New Park Problem

Travis Sawchik at FanGraphs talks about how new stadiums put upper deck fans father away from the action.

All professional sports compete with HD television and streaming in their efforts to draw fans to the ballpark. And the most affordable seats, the places where many have their first experiences as fans at a major-league game, are far removed from the action and the sensory experiences of the game: the sound of ball meeting bat, the chatter on the field, and all the other incidental noises that accompany the game. Each new stadium has been noted for its lack of obstructed seats, but it’s the absence of obstructed seating and the increase in luxury suites that has devalued the experience for all those unable to sit in the lower bowl. While the retro era is an improvement from the cookie-cutter, multi-purpose generation of stadiums, we haven’t truly returned to a period of classic ballparks — like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park — which were notable just as much for their intimacy as their idiosyncratic design.

My late uncle Anthony bought season tickets in the previous Yankee Stadium in the third deck behind home plate. The seats hung out over the lower deck, and you were right on top of the action. (I also had a boss that would take her family to one game a year, and that’s approximately where they sat.) When the built the new stadium, the upper deck was pushed back so far that my uncle no longer wanted the seats, especially for the price they asked. He stopped going.

The life of stadiums keep getting shorter, so maybe this can be corrected in the next round.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2pbF5w5