NYU Graduation At Yankee Stadium - Legends Suite: Too Cool For School?

Photo courtesy @JaredLevy on Twitter

UPDATE: Our friends over at Subway Chatter have more photos

Tying in with yesterday's news from the Lonn Trost press conference, we have received reports from multiple sources that NYU's graduation at the New Yankee Stadium featured a familiar sight: empty seats closest to the field.

As of now, we don't have photo evidence but according to attendees and graduates (congratulations!), the seats that Lonn Trost infamously referred to as houses were empty. If these reports are true, it isn't really too surprising. After all, why would the rich folks want crazy college kids hanging out in their "houses?"

Just like during baseball games (and batting practice before the games), the common folk should know their role and sit in the cheap seats during a commencement ceremony. Hopefully some of these NYU graduates (who happen to pay the college tuition equivalent of Legends seat prices) will become high-level executives and one day have the privelege of sitting in "the greatest seats in the world."
Read the full post, after the jump

Are The Yankees Taking Our Advice And Peddling Excess Ticket Inventory On Stubhub?

Courtesy of ticketnews.com (via Shyster Ball) comes an interesting article about the sudden increase in Yankee Stadium premium ticket offerings available on StubHub. The speculation is that the Yankees are selling their own tickets on Stubhub and receiving pennies on the dollar - just to get some butts in the seats.

StubHub, for their part is taking the "deny 'til we die" approach, claiming that it is due to the freebies that the Yankees are handing out as part of their price reduction program They were also quick to note that they do not share personal information about sellers - meaning it could be anyone, including the Yankees. Even if it was within StubHub's power to divulge this information, they wouldn't, since it would probably get the Yankees' official ticket partner - Ticketmaster - pretty heated.

We here at NSI aren't surprised in the least by this accusation by ticketnews.com. As a matter of fact, we suggested a very similar idea just weeks ago:

If we were the Yankees, we would dump the tickets at wholesale costs (read: discounted) to a mega-broker that sells their tickets on Stub Hub. The onus would then be on the broker to move the now considerably cheaper inventory, and the Yankees would get kickbacks on the Stub Hub commission. Obviously, this will never happen.

Finally, the Yankees have listened to us and have made a smart move. Sure, this screws over the people who paid full price for those seats. However, at this point the most important job of the Yankees is to fill up their stadium - if only to ease the embarrassment of their blatant miscalculation of the premium ticket market.

Selling these seats on StubHub offers the Yankees free market research to evaluate the appropriate prices for their premium ticket offerings. Selling on StubHub also gives them the opportunity to adjust prices in real time based on the current market. Obviouisly, the Yankees would need to go through some intermediary to do this, and/or alert StubHub to this practice, since they are receiving kickbacks from all sales on Stubhub.com.

This is still all idle speculation, since the Yankees media spokespeople and Ticketmaster aren't responding to inquiries. Could this be the way the Yankees sell their tickets going forward? Would this be more fair to all parties involved? Let us know what you think in the comments section. Read the full post, after the jump

Taking Away The Baseball - The Ugly Side Of High Ticket Prices And Exclusionary Stadium Design

Souvenirs can take on many meanings when referring to "a small and relatively inexpensive article given, kept, or purchased as a reminder of a place visited," even when the place visited is a Major League Baseball stadium. For some, it can be a ticket stub, for others, a foam finger from the team store. But for many people it is about 5 ounces and 9 inches of cushioned cork, covered by stitched rawhide leather, and topped with the signature of Allan H. "Bud" Selig. An official Major League Baseball - $12.99 in price, but worth a lifetime of memories.

All the discussion lately is about baseballs flying out of the park and into the stands at Yankee Stadium. Too bad for the average fan, these balls are flying into seats that cost hundreds of dollars. When home runs sailed into the seats at the old Yankee Stadium, the fans sitting in those seats paid as little as $12, and only as much as $70 for that once in a lifetime opportunity. If one's dream was to catch a home run at a baseball game, that dream was within affordable grasp. Today, the balls are rocketing out of the new Yankee Stadium in right-center field, but most of them are flying into seats with a game day face value of $150.

Home runs in the "2nd deck" (the 200's section) in left or right field at the new Yankee Stadium have a game day face value of $60. The only "cheap" seats within realistic home run territory are the $12 seats in the far right field section of the bleachers.

Going to a baseball game with the expectation of catching a home run has always been a recipe for shattered dreams. At most ballparks (not in New York City), however, there is an affordable choice of seats that will provide the opportunity to walk away with a foul ball or at the very least, a ball from batting practice. Unfortunately, the pricing and design of the new Yankee Stadium prevent those chances. Even the mainstream media has caught on - the prices for the best seats at Yankee Stadium are absurd. The closer you get to home plate, the more expensive the seats become. The new hot bed for foul balls is in the vicinity of section 215. Those seats cost $95 on game day, as compared to the $70 that the old hotbed in the Tier Box MVP seats used to cost at the old Yankee Stadium.

At the old Yankee Stadium, the close proximity of the Upper Deck allowed for the chance of a ball making it up to the "cheap" $25 seats in the Tier Reserved. Upon evaluating the new Yankee Stadium, we have come to the conclusion that a foul ball will never even reach the upper deck - not even the Terrace Level. In the few games that we have been to (including exhibitions), a ball nary sniffed the vicinity of the upper deck. The balls are now sailing into the seats on the main level. Once again, money talks.

An unpublicized, but popular method of catching a foul ball at the old Yankee Stadium was to circle the walkways on the field level. Security guards didn't let people stand around and block the narrow walkways, but as long as there was movement, there was nothing they could do to prevent it. This hypothetical person, pining for a foul ball used to have a chance. That is no longer the case. You'll never catch us complaining about the wide, open air concourses that provide optimal views of the field, but those concourses are completely under the structure of the stadium. They leave no chance for a foul ball to ever enter the public walking areas.

The last resort for the souvenir aficionado was always batting practice. Those arriving early enough to see batting practice from the field level raised their chances of going home with a Major League baseball exponentially. As long as you were a ticketed fan in the old Yankee Stadium, you could go anywhere before the game started outside of the areas closest to the dugouts.

As kids, we took advantage of this policy. We went to games on a regular basis and sometimes would leave with multiple balls from batting practice. There were days in the late 90's and early 00's when we used to give Major League baseballs away to little kids because so many had flown our way. It was a fun exercise in tracking major league fly balls and building camaraderie with fellow Yankee fans.

The new Yankee Stadium has taken away the easiest way for the average fan to go home with a lifetime memory, bundled in a 9 oz. package. Without tickets for seats that cost a minimum of $95, fans are not allowed anywhere near the actual field of play. Lets forget baseballs for a moment - there isn't even a way for a young baseball fan to have any memorable contact with the players that they idolize. In 1998, we attended the World Series and had our ticket stubs signed by the already-iconic Derek Jeter. Meeting our idol before a World Series game is a memory that will never fade. It has now become an opportunity that will only be afforded to spoiled, rich children.

Even through our early adult years, catching a baseball at a Major League Baseball game has stuck out as the aspect of attending that particular sport in person that set it apart from other sports. Nobody has ever gone to a football game with the idea of going home with a game-used pigskin. One would have to be crazy to go to a basketball game possessing thoughts of leaving the arena with a LeBron James game-used basketball. After a tragedy in a hockey arena some years ago, even the NHL has significantly lowered the odds of ever walking away from attending that live sport with a game-used souvenir. There is now a net around the seats closest to play.

With baseball, the possibility exists for a Miguel Cairo foul ball to land right in your seat, while you scramble into the walkway, spastically misjudging the trajectory of the ball. Or the Jim Leyritz ball off the plate that strangely bounces into the box seats and into your outstretched hand.

The Major League Baseball itself only carries a value of $12.99, and costs even less when using the discount at Modell's Sporting Goods that the Yankees and Modell's team up to offer annually. At the new Yankee Stadium, the opportunity of walking away with a ball of the game-used variety only exists for the privileged few, and many of the seats capable of producing these lifelong memories are left unsold. Probably not what George Steinbrenner had in mind when he announced during the groundbreaking ceremony that this stadium would be "for the fans."
Read the full post, after the jump

FINAL 2009 Yankee Stadium Attendance Tracker

With the Yankees having trouble filling the expensive seats, now is as good of a time as ever to start a new Yankee Stadium attendance tracker. For now, we will just post the official attendance (based on the box score), the date & time and the weather conditions for that day. Perhaps sometime in the future we can put it in graphical form, but for now it is just simple numbers. Will the Yankees ever crack the 50,000 mark? We'll have to wait and see...

Date & Time / Attendance / Weather Conditions

4-16-09 1:08 PM/ 48,271 (announced sellout) / Sunny, lower 60's
4-17-09 1:05 PM/ 45,101 / Sunny, upper 60's
4-18-09 3:40 PM/45,167 / Partly Sunny, mid 70's
4-19-09 1:05 PM/ 43,068 / Mostly Cloudy, mid 60's
4-21-09 7:05 PM/ 42,065 / Cloudy/drizzle, low 50's
4-22-09 1:05 PM / 43,342 / Cloudy/drizzle, low 50's
4-30-09 7:05 PM / 43,388 / Cloudy, upper 50's
5-1-09 7:05 PM / 44,058 / Cloudy/rain showers, mid 60's
5-2-09 1:05 PM / 44,970 / Sunny mid 60's
5-4-09 7:05 PM / 46,426 / Rain, low 50's (2:16 rain delay at start)
5-5-09 7:05 PM / 46.810 / rain showers, upper 40's
5-6-09 7:05 PM / 42,585 / Cloudy/rain showers, upper 50's
5-7-09 7:05 PM / 43,769 / Partly Cloudy, lower 60's
5-15-09 7:05 PM / 43,856 / Partly Cloudy, upper 60's
5-16-09 1:05 PM / 45,455 / Cloudy, mid 60's (chance of rain late)
5-17-09 1:05 PM / 44,804 / Cloudy, mid 50's (chance of rain early)
5-18-09 7:05 PM / 43,244 / Cloudy, low 50's
5-19-09 7:05 PM / 42,838 / Clear, upper 50's
5-20-09 7:05 PM / 43,903 / Clear, upper 60's
5-21-09 7:05 PM / 43,342 / Clear, lower 70's
5-22-09 7:05 PM / 46,288 / Clear, upper 70's
5-23-09 4:05 PM / 46,889 / Partly Cloudy, upper 60's
5-24-09 1:05 PM / 46,986 / Partly Cloudy, low 80's
6-3-09 7:05 PM / 43,948 / Cloudy, low 70's
6-4-09 7:05 PM / 44,452 / Rain Showers, mid 50's (:12 delay at start)
6-5-09 1:05 PM / 45,713 / Cloudy, mid 60's
6-6-09 1:05 PM / 46.205 / Partly Sunny, low 70's
6-7-09 1:05 PM / 46,465 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
6-8-09 7:05 PM / 44,706 / Partly Cloudy, low 70's
6-12-09 7:05 PM / 47,967 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's
6-13-09 4:05 PM / 48,056 / Light Rain, low 70's
6-14-09 1:05 PM / 47,943 / Partly Cloudy, low 70's
6-16-09 7:05 PM/ 44,873 / Partly Cloudy, low 60's
6-17-09 7:05 PM / 46,052 / Cloudy, low 60's
6-18-09 1:05 PM / 45,143 / Rain, upper 50's (5:26 rain delay at start)
6-30-09 7:05 PM / 46,181 / Rain to start, mid 60's (0:58 rain delay at start)
7-1-09 7:05 PM / 45,285 / Partly cloudy, low 70's
7-2-09 7:05 PM / 46,142 / Cloudy, low 70's (0:36 delay at start due to threat of storms)
7-3-09 1:05 PM / 46,308 / Partly cloudy, low 70's
7-4-09 1:05 PM / 46.620 / Partly cloudy, mid 70's
7-5-09 1:05 PM / 46.320 / Sunny, mid 70's
7-6-09 1:05 PM / 46.450 / Sunny, low 80's
7-17-09 7:05 PM / 46.197 / Cloudy, Thunderstorms, upper 70's (0:57 rain delay in 8th inning)
7-18-09 1:05 PM / 46.423 / Sunny, low 80's
7-19-09 2:05 PM / 46,937 / Sunny, low 80's
7-20-09 7:05 PM / 46,342 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
7-21-09 7:05 PM / 45,589 / Cloudy, Showers, upper 60's (0:26 rain delay to start the game)
7-22-09 1:05 PM / 47.134 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
7-23-09 7:05 PM / 44.206 / Cloudy, Rain, low 60's (2:43 rain delay to start the game)
7-24-09 7:05 PM / 46,086 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's
7-25-09 1:05 PM /46,412 / Sunny, mid 80's
7-26-09 1:05 PM / 46.163 / Cloudy, mid 80's
8-6-09 7:05 PM / 49,005 (announced sellout) / Cloudy, mid 70's
8-7-09 7:05 PM / 48,262 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's
8-8-08 4:05 PM / 48,796 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's
8-9-09 8:05 PM / 48,190 / Cloudy, upper 70's
8-10-09 7:05 PM / 46,376 / Partly Cloudy, low 90's
8-11-09 7:05 PM / 46,523 / Partly Cloudy, mid 80's
8-12-09 1:05 PM / 47,113 / Cloudy, low 80's
8-25-09 7:05 PM / 46,511 / Partly Cloudy, low 80's
8-26-09 7:05 PM / 46,461 / Partly Cloudy, low 80's
8-27-09 1:05 PM / 47,209 / Cloudy, low 70's
8-28-09 7:05 PM / 46,318 / Rain, mid 60's
8-29-09 1:05 PM / 46.193 / Cloudy, Showers, low 70's

8-30-09 1:05 PM / 46,664 / Partly Cloudy, upper 70's

9-7-09 1:05 PM / 47,436 / Partly Cloudy, low 70's

9-7-09 7:05 PM / 45,953 / Cloudy, upper 60's

9-8-09 7:05 PM / 45,350 / Cloudy, low 70's

9-9-09 7:05 PM / 45,848 / Cloudy, low 70's

9-11-09 7:05 PM / 46,771 / Rain, upper 50's (2:40 in 2 delays)

9-12-09 1:05 PM/ 46,497 / Cloudy, upper 60's

9-13-09 1:05 PM / 46,413 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's

9-14-09 7:05 PM / 44,701 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's (makeup of 5/3 rainout)

9-15-09 7:05 PM / 45,847 / Partly Cloudy, mid 70's

9-16-09 7:05 PM / 46,046 / Cloudy, low 60's

9-25-09 7:05 PM / 48,449 / Clear, low 60's

9-26-09 4:10 PM / 48,809 / Cloudy, low 60's

9-27-09 1:05 PM / 47,576 / Cloudy, drizzle, mid 60's (1:00 delay to start the game)
9-28-09 7:05 PM / 45,348 / Cloudy, rain, low 60's (1:56 delay to start he game)
9-29-09 7:05 PM / 44,794 / Cloudy, low 60's
9-30-09 7:05 PM / 46,956 / Cloudy, low 50's
----
END REGULAR SEASON

----

POSTSEASON:

ALDS

10-7-09 6:07 PM / 49.464 / Cloudy, low 60's

10-9-09 6:07 PM / 50,006 / Cloudy, upper 50's

ALCS

10-16-09 7:57 PM / 49,688 / Cloudy, Drizzle, low 40's

10-17-09 7:57 PM / 49,922 / Cloudy, mid 40's

10-25-09 8:20 PM / 50,173 / Partly Cloudy, upper 50's

World Series

10-28-09 7:57 PM / 50,207 / Drizzle, mist, low 40's

10-29-09 7:57 PM / 50,181 / Cloudy, low 50's

11-4-09 7:57 PM / 50,315 / Cloudy, mid 40's

---

END POSTSEASON

---

TOTAL POSTSEASON ATTENDANCE: 399,956

TOTAL REGULAR SEASON ATTENDANCE: 3,719,358
(#2 in MLB behind the Dodgers)
TOTAL 2009 ATTENDANCE (REGULAR + POSTSEASON): 4,119,314

More info on 2009 regular season MLB attendance figures at the Biz of Baseball

Remember, this is tracking PAID attendance. The Yankees don't release how many people actually went through the turnstile. For example, on the 4-22-09 day game, the paid attendance was 43,342, but anyone watching on TV knows that the Yankees were lucky if 30,000 were in the stadium.

Read the full post, after the jump

Madison Square Garden In The Bronx - Empty Field Level Seats At The New Yankee Stadium

Thanks to Anthonyny on Twitter for the screengrab

Have you ever been to Madison Square Garden and noticed that while the cheap seats in the uppers are packed with fans, the expensive purple seats closer to the floor are empty? This is because while the Dolan's ran the Knicks and Rangers into an abyss of irelevance, they also raised ticket prices exponentially, forcing the real fans into the only semi-affordable seats in the house.

With today's home Yankee game being the first non-premium game (and even worse a day game during the school year), we now have a chance to see the "Levine/Trost effect" at the new Yankee Stadium. Basically, what we have been blogging about for months is finally coming to fruition. The Yankees have overpriced all of the good seats, and have forced the average fans away from the field of play. The "Levine/Trost effect" is painfully obvious on the telecast, even when YES cameras have the centerfield camera as tight as possible during the pitching sequences...




The Yankees will be forced to lower ticket prices next season, but right now they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is no way that they can lower prices in order to move inventory without giving refunds to the suckers those who have already paid for the best seats. They also are going to look pretty bad every day on TV if non-premium games feature rows of empty field level seats.

We here at NSI believe in a solution-oriented approach. If we were the Yankees, we would dump the tickets at wholesale costs (read: discounted) to a mega-broker that sells their tickets on Stub Hub. The onus would then be on the broker to move the now considerably cheaper inventory, and the Yankees would get kickbacks on the Stub Hub commission. Obviously, this will never happen. For legal purposes, the Yankees would have to be transparent about something like this, and at that point, they would still be pissing off the suckers loyal season ticket holders in the most expensive seats. We also tossed around the idea of letting standing room only ticket holders "stand-in" as field level seat occupants, for the sake of posterity. That idea was also shot down because it wouldn't be fair to the suckers ticket licensees in the expensive seats.

Needless to say, we don't really feel bad for the Yankees, since upper-management greed put them in this position. We do feel bad for the average fans (including us!), who will never have the privilege to see a Yankee game from the prime viewing areas at the new Yankee Stadium. Read the full post, after the jump

Hal Steinbrenner: Perhaps Ticket Prices Are A Bit High

It seems like the Yankees have finally caught on - tickets in the "greatest seats in the world" are overpriced, according to Hal Steinbrenner. Sadly, this is not news to anyone except for the out of touch executives that run the ticket operation for the New York Yankees.

"I think if anybody in any business had known where this economy was going to go, they would have done things differently," Steinbrenner said Thursday. "Look, there's no doubt small amounts of our tickets might be overpriced.

Back when the prices were announced, people said they were expensive. Sales are slowed by the economy, but lets not fool ourselves into believing that the prices for the best seats were ever anything short of insane.

Then, we have this revelation from Hal:

"You know, we're continuing to look into that," he said. "But the bottom line is, the vast majority of them, it seems like they're right on because we've sold 35,000 full-season equivalents, and a lot of the tickets have, you know, sold quite well. And, well, despite what's out there all the time about the time ... there's thousands of very affordable seating. And, you know, the public is excited, as excited as we are, I think."

Suddenly, the Yankees have only sold 35,000 full-season equivalents. What started as 39,000 back in March 2008, was then amended to 36,000 by Lonn Trost last week, and is now at 35,000. The Yankees continue to prove that they were using scare tactics to convince fans to upgrade to season ticket plans that they didn't necessarily want, in turn becoming Yankee ticket brokers. Read the full post, after the jump

2009 Yankee Tickets Go On Sale For The General Public Today - Beware Of The Bait And Switch

Today at 10:00 AM the general public finally gets their crack at Yankee tickets without any preconceived notions of licensee status, lottery winner or anything else. All you have to do is be a human being (or a cleverly written computer program that knows how to read CAPTCHA), and you can log on to Ticketmaster.com to see what is left after the three separate presales. The good news for everyone not lucky enough to have been included in a prior presale is that the Yankees have created pools of tickets available for each presale. In theory, there should be close to as many Opening Day tickets for today's sale as there were for the other presales - or at least an incrementally lower number of tickets available.

That being said, everyone clicking away at Ticketmaster this morning should be aware of bait and switch tactics that we were alerted to by a tipster. This story is pretty unbelievable, but the screen grabs are there to prove it.

A well-off friend of one of our readers happily plopped down over $900 for a single ticket in section 24B, Row 5 for Opening Day against the Indians. Apparently these tickets are directly above the visitors dugout and $900 was in his budget. More power to him. This is the ticketfast confirmation of the purchase:


Order confirmation number redacted for his safety

Excitedly, he clicked on the "pick up your tickets" link, but to his dismay he was shown that he was assigned a ticket in a different section. Suddenly, his ticket was no longer directly above the dugout, but in section 24, and four rows further back. Here is what currently shows up in his Ticketmaster order history:



Sadly, this isn't even the worst part of the story. Not about to let this go, the poor guy who dropped nearly a G, only to have his tickets switched went back into ticketmaster to investigate. He searched for similar tickets and found that Ticketmaster had the audacity to put his original seat back up for sale, and was now charging $2,625:



As we mentioned, this entire story is almost too far-fetched to believe. However, when following the progression with the screen grabs, it is apparent that all of this actually happened. It looks like Ticketmaster made some sort of error selling that original ticket as a single seat, or selling it for the $900 price. Instead of alerting the customer, they just decided to switch out his ticket and put them back for sale - for $1,600 more.

So, what is this guy supposed to do now? It is likely that he splurged for a $900 ticket because he would be on top of the dugout for the first game ever in the new Yankee Stadium. Now he is sitting in the ridiculously priced box seats all alone and not even where he wanted to sit. It is unlikely that Ticketmaster's useless customer service will understand this complicated situation, so an easy resolution is not in the cards. Can anyone offer suggestions on the next steps to take for this poor guy? Read the full post, after the jump

More about the Food at the New Yankee Stadium, Ticket Sales, Stadium Tours and More Monday Night Yankee Thoughts

If we didn't have a day job, this would be spread across multiple posts. Here is a day's worth of thoughts neatly bullet pointed for your reading pleasure:

• We happened across one of the engineers working for Turner Construction (the company building the new Yankee Stadium) on Twitter, and he liked our blog. Next thing you know, we're being offered an All-Access tour of the New Yankee Stadium on Tuesday evening. We're told that posting photos from the tour are a no-go, but that is likely only for the "backstage" areas such as the clubhouses. There will be a full report up tomorrow night, and we'd like to give you all the opportunity to participate in some way. We are collecting questions that you would ask one of the engineers who worked on the new Yankee Stadium. Questions about any construction delays, obstructed seats, or anything else that someone from Turner could answer are fair game. We need to send the questions off tonight, so please fire away in the comments section.
  
• The food options at the New Yankee Stadium are pretty amazing. When my girlfriend utters the words: "I'm starting to like this new Yankee Stadium," you know they are doing something right. We knew the food would be an improvement over the old stadium, but selection is truly surprising. It sure does make us look forward to embarking on our New Stadium Insider food tasting series.
• Also from today's release, the revelation of $6 beers is a pretty big deal as well. As far as we can remember, beers hovered around the $9 mark for the past couple of seasons. Perhaps with the increased numbers of points of sale, the Yankees can afford to lower prices a bit. Bud Light or not, it will cost less to get intoxicated at a Yankee game. We've never understood people who likes to spend a small fortune to go to a baseball game just to not remember it, but to each their own.
• Some people get pretty riled up about the Coke vs. Pepsi debate. Anyone paying attention to the photos that have been leaking out from the interior of the stadium noticed the Pepsi ads plastered all over the place. Today, Legends Hospitality Management confirmed that the "House That Big Stein Built" is a Pepsi palace. We'll stick with beer and water. What else do you need in life?
• This morning at 10AM, the lucky Yankee fans who won the public presale lottery got their F5 on (the refresh key for those not privy to internet language) and tried to score tickets to the premium games. Sadly, it seems that the luck ran out for most of them. Many of these formerly lucky souls were greeted with the all too familiar $2,625 seats right above the Yankee dugout. Astute commenter "HorseRun" points out that if the Yankees can't sell these seats for the first ever game in the brand new stadium, when will they sell them?
• Never has the crass term "if there's grass on the field, play ball" seemed more appropriate. There is no longer grass on the field at the old Yankee Stadium, and they will no longer be playing ball there. Back off, Chris Hansen, its just an expression.
  
• We'd get all stat-heady and uppity about Joe Girardi's revelation that Xavier Nady is the opening day right fielder, but driveline mechanics did all of the work a couple of week ago and Kevin Goldstein piled on today. Some will base their argument on the 2008 season and claim that it is a coin-toss. We would like to point out Swisher's terrible luck on balls in play last season and his history of being a masher. Bold prediction: if Nick Swisher gets 500+ ABs in 2009, he will approach 30 home runs. Scott Boras must somehow be involved in this. Last year we learned that Joe Girardi reads Baseball Prospectus, now he is picking Xavier Nady over Nick Swisher in a position battle. Something is fishy here.
  
• We posted on Twitter about this earlier, but since when do hookers have the right to run to the press with stories? There is something seriously wrong with our culture when newspapers provide a platform for people who have sex for money to air their secrets about superstar athletes like Alex Rodriguez. We don't condone ballplayers cheating on their wives, especially with paid whores. However, women have been making tons of money in the world's oldest profession since Wooly Mammoths were roaming the earth (OK, maybe not that long). Everyone's favorite Yankees of yester-year like Mickey Mantle, Billy Martin, Jason Giambi (ha) all frequented prostitutes. This Eliot Spitzer/A-Rod hooker is clearly trying to get out of the game, but all she is doing is putting the entire profession at risk. Athletes are going to start paying non-professional whores and just make them sign an NDA. Journalism isn't the only field undergoing major change.

Don't forget to give us some ideas for construction-related Yankee Stadium questions to ask tomorrow. This may be the last time to ask these types of questions, as Turner Construction will soon be on their way to building a 2 billion dollar stadium somewhere else in the world. Or they just won't be in the Bronx anymore. Read the full post, after the jump

Yankee ticket office finally relocates the smaller partial plans, still struggle to sell the "Greatest Seats In The World"

The new Yankee Stadium Relocation process continues to prod along. Today, weekend plan holders got their relocation and many were shocked to find out that their former Saturday and Sunday plans were bumped to 12 game weekday plans.

The good news is, most people who were bumped for the weekends actually received nice locations within the stadium. The bad news is that most people who requested weekend plans did so for a reason - because they can't go to weekday games.

It is still unclear what this all means for the availability of single game tickets or upgrade opportunities for jilted former B Plan holders who were downgraded to 20 game plans. There are reports on the NYY Fans relocation thread that the waiting list calls have commenced for B Plan availability, but not in large numbers yet. As for single game 2009 Yankee tickets, all we can hang our hat on is the quote by Hal Steinbrenner on WFAN a few weeks ago, stating that tickets will be on sale at the beginning of March. I wouldn't hold my breath.

In other news, things are getting desperate for the Yankees ticket office while trying to sell the premium seats. Things are so bad that they had to take out a full page ad in today's Wall Street Journal and New York Times, as seen below.



I have said it before, but it is worth repeating - the YES production crew is going to earn their money making the Stadium look full on TV for some of those cold April games. The "Greatest Seats In The World just aren't selling, while the cheap seats are all but gone. A poorly timed economic downturn is mainly to blame for the excess of luxury seats, but completely pricing out the average fan is also to blame. The Yankees were banking on corporations to be fawning over the luxury boxes. Now, even the corporations that still have money are ashamed to spend it on anything extraneous, and there aren't any average fans who can afford $350 tickets. Short of the Yankees lowering the price of those expensive seats (which they will NEVER do), expect to see a lot of empty field level seats until the weather heats up.

Finally, if you want to see how nearly 2 billion dollars gets spent, check out this time-lapse video of the New Yankee Stadium being built.

Talk about it in the Stadium Insider Forums! Read the full post, after the jump

Good news if you have $26,325.00 to spare...

In an economic downturn, who DOESN'T have 26k just laying around, waiting to be spent on baseball tickets??? Good news for all of corrupt executives high rollers out there - you can be a BRAND new Yankee season ticket holder with a 2009 seniority date!

The Yankees announced today that they are opening up a full season plan in some of the best seats in the house ($325 tickets) to the general public. Of course, they have been trying to pawn these off to current season ticket holders for months now, without much luck.

Yankee Stadium is going to look awfully strange on TV this Spring and Summer when all of the expensive seats close to the field are empty, but the entire upper deck is filled.

Talk about it in the Stadium Insider Forums! Read the full post, after the jump