A steep price to pay.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.
• Position: Baseball tickets and consumer preferences

"THE SECOND RULE of economics," bellowed my Business & Finance professor Walter Johnson at the University of Missouri some 30 years ago, "is ... if you paid it, it must be worth it." In the modern-day sports world, fans have had to learn that lesson the hard way--over and over again. As New York Post TV columnist Phil Mushnick has pointed out on a number of occasions, no one abuses its best customers more than drug dealers and owners of sports franchises and, yet, the addicts and patrons just cannot seem to help themselves, and simply keep coming back for more.

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Take the price of a World Series ticket, for instance. Its market value is set by Major League Baseball, not the individual teams, and MLB has determined that it can charge what only can be considered scalper's fees. The Game 7 ticket shown here--yes, we know there was no Game 7 at Yankee Stadium this year; we were able to secure it from a Bronx Bomber loyalist in mourning (Go Bosox!)--lists at more than $500. Our Yankee rooter in question has four field-level season tickets that go for $115 apiece. So, he lays out $37,260 for his 81-game allotment, while the Yankee brass--like many club owners in any number of sports--do not allow him to sell any unused tickets on websites such as StubHub, although the Yankee hierarchy has no problem scalping their own tickets through cozy deals with ticket brokers, as if fans weren't already being bled to death. Come the postseason (actually, weeks before) our loyal rooter has to cut another check for a quartet of passes to each and every possible home playoff game the Yanks may play. (Get out your calculators; this is going to get ugly.)

There are three Division Series contests ($248 a ticket, $2,976 total); four American League Championship Series encounters ($341 a ticket, $5,456 total); and four World Series games ($521 a ticket, $8,336 total); at those prices (which do not count the eye-popping handling fees charged for post-season tickets), it had dam well better be a real Fall Classic. However, should the Crankees (er, Yankees) take a first-round exit--as they have done the last three years--the balance of the postseason money is used as a down payment for next year's season tickets, in essence granting the club a rather generous interest-free loan; remember to multiply these numbers by the thousands of season-ticket holders who simply cannot wait to spend their dough on the Pinstripers, and spend they will, especially...