The scholarships provide season tickets for that fan and their family, and even extra circumstances such as free parking and food voucher for the games.
This is an article that I hope every other CEO and executive of every professional sports team reads, and has a desire to follow suit.
The fact is that the D-backs are doing things for fans right already. They have the lowest average priced ticket in all of Major League Baseball. This year the average price for a ticket to a game in Arizona goes for $14.31. Compare that to the average of $72.97 for the Yankees or $50.24 for the Red Sox.
When owners are willing to admit that tickets are overpriced, especially an owner like Hal Steinbrenner that is saying something. Of course his team, the New york Yankees, did just have a 76.3% increase in prices. New stadium or not that is far too large a leap. All that does is hurt the true fans at the game.
That is one of the key problems with these increases. The true fans are not able to attend anymore. Look at any big named program, Red Sox, Yankees, Celtics, Lakers, Patriots, etc; and the best seats are filled with big name executives, and company seats rather then the die hard fans.
This leaves the fans who are not able to spend $162 for premium seats for one game at Fenway to fight for the outfield grandstands, and bleacher seats. While the company seats sit there looking unamused, and barely excited to be there. They would rather brag and just say they can afford to own them while the average person is still counting the days down in May for a game in September they have bleacher seats.
Anyway, the point of this tirade is to give Arizona Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall a tip of my hat, and to give the rest of the owners a wag of my finger as Stephen Colbert would do. Now that Hall made it clear he is looking out for the true fans, hopefully all the other owners will take the hint.
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