2008 Diamondback Prices: Season Tickets

Ordinarily, deconstructing a baseball club's ticket prices is of limited interest, but due to the humorously inventive press releases oozing from dbacks.com, this mundane exercise may rise to the level of public service in Arizona. Rather than allow President Derrick Hall's elaborate craftsmanship to speak for his organization's strategic pricing model - we'll let prices speak for themselves, and hopefully illustrate some overdue lessons learned and the club's actual strategy in light of those lessons.

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Here are this year's season ticket rates. Excepting the very highest and low end sections (clubhouse and upper level reserve), every other pricepoint in the ballpark changed, in some cases, substantially:

Lower Deck (per seat)


1st/3rd Base Box $75........up 15%

Dugout Box $65.........up 18%

Infield Box $35.........up 13%

Baseline Reserve $21..........up 5%

New buffer sections $15........down 25%

Bullpen Reserve $10...........down 38%

Bleachers $10.......................down 16%



Middle Deck



Box $36..........down 10%

Reserve $21...down 25%

Bullpen $15.....down 46%



Upper Deck

MVP Box $17........down 11%


The best lower level seats (excluding clubhouse) all increased in price, but the real story here is the dramatic discounts after a surprisingly successful, "feelgood" campaign.  Especially when, according to Hall, the club already offered "the lowest prices in baseball."  Mr Hall wants us to believe these newest changes represent a reward to loyal fans, yet he's increased prices down where most of the "loyal" base resides - and reduced prices in relatively empty sections. This strategy better reflects (and exploits) actual demand across the venue and is, indeed, a welcome (and overdue) change - but it has nothing to do with rewarding the current ST base, and everything to do with maximizing revenue.

The fans "rewarded" here are the holdouts who declined to buy season tickets at previous prices, who may now have an interest in doing so.  They're not being rewarded in any altrusitic sense either - their collective self discipline has forced the somnambulant, Paradise Valley-based "Dream Team" to face the bracing truth that much of Bank Two Ballpark has been stubbornly overpriced for this market - placing Hall in the extraordinary position of slashing pricepoints on the heels of a stunning playoff appearance, just to drive sales revenue.
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This, and some of the club's other previous miscalculations - dismissively tossing an army of popular team fixtures (Colangelo, Gonzo, team colors, dollar seats, Tony Clark,etc.) under the proverbial Sedona Red bus - shouldnt blind fans to the fact there are some attractive season ticket deals here - at least relative to the rest of MLB. For example, does any other team offer lower level seats inside the foul pole for just $10 ?  The Diamondbacks do.  Outfield Cubic Zirconia (aka Diamond) Level seats, which gathered dust at $28, now sell for $15 to $21 - and one can still buy a respectable upper level seat for $8. Well, eighty three seats, minimum, or 166 and up if you're not entirely friendless. Bear in mind, we're talking season tickets. But if you're price conscious and interested in that kind of commitment, these are significant changes.

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The ST base will expand almost exclusively from these targeted areas, largely unoccupied since 2005 (when new ownership curiously hiked ST prices 8% after the worst on field performance by any National League team in forty years). To the extent price reductions fail to increase the base as much as some might hope, one shouldnt assume Phoenix has innately uninterested fans. Current TV ratings and earlier attendance at the ballpark (1998-2004) strongly suggest otherwise.

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Has there been a drop in utility at the ballpark, transcending simple won lost record ? After all, the 2007 Baby Backs who grabbed first place in July, with "the lowest prices in baseball", still got outdrawn by the 111 loss, 2004 fraud squad (with, presumably, higher prices), contradicting the popular notion that Phoenix is an unusually shallow, frontrunning fan base that only supports a winner. Something else, it seems, is suppressing recent sales.
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First, the brazen and disingenuous zeal with which new ownership discarded aspects of franchise identity has turned off some locals, particularly older fans. To many, so-called Sedona Red almost seems like a different franchise, as if a Chinese dragon, or Giant Chameleon, ate the Valley's true team. Second, the self-described "Dream Team" suppresses walk up sales by charging (as best I can measure), MLB's largest % single-game differentials. Third, the team pimps this singularly regressive strategy in MLB's lowest per capita income market. And fourth, variable (ie section by section) pricing can only be described as peculiar, in terms of driving sales - as in previously slashing ST rates in the massive upper level, despite structurally tepid demand for block purchases that high above the earth's crust.
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The Diamondbacks didnt earn many customers from that lofty exercise, but Derrick Hall has derived plenty of mileage from it nonetheless. It turns out that Chase season tickets, as a weighted average, now rank as MLB's most affordable overall, largely due to these upper deck "deals" hardly anyone wants. Hall has had a field day embellishing this rather empty acheivement, (more on that later), but the larger point is that a weighted average of ST prices doesnt necessarily reflect customer values at the park, as defined by those who know: fans. Nor do these "averages" reflect single-game prices in any way. This is especially true of the D-Backs.
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Unfortunately, no public definitive study on single game pricing exists (that I know of), no doubt discouraged by MLB's dizzying jumble of differentials, premiums and premier game schedules, overlayed on top of 30 unique seating configurations each with distinct ST penetration, seat amenities,etc. So instead, most everyone cites TMR's season ticket rankings - not because they're definitive, comprehensive or even meaningful, but because they're easier for TMR to capture than what the vast majority of fans actually pay at the gate. And that's a shame, because fans of certain teams, who rely exclusively on the TMR, get a very distorted view of their team's relative overall pricing.