The lost revelation from Lonn Trost: you get to pay more NOT to have a seat in the bleachers

Wait. What?

Lost amidst all of the other news about fans being too stupid to read the relocation documentation and price changes for obstructed few bleacher seats, came the revelation that standing room only (known in the biz as SRO) seats will be $20. Trost's entire interview can be downloaded from WFAN's website.

As Neil deMause points out over at Field Of Schemes, this is definitely a sign of things to come in regard to future bleacher prices. The Yankees were all about the PR move of keeping the bleacher seats at their 2008 prices, but when you are paying $8 more ($20) to stand in the same area as $12 seats, something has to give.

While some like Lisa over at Subway Squawkers are enraged by the SRO pricing, I'm not bothered by it. There are some people who like to go to baseball games and roam around to take in the sights and sounds. I mentioned this is previous posts, but I am one of those people. It is definitely nice to have good seats in the stadium, don't get me wrong. However, if you have the choice of sitting on uncomfortable bench seating in the bleachers, or standing up, eating food, drinking beers and meeting new people while enjoying a baseball game in a nearly 2 billion dollar state of the art facility, I'd go with the latter.

The skeptics will say that the Yankees only gave the bleacher creatures and the SROs access to the rest of the stadium to spend money at the gift shops and concessions. While that is probably true, it also serves the purpose of building up an atmosphere in and around the new stadium.

Yankee Stadium has always been a great place to see a baseball game because of the action on the field, but not because of the surrounding area or ballpark atmosphere. That is nothing to be embarrassed about, but in the greatest city in the world, there is no reason for there not to be great food, great surroundings and a fun culture within the entire facility.

I'm not sure of the ticketing strategy for the SRO seats, but I think it would be a benefit to the true fans if they only put them on sale the day of the game at the stadium. It would be nice to have the option of heading up to the stadium early on the day of a sold out game, knowing that the opportunity existed to snag some standing room seats that are exclusively sold on the day of the game. Not sure if this aspect of the SRO seats will come to fruition, but it sure would be nice.

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