Baseball in the Depression

Great article (H/T to Rob Neyer on this one) from The New York Times about baseball in the depression. It'll be interesting to see what happens to baseball during this economic downturn. There are a lot more ways to make money via baseball now and the revenue sharing that goes on in the Majors will help out smaller markets...but it'll be interesting to see what innovations come out of this to make the game more appealing to fans--and, consequently, profitable to owners--like the institution of night games or the expansion of the minor leagues as mentioned within the article. I think that a drop in ticket prices (or at least a leveling of them) would be nice. Talking to a co-worker today, we agreed it sucks that the common fan can't afford to sit in the lower bowl of Yankee Stadium anymore. I also mentioned (and maybe for a later article), what corporations can afford those seats? Can Citigroup really be caught with boxes at Yankees Stadium? Can smaller firms really take that and just write it off as a business expense in these times? Will be interesting to see what happens with some of these more expensive seats (and whether this is the beginning of the end of the professional scalper).

Link to the graph below here if it's not showing up