Premium Pricing at MLB Games

I've never noticed it before, but this year I found that the Astros have premium pricing. When certain teams come into town, they charge significantly more for those tickets. Those teams are the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox and the costs for seeing them are very high.

For example, the "third level" of the stadium (AKA "cheap seats"), start as low at $1 for children 3-14 to $22 at better locations for adults. On the nights of "premium pricing," the seats disappear for the kiddos and the lowest price you can pay is $17 and goes all the way up to $32 for nose bleed seats.

On the second level the range is $22 to $52 on regular nights and $30 to $75 for when the Bronx Bombers and the Sox come to town. For the first level the range is $26 to $50 and $36 to $75 for those "special games."

I know this isn't because of interleague play because the Rangers are coming and we are paying the standard fare for them. What I don't know is this is something being done by the league or as a means of garnering extra revenue for the Astros, but I don't like it. The Sox and Yankees have acted like they were in a league of their own for ages, now we got to pay like that is the case.

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Kevin Price is Host of the Houston Business Show (M-F at 11 AM on CNN 650) and Publisher of the Houston Business Review. Hear the show live and online at HoustonBusinessShow.com. Visit the archive of past shows here.