends baseball, and a couple of names of sections. Where as the whole rest of the stadium is the Mets unique design. If there is more that I’m missing, I’d love to hear it. thing is, times change. Baseball just isn’t what it was when the Dodgers were around, or even 20 years ago. You can dislike the new versions and move along, but that doesn’t mean that it’s worse.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080725/FREE/684562083
Here’s another article re: Citi Field prices. A few of the article’s noteworthy points are as follows:
1. Club seats range in price from $60 in the upper Promenade level to $495 in the Sterling field-level right behind home plate.
2. Predictable Spin Alert: More than 50% of the 42,500 seats in the new stadium will cost $50 or less.
3. Tiered Pricing will continue: The cheapest seats will sell for $12 and will be available on select value dates. The least expensive seats sell for $5 this season. But Mr. Howard said the $12 seats at Citi Field will be equivalent to Mezzanine seats at Shea, which sell for $23-$38 on value games.
4. The team will likely eventually have an additional 2,500 standing room tickets available per game, but pricing and logistics have not yet been worked out.
5. Though there will be a left-field restaurant and offerings from well-known New York restaurants, fans will continue to be permitted to bring their own food into the ballpark.
THRILLED to know that they are not going to disallow outside food. THRILLED.
i wish they would just release the prices and stop spinning. that would shut us up.
SO I know my seats for next year. I am in section 520, 2nd Row. About the same seats I have now in the Upper Box Row A. The cost is less than this year, but I am seriously considering moving up to Promenade Club (4860 per ticket, Row 3-6) or Club Gold (rows 1-2, 6075 per ticket) if someone would partner with me. Right now they are 2025 each, which I have no problem affording, it just seems like a step back in the quality of the seat.
Anyone interested?
I saw that link too. Whichever way you want to argue this, you have to understand that Wally there is just an idiot, and likes to instigate things. Like Mushnick, his first “scare tactic” is to bring up prices at the front of the stadium, but this is a guy who’s spending 70k already! Those aren’t really the people we even want to hear about. It’s too expensive, and has been, for me to sit at those Seats in Shea, why do i care what they cost in the Citi?
Feel free to not care. We care. I continue to find your logic specious.
I care. Why do you think I’m responding/tracking this entry? I really, like you said above, just want the information. Just like all these stupid trade rumors, i’m tired of speculation.
I think the biggest issue is the ability for families and the poorer fan to get into a handful of games a year, and I think that’s still going to be possible.
I haven’t been able to buy/afford a ticket on the Field Level for years, but that’s a bigger economical/baseball issue than just the Mets and Citi Field. And it’s why I find myself not overly concerned with out much they have to pay next year. It’s also in a way good to know that the Mets are competing on a business level at the top, and cna afford to pay guys like Santana what they’re paying him. I’d rather be at the Citi less, and enjoy watching the Mets more, than be at the Citi more and enjoy watching them less.
The tactics that annoy me are how they’re waiting and timing the release of information, how they aren’t releasing any information about season plans, and the reduced seating bothers me. (That plays into the cost too most definitely)
I went to a sales agent on Loge Saturday night. I told him I was a duo Plan Holder (Saturday and Sunday). I asked him when I would receive my invoice for 2009, as I’ve been a Plan Holder for years. (True.) “Probably November,” he said. “Well, I have the money now. Can I buy season tickets for next year now?” He then tried to sell me season tickets for the remainder of 2008. “I have half of those tickets,” I said. “Well, that’s the only way you’re going to get tickets now,” he replied, “might as well get on que.” I told him it was unfair that any scalper could swoop in and pay a few hundred bucks for the last games at Shea and get priority over me and other plan holders. He was unmoved (of course). I met my friend in the Uppers and told him what went on. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “They’re ticket whores. Fuck ‘em.” And fuck ‘em indeed.
I have had my loge Sunday plan since 1986 and have been gradually upgraded to Section 3, where I have been for the last few years. I remember buying the plan at $13 a game and now paying 55 or more. 3 years ago when the Mets suggested that I buy a full plan to insure that I would get seats in Citifield I was skeptical. I could barely afford my 4 seats now, how can I pay for 80 games? Surely the Mets would not forget there long time subscribers and I have written those concerns to Bill Innanciello every year as I renewed my partial plan. I will not buy a full season plan and become a secondary market ticket agent for the Mets. In my last visit to the front office I was told that partial plans would be addressed in September but I have a feeling that it will be much longer than that before they let us know if they owe us any thing for our years of support. Below is an excerpt of some of my letters to the Mets.
Dear Mr. Ianniciello and Mets Front Office Staff.
Thank you for your letter dated Oct. 15. 2007 I appreciate the condolences for what was for the most part, a great season with a truly heart wrenching ending. As we come to the time of year to renew our plans. I hope your office has made a decision as to the fate of your long term partial plan holders. I wrote to you in October of 2005 and December of 2006 about this issue and have excerpted part of my letter below. As a plan holder who has been going to Sunday games for 22 years I am more distressed over the fact that I might be shut out of the new stadium more than a bad Mets Season. After all I have endured a few of them. As I told you in my previous letters, I am making a financial sacrifice to keep my Sunday plan and can not afford the time or money to purchase a full plan.
[COMMENT SLIGHTLY EDITED BY EDITOR FOR SPACE]
If the worst case scenario happens and we are shut out of CitiField I can only suggest a grassroots effort to organize Met fans affected. I envision alerting the media and showing up at Citifield with bull horns and tombstone placards with our sections and the years we have had our plans, we can march, chant and stage our own die ins, after all we will be dead in the eyes of the Mets. I am writing this so we can be prepared, alert metsgrrl, metshead, metsblog, loge 13 and all other met fan forums that if the time comes I and I hope many others will be ready to act. Until then lets hope the Mets come to their senses.
Mariobro---Thanks for being sane. No money-making hustle “comes to its senses” on its own. When the novelty of a ballfield named after a bank and inspired by a team that stuck its middle finger to NYC in 1958 wears off, they’ll be begging for $$$ from you---I guess by 2011 when the woefully underpaid Jose Reyes goes the way of free agency---and I’m not being facile---he is underpaid and his contract shortsighted. The Mets creed is the creed of the cruel and of the times, they are cruel and relish it. One of the main blogging blogging sites you mentioned is not worth posting on---his “neo-Libertarianism” will make him unsympathetic. It’s too late now, but even the fans of Arizona demonstrated to have extra seats added to their field after the DBacks didn’t feel seats in the OF were an aesthetic-enough baseball-shopping experience. Good luck. If you’re organizing, contact me at .
Thanks I will, as of now I guess it is wait and see.
Wow, this is crazy. seems like this is a no-win situation for most “regular joes and josephines”.
As a tv-watching fan, 2 things strike me about the seating chart:
1) although i know it’s not “final”, didn’t *anyone* say *anything* about the fact that it looks like the 3rd base and 1st base seats in the outfield are actually “in play”
2) next year, will Adam Dunn be able to play that kooky curved right field? =)