I Guess We're All Eating At Home
Nothing is Cheap These Days, But Stadium Concessions Are Becoming Egregiously Expensive
My parents weren’t ones to take me to many live sporting events when I was a kid. Back then, I chalked it up to being strict, but as an adult, I realized that both mom and dad were a lethal combination of frugal and serial homebodies. So when I got the chance to pay my own way to see live games, I wanted to take in the whole experience. I had my paper tickets printed, I bought the souvenir cups, and best believe I got the biggest burger I could get my hands on. It was a means to an end for sports teams at the time. If people are fed, they are happy. Options were limited, but you could get a meal for a reasonable price. These days, that’s not the case. With a mix of inflation, teams maximizing profits, and “premium foodie offerings,” the cost of food and drinks is anything but reasonable.
Even though I cover sports for outlets such as the Black Baseball Mixtape, I typically feed myself on my own dime. And I know I’m a captive audience at some of these games, but I’ll be out here in these streets feeling like a jerk when I’m scrolling my bank statement the next day. $85 on food and drinks? Where the hell did I go last night? Nobu?? And yes, you can be that guy who shows up to events with the ziploc bags of peanuts or a sock full of raspberries, but like that sort of thing never worked for me. I’m trying to see athletes dominate athletes in the gladiator pit of sports combat, not pack a picnic on a Tuesday night.
And it’s not just sports food that’s becoming pricey, it’s fast food and groceries too. You can’t discount macroeconomic factors. I get that. But sports concessions are a whole different beast altogether. It’s this tone-deaf space where ballparks are increasingly comfortable in charging someone $8 for a bottle of water, while at the same time offering “value packs” to get thrift-minded families through the door. There’s also this weird obsession, especially among Major League Baseball teams, to try to out “carnival food” each other:
You don’t even have to click that video to see that there’s a bucket of chicken tenders and fries on a souvenir PLASTIC BOAT. Why?? Will anyone use that boat after the game? Is that going to go into the cupboard with the good china, only to make an appearance on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day? The Chicken Ferry…my word.
Check out the numbers:
The average price of a beer is over $7 at MLB games, which kind of goes hand-in-hand with how much I’m paying for a gallon of gas living in Los Angeles. And then you hear about a footlong hot dog, or a Triple Stacked Cheeseburger for $43 dollars, and you wonder what the heck is going on? Oh, and I’m not even kidding about that last part either (h/t @respectthechain):
So now you’ve got food that’s obviously been designed to NOT be eaten! And at $43, you have to wonder, would it ever be worth it? Like, have you ever craved something from a sporting event? No, I don’t mean like you went inside, tried something, and went “dang, that’s pretty good.” I mean, you being at home on a Friday night telling yourself, “I’m okay with dropping $40 for parking and a ticket, because I could REALLY go for a sandwich the size of a bowling ball.”
And I totally understand that I’m approaching “old man yells at cloud” status here, but I wonder and/or worry about the next generation. With everything costing more, more barriers to entry via hospitality packages, a generation okay with catching up with clips on their phones, and entertainment itself being commoditized (Why pay $100 for comedy show tickets if you can get stand-up with your Netflix subscription?), the fans in the stands may look very different over time. Fewer enthusiasts, more of the country club set. See and be seen. Have an overpriced cocktail. Enter through this line that separates you from the riffraff. Please take this Chicken Tender Ferry, you’ve earned it.
Maybe I was a bit too hard on the picnic people after all. They were the real ones the whole time.