In Sports, What Goes Up Keeps On Going

The Daily Herald reports on the rumors that ticket prices may be on the rise at Wrigley Field.

The Cubs usually inform season-ticket holders of prices for the following season in the fall. Cubs president John McDonough was not immediately available for comment Monday. A team spokesman said he had no knowledge of ticket-price increases for 2008.

That lack of denial on such a big issue sounds a lot like a confirmation.

Raising prices is the American, capitalisitic thing to do, especially when a company is up for sale like the Cubs are. You want to show that your client base is loyal and that the elasticity of the price of your product is very low.

But, even if the Cubs were not for sale, ticket prices would be going up, probably quite a bit. And it has nothing to do with salary. The Cubs sold 3,252,462 in 2007. That's almost 98% of capacity (3,333,960 for 81 games). Would increasing ticket prices drive more fans away than revenue it raised? Not likely.

Bully for the ticket price increase. Nice to know that there is still something in this world that Adam Smith would like that doesn't have some sort of government subsidy on it.