You May Pick Your Seat

Anyone who knows me or who's ever read this blog (and I think all of you are one and the same) knows that I love the Yankees more than I love breathing. So it's out of love that I say this. Just like Chris Brown.

It's no secret that I hated the Yankees tearing down and replacing the classic, historical Yankee Stadium. In fact, over on my Twitter page, I likened it to seeing the Temple of Solomon torn down and having a McDonald's built on top of the rubble. Well, it looks like some of those proverbial McChickens have come home to roost. Seems that even during the inaugural series of...well, Yankee Stadium (I do give them credit for not naming it Macy's Stadium), there were an awful lot of Yankee fans who were disguised as empty seats and sitting very quietly. This was especially true in the most TV-visible lower seats, where face-value tickets ran over $2,000. And it's making one of (if not the single) most-followed, best-marketed-and-merchandised franchises in the world, let alone sports or baseball, look bad. There are lessons to be learned here--about tearing down the single biggest piece of the history that's made the franchise as beloved as it is, about spending billions of public and private dollars during one of the biggest recessions in recent memory, and about doing it all in the name of eliminating the bleachers and putting in more luxury boxes and "Legends Suites". Yankee Stadium isn't the only place turning what used to be entertainment for the working masses into a diversion for bluebloods and titans of industry only. But it's the worst and most visible offender. And a perception of inaccessibility is the first step down a very bad road for any franchise, sports or otherwise.