Team Marketing Report (TMR) released its annual analysis of the average cost of attending a baseball game for the upcoming 2009 season (Warning to those of you with a slow connection, this link is for a 2-page PDF file). The White Sox, with an average ticket price of $32.28, are the fifth-most expensive team to catch live in the Majors, up 6.6% from 2008 and about $5.50 more expensive than the league average. The Sox also claim the league's fifth most expensive Fan Cost Index (FCI), a rudementary tool designed to determine how expensive it is for a family of 4 to go to a game. The FCI adds up prices of tickets, parking, 2 beers, 4 pops, 4 hot dogs, 2 game programs, and 2 baseball hats. While the FCI has been criticized in the past (who really buys 1 hat at a ballgame, let alone 2?) it's still a decent ballpark figure (no pun intended) for the total cost of attending a Major League Baseball game. The Sox's FCI for 2009 is 224.11 up 4.4% over 2008.If there's one nugget of good news from this report its that the Sox are still a bargain compared to their North Side neighbors. The Cubs average ticket price is $47.75 (47.9% higher than the Sox's) and their FCI is an even $305, 36.1% greater than the Sox's.
