Market Data 
Winning a world championship is expensive – especially for the fans.
The Los Angeles Dodgers, hoping to keep their 2024 World Series crown, maintain the highest ticket prices among the 30 clubs in the major leagues, according to a study published by The Los Angeles Times.
The study, done just before Opening Day, found the estimated cost of a Dodger home game for a family of four this year is $399.68 – a figure that includes parking, four cheap tickets, four hot dogs, two beers, and two sodas but is light-years above the league average of $208 for the same package.
The Dodger Stadium total sounds ominously like the team’s hefty player payroll, projected at a record $399 million by Roster Resource.
Winning the World Series again would be a remarkable achievement, since no team has defended its crown since the Yankees won their third straight in 2001, and would also mean a financial windfall for the team and its players.
Three MVPs
Dodger Stadium holds 56,000 fans, most in the major leagues, and is often sold out – thanks in part to the three former MVPs who top their lineup: Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman. All have large contracts that are heavily deferred.
Only Juan Soto of the New York Mets has a contract as large as Ohtani’s.
The latter signed a 10-year, $700 million contract as a free agent before the 2024 season, then won his second straight MVP trophy, joining Hall of Famer Frank Robinson as the only men to win the award in both leagues.
The team has since enhanced its international image by luring two other stars from the Japanese majors in starting pitchers Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaski. The former signed a contract that stands as the largest and longest ever given a pitcher: $325 million for 12 seasons.
In addition, nearly a dozen premier free agents, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, signed with the team in the wake of its 2024 World Series victory over the New York Yankees.
Not surprisingly, ticket prices have jumped into the stratosphere in direct proportion to the payroll.
According to Team Marketing Report, the Dodgers had an average ticket price of $29 as recently as 2015. Now its cheapest prices range from $38 to $156, according to Team Marketing Report. And that’s for one ticket – not the family-of-four package that includes food and parking.
Manfred’s Reaction
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is not surprised.
“The Dodgers have made a massive financial commitment in terms of players and they have to run a business that supports that massive financial commitment,” he admitted to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.
Manfred insists there’s no affodability issue – at least outside of Dodger Stadium.
Though he notes tickets for $20 or less were available for 70 per cent of all games last year, no Dodgers tickets can be had for that little this year.
Overall baseball attendance has increased every year since the pandemic season of 2020 and the teams combined to sell 71 million seats last season.
“If we had an affordability problem, I think you would see it in terms of those numbers,” he told The Times. “The numbers tell you the opposite.”
On the other hand, the three big spenders in free agency last winter – the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets – spent more than the other 27 teams combined. That disparity has sparked talk that the have-nots could gang up on the three richest clubs to lock out players when the current Basic Agreement between labor and management expires on Dec. 1, 2026.
For all teams, including the Dodgers, ticket prices fluctuate according to supply and demand. There’s even one game at Dodger Stadium priced at $38. But that’s a Wednesday matinee against the Florida Marlins, one of the league’s weakest and least-popular teams, when schools are still in session.
Four seats for that game would still cost $249.96, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Discounted Tickets
According to team president Stan Kasten, the Dodgers do work with the Office of the Commissioner to distribute free or discounted ducats to fans who can’t afford the normal high prices. In conjunction with the Commissioner’s Community Initiative, the Dodgers Foundation provided 64,000 tickets, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“We’ve had a lot of success maintaining and even starting to grow our fan base,” Kasten said. “We’re very proud of that and we work hard at it.”
But Dodger Stadium remains an expensive place to visit. Even the price of a hot dog is much more expensive at Dodger Stadium ($7.99) than it is at the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chase Field in Phoenix ($2.99).
The Los Angeles Times suggests Southern California baseball fans have a less pricey alternative in nearby Anaheim, where the Los Angeles Angels play. It offers a $44 family package that includes four tickets, four hot dogs, and four drinks for more than half its 81 home games. And the price for parking is $20, about half the cost at Dodger Stadium.
Unlike the Dodgers, a perennial playoffs participant, the Angels have missed post-season play for 11 straight years. But owner Arte Moreno keeps changing players and managers while maintaining prices he considers reasonable.
“I really believe there should be affordability,” he told the Times. “We want everybody to have access to the stadium. We’ve worked really hard to keep tickets low and have families come in.”
It’s even possible to find cheap seats at selected Yankee games, with corporate sponsors pitching in to subsidize half-price tickets, depending upon supply and demand.
On its website, Major League Baseball maintains a fan value page featuring discounts, deals, and promotions. Not all is good news, however.
One of those promotions – bobbleheads of the stars – has become so popular that prices rise and fans line up for hours hoping to get inside before the supply of dolls disappears.
Of the multiple Ohtani bobbleheads given away at Dodger Stadium, one even features the slugger with his dog Decoy.
