And When You Add in the Jersey, Butter-Braised Lobster Over Foie Gras, And A 2009 Escalade to Drive to the Game…

To follow-up on Neyer’s excellent point about the idiotic Team Marketing Report, the one that he quotes (despite the large amount of discretionary purchases it includes) is actually a little more reasonable that the one reports typically cite. I can at least see an argument that a hot dog and a beer is a common enough purchase that it’s worth factoring in. But the usual index cited in the media includes “the cost of two beers, four sodas, four hot dogs, parking for one car, two programs and two souvenir caps.” Seriously, who the hell buys two programs? (If you go to games, when was the last time you bought one, apart from maybe a special event? Better stats and scoresheets can be had for free on the intertubes.) At any rate, baseball remains by far the most affordable sport, and as someone who attended a lot of games as a student cheap seats, bringing a sandwich, and perhaps even not getting a cap every time you go to the park works just fine.