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July 12, 2007
Yanks Season Ticket Holder, Hoping To See The All-Stars Next Year?
You better start looking for a scalper.
From the Star-Ledger -
The official launch of the planning for the Yankee Stadium All-Star Game will come July 31, when the 2008 All-Star logo will be unveiled. The logo will be displayed in a prominent place in Yankee Stadium, as planners from Major League Baseball, the team and New York City arrange the logistics of holding a massive event in an 85-year-old ballpark and the most crowded city in America.
But the planning process has been under way for more than two years, since the Yankees first asked the commissioner's office to host the game.
"This is one of the most unique opportunities we've had," said Marla Miller, who oversees the coordination of the All-Star Game for the commissioner's office. "And it also comes with its own unique set of challenges."
One of those challenges was holding the game while construction was under way on the Yankees' new ballpark nearby. That meant scouting hotels, bus routes and venues for the All-Star FanFest, All-Star Gala and other ancillary events.
At the Stadium, season-ticket holders and suite-holders will be displaced, as Major League Baseball takes 17,000 seats and all of the luxury suites for the game.
For that reason, [Yankees' CEO Lonn] Trost said, the Yankees are looking into whether they can seat people in the black "batter's eye" seating sections in center field. Baseball and its broadcast partners will also need 60,000 square feet of parking space in Lot 14 across from the media and players entrance to park 35 trailers. That means some parking might have to be transferred to the Major Deegan Expressway service ramp near that lot. And that would affect the bus routes.
"It makes your head spin, thinking about all of it," Trost said.
Note that one part: At the Stadium, season-ticket holders and suite-holders will be displaced, as Major League Baseball takes 17,000 seats and all of the luxury suites for the game.
I would bet that the players are going to eat up around 1,000 seats too. And, who knows how many FOX will want for this one?
Bottom line, if you're "Joe Fan" and you want to go to the 2008 All-Star Game, get ready to sit in the upper-upper-deck and pay a fortune for it.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at July 12, 2007 09:22 AM
Comments
I'm surprised about the luxury boxes. I'd be ticked if I had a year-round luxury box yet couldn't use it for a particular game because someone else was going to occupy it.
Posted by: RICH ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.waswatching.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 12, 2007 10:14 AM
I was hoping to have my seat in the bleachers, especially for the home run derby (and I was wondering if they were going to open up the black seats too). But they used the word displaced, which at least sounds like we'll have tickets somewhere which is all I really care about. Although if they move us to left field that would kind of suck. But I won't worry about it until they tell us what's up.
RICH, I'm not sure that anyone has a year-round luxury box at the Stadium. The cheapest one is at least $2,000 a game and they can go up to at least $6,000 a game. I think they only sell them game-by-game. But I could be wrong on that.
Posted by: Jen at July 12, 2007 10:34 AM
I think - and am not sure at all - that there's a difference between LUXURY SUITES and HALL OF FAME SUITES. The former are the ones by the press box behind home plate and the latter are the ones along the field behind the Loge.
The HALL OF FAME SUITES are the ones that you can rent for a game, for around $3,000-$7,000 per game. I think the LUXURY SUITES are owned for the whole year...usually by big companies like Budwiser, etc.
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at July 12, 2007 10:48 AM
You're that there is a difference. But according to the web site they are both on a per game basis. It looks like only the HOF suites are left for the rest of the year though. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the bigger companies got dibs on the suites.
http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ticketing/suites_locations.jsp
Posted by: Jen at July 12, 2007 12:01 PM
Um, why does MLB need almost a third of all the seats in the place? What the hell is that?
Posted by: baileywalk at July 12, 2007 01:00 PM
Sponsors, players' families, executives, celebrities, etc.
Posted by: Jen at July 12, 2007 01:06 PM
Sponsors, players' families, executives, celebrities, etc.
------
I get that, but 17,000? Even if they gave each group you just named 2,000 seats each, that's not even half.
By the way, is it normal for MLB to suck up this many seats, or is it more than normal in '08 because of the setting?
Posted by: baileywalk at July 12, 2007 01:14 PM
I'm also going to assume that those tickets include the ones doled out to FOX as well (and ESPN maybe?), since MLB is the one that does the doling.
It's probably because of the setting and the sheer number of seats available. I doubt they took that many in Pittsburgh since there are only 38,000+ seats at PNC. I'm going to guess there's a formula of some sort where they take into account how many season ticket holders they would need to accommodate and how many tickets they want to have available to the public (which I believe is usually done through a lottery system).
Posted by: Jen at July 12, 2007 01:32 PM
~~~~By the way, is it normal for MLB to suck up this many seats, or is it more than normal in '08 because of the setting?~~~~
It's normal. MLB took 13,000 for the San Fran game. They have a smaller stadium, so 17K sounds about right for Yankee Stadium. The majority of the tickets go to sponsors. There are literally hundreds of sponsors who all get tickets. My company was one of the sponsors of the 2002 game and we got 600 tickets. Think about all of the companies, radio stations, tv stations, credit card companies, magazines, etc, etc who have those "Win 4 tickets to the 2007 All-Star game" contests. Those tickets all come from the MLB pool.
Posted by: christopher at July 12, 2007 04:55 PM