Yankees President Opposes Steering Ticket Pricing

Yankees President Opposes Steering Ticket Pricing (Update1)
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By Jeremy R. Cooke

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- New York Yankees President Randy Levine said he opposes state lawmakers’ efforts to dictate prices for tickets sold at sports stadiums built with public support such as the franchise’s new ballpark in the Bronx.

State Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat, has introduced a bill requiring that 7 percent of tickets sold to any sporting event carry “affordable prices” as a condition of pro-sports facilities receiving state or local benefits.

New York City’s Industrial Development Agency in January approved a second round of tax-exempt financing to finish building the new Yankee Stadium, opening next month. The agency has sold more than $1.2 billion of bonds secured by payments in lieu of property taxes owed by the Major League Baseball team.

“If you’re charging too much, people will not come,” Levine said at an assembly committee hearing today in lower Manhattan. “If we’re not selling enough tickets to pay it back, the responsibility is on us to adjust.”

Levine prefaced his comments by saying he hadn’t seen a copy of the legislation. Today’s hearing was the second called by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky after the Westchester Democrat subpoenaed Levine to provide documents related to the public financing of the new Yankee Stadium. Brodsky chairs the committee that oversees public authorities such as the IDA.

The Yankees provided only part of what Brodsky seeks during his examination of public subsidies the team received when it built a replacement for the city-owned Yankee Stadium that dates to 1923, the assemblyman said.

Another Hearing

“It is likely that to complete this process” there will have to be another hearing, Brodsky said. “We will do what we have to do to get the documents.”

Whether the already-approved benefits for the new Yankee Stadium would be subject to the ticket affordability proposal remains “open to question,” Kavanagh said.

Levine said the Yankees already try to set prices that attract fans “at all economic levels” while also giving away “tens of thousands” of tickets each season as part of community-outreach programs. The lowest priced single-game tickets are $14 bleacher seats.

Yankee Stadium LLC bonds with a 7 percent tax-exempt interest rate due in 2049 traded at 109.5 cents on the dollar today to yield 5.73 percent, according to trade data reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board. The debt was sold at 100 cents during the last week of January.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy R. Cooke in New York at