The Price of Weiner
New York Congressman, Anthony Weiner, recently launched a new attack on the New York Yankees for their fees, saying that they were too high in comparison to the tickets of $5. The sale of Yankees tickets is an example of supply and demand. The New York Yankees are the most successful franchise in the history of sports, and thus their games are sold out very easily. The demand for Yankee games—particularly those played against the Boston Red Sox—skyrockets, driving up the price. This is how the free market works.
However, Congressman Weiner still believes that the fees are too high. Why? The fees for processing and printing tickets for Major League Baseball games have a higher percentage for low-priced tickets than high-priced tickets. Congressman Weiner has stated: “It doesn’t seem fair or logical, but the fans that buy the cheapest tickets pay the highest fees as a percentage of the ticket price.”
Processing fees and printing fees will always be the same no matter how much the tickets cost. For example, the French Baguettes [a fictional team created solely for this article] have box seat tickets for $20 and normal tickets for $10 and the fee is $5. The fee percentage for a $20 ticket is 25%. The percentage for a $10 is 50%. The percentage for the $10 ticket is higher than for the $20 dollar ticket. In what way is this not fair?
Fees, however, are not always necessary. One can buy tickets from the stadium with no fees attached. But this is not good enough: “Rep. Weiner plans on introducing legislation requiring all websites selling baseball tickets to display the total amount of fees as a percent of the ticket price.” If the legislation passes, “Baseball teams won’t want the ‘fee percentage’ to look too high, so they will be incentivized to raise ticket prices and lower fees…those buying the cheapest tickets actually wind up paying more for each game they see.” (http://www.weinerfacts.com)
Weiner also wants all the prices to be equal, claiming that fees are “arbitrary,” “random” and “inconsistent.” He claims, “Printing fees range from $1.75 for Cardinals, Nationals and Pirates to $2.50 for the majority of MLB teams.” However, there is no reason why that should not happen. Teams can charge what they please in a free market system, and it is up to the consumer to buy.
This is an example of a socialist-like policy to control prices, something that has happened before under the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Under Roosevelt, there were fines for lower prices. However, the larger companies could afford the fines and were thus able to put out lower prices, something small companies could not afford, and thus were rooted out of business.
Congressman Weiner has attacked businesses before in an attempt to price-control. The Better Business Bureau gave Goldline an “A+” rating (unusual in gold companies), something that was addressed to Weiner after the attacks (to which Weiner replied and insinuated that the Better Business Bureau could be bribed for higher ratings). Weiner was angry about Goldline’s high pricing of the gold that they sell, claiming that the price was too high. However, once again, no one is forced to buy gold from Goldline, or to buy gold period.
In Congressman Weiner’s report on Goldline, he made the statement: “Goldline won’t guarantee that it will buy back products it sells.” However, Goldline replied, “The law prohibits Goldline from making that guarantee.” This is an example of the sloppiness of the Congressman, who did not check the laws before he made a report on what he claims to be a “rip-off.”
These are just a few of Weiner’s arguments against successful companies, like Goldline and the New York Yankees, and another way to control pricing, a definite form of power.
