Fancy new stadiums, luxury boxes, private clubs, top notch concessions, and concerns about who is going to buy the seats…With what appears to be a worsening economic climate it’s club owners and general managers who should be sweating.  Baseball, especially in large markets is not an inexpensive entertainment anymore.  Even in the cheap seats, taking a family to the ball game has gotten very pricey.

At the old Yankees stadium a family of four might expect to spend better than $150 even if they didn’t go overboard on concessions.  The numbers at Shea were only slightly cheaper.  When the new stadiums open, the prices are already slated to be higher for seats that are further away.  It’s making it harder for working families to afford the game and even for the more middle class families the option of watching the games on television is a lot more common.

Large market teams have a lot of fans and are able to allow the laws of supply and demand dictate prices - at least as long as they have corporate and luxury boxes that they are able to sell.  The question is - with this economy will they be able to sell them?

For the Yankees and Mets that’s a big question.  The depth of the mayhem on Wall Street hasn’t been fully realized but there is no doubt, especially with the strings attached to the bailout package, that cost cutting is going to become the rule of the immediate future.   Along with a meager year and bonuses, entertainment and especially expensive box seats might well be among the items, downgraded, if not cut entirely from firms doing business in the city.

And for each big corporate client that is rethinking their baseball seating, there are a dozen small companies and fan groups rethinking their ticket plans too.  While baseball hasn’t reached the absurd levels of avarice that football has with seat licenses, the New York franchises have been aiming for much higher levels of revenue with their new stadiums.

Fans with season tickets have found that “comparable seats” are not just further away from home plate, but considerably more expensive.  That alone led to a lot of discontent among the New York faithful a few months ago when ticket prices were announced. With economic worry stacking up on top of it, plus a lot of job insecurity fans are reeling.

In the front offices that means slow and declining ticket sales and a reassessment of player salaries and off-season risk.   And this is happening in New York, what does it mean to teams in middle and smaller markets who are more vulnerable to economic downturns?

It has a lot of teams scared, especially teams that are tied to large contracts and high payroll.  That could be major factor in the off-season as teams become tighter fisted with free agent money or look to clear payroll exposure.  Rumors have put players like Prince Fielder and Jake Peavy out on the block, not only because of the talent returns that the Brewers and Padres hope to get in exchange, but because the salary obligation to these players will be burdensome to these small market clubs over what could be a long economic downturn for the game.

That won’t stop teams from opening their pockets for players like CC Sabathia, Manny Ramirez or Mark Teixeira along with other marquis free agents, but it will mean fewer offers and smaller offers for most of this year’s free agent crop.  In past years that would have meant a bumper crop of talent heading to New York and other large markets but with Wall Street in turmoil the corporate base that those teams rely upon is shakier than it has been in decades.

That should make this a very interesting off-season.

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