By Jim McCarthy Dec 8, 2008 0 comments

Will There Be a Baseball Recession?

It’s possible, but reading The LA Times’ Bill Shaikin’s article on the topic won’t get you any closer to knowing the answer.

First, absurdly, he draws a parallel between the Big Three bosses private jetting to Washington to beg for taxpayer money with Major League Baseball holding its winter meetings in a Vegas casino:

“As Americans lose their jobs and homes at a frequency unseen in decades, baseball convenes today for its annual holiday shopping spree in Las Vegas.”

You think the difference might be that these guys aren’t asking the taxpayer to foot the bill?

He then goes on, in what could be an entirely separate article, to talk about whether or not baseball is in a recession because they might not be able to advance ticket prices everywhere this year.

It’s true.  Baseball, a 19th century product in the 21st century, a sport that has been eclipsed by football over the last generation as the nation’s most popular, might not actually be able to command a staggering price jump as it has for the last 10 years or so.

Bear in mind, baseball is breaking attendance records (though not TV ratings records, which is, ultimately, exactly the point) even at high prices.  A year of per-ticket sold average prices going sideways is far, far from a recession.  It could even lead to significant volume increases as baseball becomes more price attractive to people.

Or not.  It depends on job losses in the economy.  At some point, everyone will suffer if employers keep cutting, but baseball won’t be first on that list.

In the meantime, Bill, leave the declarations of recession to Bernanke.  Or at least Lou Dobbs.

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