Dodgers will not increase ticket prices
In the face of a deepening recession, the Dodgers have backed away from a plan to increase the prices of single-game tickets this season.
“It just didn’t make sense to raise prices with where the economy was headed,” Dennis Mannion, the Dodgers’ chief operating officer, said Saturday.
The Dodgers also froze prices on season tickets this season. The Angels raised season prices by an average of 6.4% but froze single-game prices, with the exception of 17 popular games.
On Saturday, one week before the Dodgers and Angels put single-game tickets on sale, the Dodgers’ website displayed a price list that included increases for almost every seat in the house.
The increases ranged from $1 on the top deck and $2 in the left-field pavilion to $5 for loge seats and up to $10 for box seats.
Mannion said the Web page was put up in error, and he said any groups that had bought pre-sale tickets at those prices would receive a refund for the amount of the increase.
“There had been an anticipated increase,” Dodgers spokesman Charles Steinberg said.
“Everything has changed [with the economy] over the past four months.”
In his statement on the Manny Ramirez negotiations on Thursday, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt cited “an economy that has substantially eroded since last November.”
The Angels, unlike the Dodgers, vary the price of single-game tickets. For the most popular games -- opening day, July 4 and those against the Dodgers, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees -- the Angels have increased their surcharge by $2.
Seats on the field and terrace levels now carry a $12 surcharge for those games, with other seats carrying a $7 surcharge.
“Those are our premium games,” Angels spokesman Tim Mead said. “The demand is there.”
The single-game prices for the other 64 games remain the same, he said.
“We’ve worked very hard to maintain the affordability of our pricing,” he said.
Team Marketing Report last season listed the average price for the Dodgers at $29.66 and the Angels at $20.78, excluding luxury seats.
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