On the CBC broadcast of the first Jets home game of the playoffs, they showed a ticket from the last playoff game the Jets played in Winnipeg. It's face value was $30. In 2015 dollars, that's $43. Playoff tickets this year were going for over $200, face value.
If you look at broadcasts of the Sea of Red in the 80s, very few people wore Flames jerseys. Now, 90 per cent of the people in the stands have them. Jerseys typically run $100 to $200.
It seems clear that fans today are willing to spend more money - a lot more money - on sports than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Why?
Some possible explanations:
- Sports are increasingly an entertainment choice of the affluent, where they used to attract a broader range of fans.
- Sports are increasingly patronized by business and corporate customers, who are more willing now to invest in sports as a business perk or investment than in the past.
- The kinds of people who are into sports (typically males of a certain age who work in construction and business) make better money than their counterparts in the past did and have more money to spend on their hobbies.
- People in the past were able to afford much higher priced sport events, but it was not socially acceptable to do so (they were frugal compared to today, jerseys were regarded as something for kids, etc.).
Any other explanations?