The column Dollars and Sensibility is about Chicago business media and sports media.
The CubsThis past season, 2,616,780 people visited Wrigley Field. They sold 2,616,780 tickets. As you might’ve noticed on TV, there were some no-shows. This figure represents almost a half-million less paying customers than the previous season without any encumbrances.
The Cubs aren’t as dependent on the quality of their team to sell tickets as most of their peers. Wrigley Field is sure to draw tourists and locals in large numbers, but even nostalgia has its limits.
Mid-July saw the Cubs business operations team know they were going to lower ticket prices for 2023. The Cubs announced Wednesday that they would be lowering their full season-ticket plan average by 5.1 percent.
The Cubs were ranked ninth (again, tickets were sold), with eight out of the eight teams making it into the playoffs. The Cubs were also present. Red SoxThe Red Sox sold nearly the same amount of tickets to their tourist attraction ballparks. They drew 2,625,089. While many teams would envy 2.6 million, the Cubs were disappointed.
The Cubs have the highest average ticket price in baseball each year, and the 2023 pricing shows that there has been the largest one-year price drop in tickets since 1980. Going through old Fan Cost Index surveys (I was an editor there from 2003-15 and was solely responsible for the MLB FCIs from 2008-15), I couldn’t find a bigger average decrease going back to 1991. Most Cubs fans are aware that there have been price increases over the past three decades.
The Cubs had a similar experience in 2013, when they dropped their ticket prices by an average of 3.8%.
