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Baseball Outing Prices Skyrocketing

Aired July 12, 2002 - 14:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Everyone's idea of cheap, though, is not the same. Gone are the days when you could take 10 bucks to the ballpark and have money to spare at the end of the game.

CNN Financial News Correspondent Ceci Rodgers is at Chicago's Wrigley field with the lowdown on those ever-rising prices -- I want to know if you had lunch over there today, Ceci.

CECI RODGERS, CNNFN CORRESPONDENT: I didn't have it in the stadium, i will tell you that much. Yes, we did have lunch, but we have lots of fast food around here, and that's what we did. But overall buy me some peanuts and CrackerJack will put you in the poor house inside most of these stadiums.

Here at Wrigley field, concession costs have gone up -- prices, I should say, have gone up 14 percent in just the last year alone. That means you're paying almost $3 for a hot dog, $5 for a beer, and when we caught up with some all-star fans in Milwaukee where they are paying $6 for a beer, they weren't too happy about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that five bucks for a beer is too much money.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With tickets and souvenirs and food, probably $100 a person. That is outrageous. That really is outrageous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are times when I will say, let's either stop before the ball game and after the ball game, and maybe just -- because, the prices are so high, maybe have one beer at the ballpark. And it's just for that. You are paying 20 bucks for four small beers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RODGERS: Now, the people who run the concessions say their costs have skyrocketed. They're having to pay much higher rents in the newer stadiums. Also, they're having to help cover the cost of the higher players' salaries, but they are still getting an earful from the fans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEREMY JACOBS, SPORTSERVICE: We always get flak from fans about pricing. There's no avoiding that. The flak from the fans this year we would -- we would gladly take the flak, if there was just more of them. We have seen a decline in attendance, as I think is well recorded by the media, and that -- that in itself is hurting our margins and our business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RODGERS: Drop in attendance is a problem for the concessionaires, because just recently they've started these kinds of services, high-end restaurants where you can get prime rib, and sushi, and seafood and all this stuff. It's much higher cost to them to provide this kind of restaurant fair, and the service that goes along with it. So they're saying in that respect, too, their costs are higher, and while they charge a lot for this food, they say the perishing -- the perishable rate, let's say, for raw seafood, for example, is a big cost to them.

What do they make their money on mostly? Eighty percent of their profits, the concessionaires say, they make on hot dogs and beer, and the price of a hot dog over the past five years has jumped 26 percent up close to $3 a hot dog. Beer, on the league average, is now close to $5, up 25 percent, and that's a buck more than you paid five years ago. And that puts the overall fan cost average index, and that measures how much a family of four pays on a typical outing to the baseball park, to $145.21.

So, Kyra it's getting awfully expensive just to go for an afternoon of baseball.

PHILLIPS: And Ceci, now you have all of us awfully hungry. Ceci Rodgers, live from Wrigley Field. Thank you.

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