Gas prices and sports fans

The rising price of gasoline has many effects.

Soaring gasoline and food prices and the nation's housing crisis have local sports fans reconsidering how they will spend their money this summer.

For now, most fans aren't ready to part with season tickets, but the threat of $4-a-gallon gasoline has some rethinking how many times they will visit the ballpark this summer, the peak of the baseball season.

"When fuel goes up, so does everything else," said John Heyde of Montgomery, who is retired from the U.S. Coast Guard. "My pension stays the same. I have to cut someplace, so I watch more games on TV. Other people like me that are retired aren't going to games like we used to. We used to be diehard all the time."

To offset the price of going to games, fans say they are willing to make sacrifices elsewhere, including cutting back on what they spend once in the ballpark. Others, like the McKee family, are getting creative by using the city's mass transportation system, carpooling in groups to save on fuel and parking, and searching for discount tickets.

Good thing the various stadia are all easily accessible by the city's mass transit system, no? That's something that Sugar Land could not have offered the Dynamo.

When it comes to sports, consumers often have an open-wallet policy, said Dr. Merrill J. Melnick, a sports sociologist at The College at Brockport (N.Y.).

"When fans decide where they want to cut costs, denying themselves access to sports events might be real low on their list," Melnick said. "The real identified fan isn't going to let the pump determine whether they root for their favorite team. It seems to me that's one area they are less likely to cut corners. The identification between a fan and a favorite team is a very strong bond."

But, Melnick added, if gasoline reaches $4 a gallon, "that might put a fans' loyalty to the test."

I forget who said it, but someone on the Baseball Prospectus noted that a feature of modern stadia is their smaller capacity. They're designed to cater more towards high-end customers and less towards the bleacher bums; thus the explosion of luxury suites and field-level seats with extra amenities like waiters for refreshments. You'd think this sort of season-ticket holder would be less sensitive to the price of gasoline, since they're already paying a fortune to be at the game. If so, then I figure baseball at least will mostly weather this storm, though it may cause attendance figures to level off or decline a bit.

The fear of a slowdown in consumer spending hasn't affected the city's four major professional teams, with the Astros, Texans, Rockets and Dynamo reporting increases in season-ticket sales. The Dynamo, coming off back-to-back Major League Soccer titles, had a 25-percent increase from 2007 to this season, team president and general manager Oliver Luck said.

Luck credits affordable tickets -- the average price to watch a game at Robertson Stadium is $18 -- for the increase.

"We're fairly inexpensive," he said. "I think the fact we are affordable is a blessing for some families."

Cheap seats will always be a draw. And as noted, assuming the downtown stadium ever gets built, being a stop on two rail lines won't hurt them, either.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on May 11, 2008 to Other sports