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QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 02:53 PM) Is the price much lower this year?NO.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 01:48 PM) Yup, lot of those people on the South side are going to games. Not centrally located for a lot of suburbanites, either. The Cubs already own the part of the city with the disposable income. all roads lead to the loop. but not a lot of roads lead to orland. or bolingbrook. or lemont. or even cicero. dont forget that the major stadium trend is to place stadiums in central city districts. most of the stadiums/ballparks/arenas since 1991 are NOT in the suburbs.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 17, 2012 -> 12:26 PM) The Chicago metro area has 9.8 million people in it. 5.3 of them are in Cook County, of which about 3 million are in the city of Chicago. I suppose you could center yourself more towards the west, but if you add up the whole transportation package (metra, cta, interstate access, parking), plus being in the center of population, the Sox are more ideally located than the Cubs, and that doesn't seem to hurt their attendance at all. The Sox really are more ideally located in those terms than any other team in town. To get to a Bulls/Hawks/Bears/Cubs game, you have much more to go to get on an interstate. The Bears aren't on any of the main cta train lines. The bears are KINDA off roosevelt stop, but there has been talk of an 18th st green line station. But aside from that, getting to a bears game is murder. Bulls/hawks is ok with the green line and blue line within a mile of the UC. But still plenty of shuttle busses serve gameday. Not that easy for fans. Sox are actually the best option for public transit and sports.

And for all the people that say "move the park to the burbs so i can go to more games"' i still call bulls***. You can easily go to a weekend game where there will be less traffic and no school or work the next day. And if you do a kids' day, you can get ur kids $1 LOWER DECK tix. The sox seem to do ok with corporate sales and young people on the weekday games. And families and groups on the weekends. I do love the fact that the tailgatin lots are always full on the weekends even when the attendance is low. Maybe those guys figured it out?

I personally feel that the only change the so should make is dropping dynamic pricing. Prices should remain flat for season tickets as well as individual games. Just improve marketing and team performance/expectations.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 12:34 PM) I think baseball generally is so unaffordable for the average Joe that it's just not an option anymore. People don't take the effort to hunt for the cheaper tickets. They've just pretty much eliminated baseball as an entertainment option. It would take several seasons of reduced prices to make a dent in that. Even if a college kid and his buddies in suburbia or a dad and his wife and kids wanted to search for deals on tickets, they still are looking at parking costs and food and drink. After years of not wanting to do that, it's just been crossed off their 'to-do' list for summertime fun. Maybe suck it up and go to one game a year, whereas many years ago, the same people might have gone to 10-30 games cause it was fun and affordable back then. If I were the Sox, I'd cut parking to 10 bucks all of next season, take a bath on that, do a heavy advertising campaign on how the Sox are making an effort to work with their fans during the depression. Instead of "appreciate the game" do a whole marketing thing on reduced parking. I think a lot of people would rather be hit in the head with a hammer than pay more than 20 bucks to park their car. Maybe that doesn't matter to the Sox, but like caufield wrote, good luck when these older rich fans die and these younger kids are the older people and have never gone to baseball games. I think baseball attendance will pretty much die in the next 20-30 years because of the economy. It won't die as a sport because of the rich TV deals. bulls***. Sox tix are as low as $7. And families can get FREE tickets as part of the kids club or through the decades-long student achiever program. Oh and let's not forget kid's day $1 tickets. Come back when you have something to counter that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2012 -> 03:17 PM) If Sox tickets are too expensive at $50 for someone, Bears tickets aren't affordable at $200 for that same person. I think whenpeople say "tix are too expensive", they really mean "lower deck tix are too expensive" Too many lower level snobs. Upper deck tix with a code were as low as $7 thi year yet the upper deck was half empty.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 04:05 PM) Exactly. All these new fans will be used to paying minor league prices for baseball, they may not want to suddenly pay more for the MLB team. minor league baseball will NOT hurt the major league product. just ask the red sox.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 11:14 AM) Central Indiana is within the Sox/Cubs "exclusive rights territory", so games on CSN would not be blacked out. CSN is only available on DirecTV/DishNetwork if you buy the "sports package" that includes all of the local sports channels from all over the country (which is a very very small percentage of households). It is not available in the same programming packages as the Reds' station. What's worse is despite the fact that CSN gets hardly any distribution in Central Indiana, Sox/Cubs games are blacked out on MLBEI/mlb.tv because it is within the Sox/Cubs exclusive rights territory, so for about 99% of people in Central Indiana, WGN games are the only games they can watch. while the indy is considered "sox territory", csn chicago may not be allowed to be carried on cable outlets in that market. it's not just the mlb territory to consider, but also the territories of the cable operators.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 10:21 AM) They have always given out tickets to April games like candy. They have always given them away for anyone who gets a weekend package at Soxfest. soxfest is $300 for a family of four BEFORE the hotel.

One thing the sox did right was offer 1/2 off coupons during fan appreciation day. Coupon is good for "buy one get one free" lower reserved ticket for mon-thurs april games. I think they are starting to get the hint.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 10:12 AM) Yes, but if CSN is airing in more households, that equals bigger ratings which equals more ad revenue which equals more money in the next TV contract.they may not be ALLOWED to broadcast on cable networks in central indiana. i know they are on directv, but that's satellite.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Oct 15, 2012 -> 12:52 AM) Well that's just great, Brooks. You don't want working class Mt. Greenwood families to come to your games. That's just great. The Sox are happy with the 15,000 fat cats that attend the games. Or wait, the 15,000 fat cats who have tickets and either don't go to the games or spend most of their work days trying to give away their tickets.mt greenwood residents are hardly working class. mostly city workers with nice pensions an union benefits.

QUOTE (SI1020 @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 11:45 PM) Read The Best and the Brightest or The Peter Principle just for starters. Did you lose money in the 2008/09 stock market real estate debacle? I hope not but lots of people did. I bow not to the elites. They make mistakes all the time. Some of them are even catastrophic. The Reinsdorf group has made many questionable business moves. That's not to say that Jerry Reinsdorf is not the classic up from his bootstraps American success story. He is. That doesn't mean that smart successful people don't make bonehead business moves. They do it all the time. If I make one of those bonehead moves then you'll see me on the street pleading for money. Once you've made it there is more leeway. One last thing. I already conceded that the White Sox are doing OK financially the way they run things now. I'm just a random dumbass that doesn't care all that much for some of their policies.Jerry has made more bad movies based off emotions than anything. like keeping Ozzie guillen longer than he should have.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 09:32 PM) I thought one reason that they put dynamic ticket pricing in was to lower prices as games got near and demand wasn't there. Clearly that didn't happen. Only thing they did was those deals, but dynamic pricing should bring down all prices.exactly. the cardinals dynamic pricing had games as low as $5 the day tickets went on sale. and they adjusted prices up AND down daily.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 11:35 AM) As part owners of CSN, it would benefit the Sox (and Cubs) greatly to get CSN on in places like Indianapolis before 2016 in order to maximize revenue from that deal.they get that money no matter where CSN airs.

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 09:50 AM) How much does a team make from a fan "just watching on TV" vs. buying a ticket and going to the game? I'm guessing the difference is quite a bit smaller than you'd think it be, even for a team like the White Sox. These numbers are from fenway, but they seem legit: Sox get roughly $26 million from the fox/tbs/espn deals MLB has. And roughly $45-50 million from the comcast deal(which they also own a piece of), and anywhere from $12-20 million from WGN(Games on WCIU are actually WGN produced). The national money will almost DOUBLE in 2014-2021($46 million a year), and the comcast deal may end as early as 2016, so you may see a rangers/angels type tv deal soon. The PADRES now get $50 million a year in thier tv deal(and they are one of the smallest tv markets in mlb), and the astros will get upwards of $75 million a year from thier new deal with comcast. The next Sox tv deal WILL be a blockbuster, especially when jerry can package the bulls with the sox.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Oct 14, 2012 -> 10:11 AM) It's the same thing the other way around. There are many more Sox fans that live in the suburbs than in the city. I live in SW suburban Lockport and go to 8-10 games per year. I know many people who just cannot drive home from work and then drive all the way to the city for a game. They would rather just watch on tv because it is more realistic. This is a little off topic but I also would love for the Sox to do what the Cubs did and have a minor league team in the state. Kane County games will be huge with the Cubs being there. I wish the Sox could move one of their A affiliates to the stadium in Joliet or Schaumburg.there's these things called saturday and sunday games.

A big reason why the Sox didnt leave 35th and shields is that the STATE told them to stay put. Jerry wanted addison, but the state said chicago was better due to infrastructure(cta, dan ryan, ect) than in the burbs. Can you imagine traffic in rush hour for people going home AND to the sox game in addison/bolingbrook/lemont/ect?

QUOTE (Cali @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 07:56 PM) Speaking as an insane person who has no idea what he's talking about, referring to Google Maps, I see there is a church and elementary school right next door. Cant they buy those and knock en down to build more attractions? Nobody needs school or church right? With the coming school closings, I dont doubt that the sox would love to scoop up that site.

QUOTE (SouthSidePride05 @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 08:42 PM) You obviously haven't taken a look at Google Maps recently. The images are fairly recent, probably taken sometime this summer. Just zoom in. In a perfect world, they'd tear down Adler Planetarium (move it south on Northerly Island), and build a new ballpark right at the site of the Adler Planetarium with the seats facing the skyline. Old Man Daley wanted to put the Sox at Northerly Island back in the 60's let's be glad that plan never happened. Bear traffic 81 games a year on LSD? count me out.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 06:11 PM) Guy moves to the suburbs, wants to take the Sox with him. Talk about having your cake and eating it too. In all seriousness...moving to the suburbs would actually be really wise. Throw the team in the middle of Schaumburg, and you'd have a lot more young Sox fans. you try getting to schaumburg on a wed night for a 7pm game. I have done just that. for a flyers game. took us well more than an hour to get there from the city. attendance would crater in the burbs.

QUOTE (Tuna @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 05:28 PM) A) sometimes money is hard to come by. My idle generalization is about as ridiculous as yours -that money will just appear in your pocket if YOU REALLY WANT TO GO- B) your wife is no doubt nicer than mine. you do realize that you can go to the game for free, right? two kids in the kids' club equals 4 free tickets. one game paid for. $23 to park means you can tailgate. bring your own burgers and beer.

QUOTE (Tuna @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 02:27 PM) I typically don't respond to people who obviously haven't read my post all the way through, but for you I'll make the exception. I very clearly said, "With all that being said, it's not like I don't go to games. I do, but that is my reasoning of why I don't go to more." More being the key word in that sentence. I never said the Sox make it impossible to go to one game, my issue is location (which can't be solved), pricing, convenience. While $49 is a very good price, sometimes it's not doable. I know that a good portion of this site seem to be doctors, lawyers, accountants and the like, but some of us do work at White Castle I offered solutions. You say I dont read your responses. You act as if money is hard to come by despite living in Crystal Lake(and working at white castle). Not everyone here is a dr/lawyer/accountant, so that idle generalization hold no water here. I know not everyone can hit 5-50 games a year, but if you WANT to go, you WILL find a way. I have a newborn at home, and I still managed to hit 4 games in september. I even organized a mini group(7 people including myself) for one of them. We spent $140 total on lower reserved seats. And $18 on parking. And everyone but myself lived out in the western burbs(I'm in the city) It CAN be done if YOU WANT TO.

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Oct 12, 2012 -> 04:13 PM) Chicago metro area: 10 million Detroit metro area: 3.7 million A couple considerations -- lets say you reduce parking for all games, then you are losing all that parking $ generated for the surefire winners (i.e. hosting the Cubs). What if the team is awful? Then you just lost all the money for those well-attended games that are a sure bet...AND you lose in general overall attendance. Point being - a sharp decrease in prices ain't happening. We are what we are -- a giant city with a lot of potential interest, but as of yet, not enough truly interested people. the cubs series failed to sellout 2 years in a row.