Four days after the Dodgers won the World Series, and two days before he won the presidential election, Donald Trump was the guest on a sports podcast.
America’s major sports leagues, he said, were pricing out their most loyal customers.
“The leagues are not taking care of their fans,” Trump said on the “Let’s Go!” podcast. “They really aren’t. They’re making it impossible.”
The Dodgers are the greatest show in baseball, with an international tourist attraction atop their lineup. They pack the largest stadium in the major leagues every night.
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If tickets to sporting events have gotten too expensive for the average fan — and 86% of sports fans say they have, according to an Ipsos poll released last month — then Dodger Stadium is a flash point in the debate over whether teams should pursue every dollar they can or sacrifice a few bucks so they can better nurture a new generation of fans.
Baseball, after all, is touted as America’s last great affordable sport.
Fans are more likely to develop a lifelong baseball habit if they attend a game as a kid, according to research cited by the commissioner's office. Can a family of four afford hundreds of dollars to enjoy a day at the ballpark?
“That inability to have that family experience is an incredible negative if you’re just going for the green,” said Andy Dolich, who has run marketing operations for teams in all the major North American sports leagues. “That’s where you are building your fan bases of the future.”
In an interview with The Times, Commissioner Rob Manfred challenged the notion that baseball tickets have become too expensive. The 30 major league teams sold a combined 71 million tickets last year, the most in seven years, and attendance has increased every year since the pandemic.
“If we had an affordability problem, I think you would see it in terms of those numbers,” Manfred said. “Those numbers tell you the opposite.”
According to the league, tickets for $20 or less were available for 70% of MLB games last season. No Dodgers game this season is currently on sale at that price.
“If you want to sit next to Mary Hart, it’s expensive,” Manfred said. “I think it’s really important to think about that from an access perspective.”
Many studies about fan costs use the average price of a resale ticket, but a study released this month used the cheapest ticket price on official sale sites, as sampled on a variety of dates this season.
The estimated price for a family of four to see a game at Dodger Stadium this season — four of those cheap tickets, parking, four hot dogs, two beers and two sodas — was a league-high $399.68. The league average, according to that study: $208.
Ticket prices can rise and fall daily, based on supply and demand. On the day before the Dodgers’ home opener, The Times checked the prices for every game on the Dodgers’ website.
The cheapest ticket all season, available only for a Wednesday afternoon game against the Miami Marlins, before school lets out: $38. For four seats that day, parking, four hot dogs, and four sodas, the price would be $249.96.
In Los Angeles County, the median family income is $101,800, according to Elly Schoen, assistant director of the Neighborhood Data for Social Change program at the USC Lusk Center. If both parents work, and if they subtract costs for housing, food, child care, health care and transportation, the amount left over each month would be $530.
“I don’t know if you can spend half your discretionary income on a baseball game,” Schoen said.
Dodgers president Stan Kasten said the team and its corporate sponsors work to provide free and discount tickets. The Dodgers’ foundation said it distributed 64,000 tickets last year through the Commissioner’s Community Initiative, described by the league as a program that “provides $2.5 million in ticket distributions to deserving communities league-wide.”
Said Kasten: “We’ve had a lot of success maintaining and even starting to grow our youth fan base. We’re very proud of that, and we work hard at it.”
In 2015, the Dodgers’ average ticket price was $29, according to Team Marketing Report. A decade later — after winning the World Series twice and signing Shohei Ohtani as the crown jewel of a superstar-studded roster — the range of cheapest available prices per game ranged from $38 to $156.
“You can’t have it all ways, right?” Manfred said. “The Dodgers have made a massive financial commitment in terms of players, and they have to run a business that supports that massive financial commitment.”
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Notwithstanding Manfred’s belief that MLB does not have an affordability problem, a popup survey on the league website last week asked fans whether they strongly agreed, somewhat agreed, somewhat disagreed, or strongly disagreed with this statement: “Attending a Major League Baseball game is affordable.”
If local fans consider the Dodgers’ prices too high, Manfred suggested where they could find a cost-effective alternative.
“One of the leaders in terms of thinking about affordability has been the other Los Angeles team,” Manfred said.
Soon after Arte Moreno bought the Angels in 2003 — and with the team coming off a World Series championship — the team introduced $3 tickets for kids and teenagers one night per week. The Angels now offer a $44 family pack — four tickets, four hot dogs and four drinks — at more than half their home games. They also feature a "Junior Angels" kids' club, with a $20 membership that includes four game tickets.
Parking is $20 at Angel Stadium and $40 at Dodger Stadium.
“I just really believe there should be affordability,” Moreno said. “We want everybody to have access to the stadium. We’ve worked really hard to keep tickets low and have families come in.”
The Angels last appeared in the playoffs 11 years ago, the longest postseason drought in the majors. Moreno did not discount the notion that prices might rise if the team returns to contention, but he did not guarantee it either.
“If the demand exceeds the supply, prices go up,” he said. “But, for us, you have 45,000 seats.”
The New York Yankees sold more tickets than any team besides the Dodgers in each of the past three seasons. The Yankees sell $10 tickets for every game: sometimes a few dozen, sometimes a few hundred, sometimes a couple thousand, based on overall demand for each game. As part of a corporate promotion, they also sell tickets under $10 or at 50% off for a handful of games.
The league maintains a fan value page, where the vast majority of teams display a variety of ticket discounts, concession deals and family packs. The Dodgers’ entry on that page features its promotional schedule, highlighted by bobblehead dolls so coveted that they drive ticket prices ever higher.
On that November podcast, Trump said he knew how to address high ticket prices.
“I think there are things that have to be done,” Trump said.
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Manfred declined to comment about whether he had heard from Trump or whether he would work with him on the issue.
The Times asked the White House press office what ideas Trump had to lower ticket prices and what timeline he might have for pursuing any such actions. White House spokeswoman Liz Huston packed six sports phrases into a 48-word statement — “stepping up to the plate” and “home run economy” included — that did not provide a response to the questions.
Trump did not say he would make the Dodgers affordable again. In Los Angeles, some fans have stuck with their team through the lean years — the Fox and McCourt years, as we call them — only to be priced out when the team returned to glory.
On the podcast, without reference to any particular team, Trump said middle-class fans are “your biggest sports fans.”
Said Trump: “They’re being shut out of seeing a team they grew up with and that they love.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
