So having recently attended an Oakland A's game in Oakland, I must have gotten onto the Oakland A's marketing email list when I purchased the tickets online. This afternoon I received some marketing material from the A's promoting their upcoming series with the Red Sox. Now this prompted two immediate questions. The first being, how in the hell are people in Oakland so disinterested in baseball, that the A's need to have promotional nights just to have people show up to see two playoff bound teams face off in September? The second question was even more interesting. Would it in fact be cheaper, or even comparable in price, to fly to Oakland to see the Sox take on the A's than to see a similar game here in Boston. Let the research begin. In order to keep things on as even a keel as possible, I attempting to measure only like items against one another and not factor in every last penny that could and would be spent. This is on a macro level and for "could it really be" purposes.
First let's figure out the cost of attending this game in Oakland. I looked for the game on 9/7/04, a Tuesday night game that just happens to be $1 taco night AND team picture night. Does it get any better than that? I don't think it does. I checked tickets, and wouldn't you know...1 first base line seat, 20th row....$26. So we have a ticket for $26. Now for the flight(s). A bit back, I saw a special package for $99 flights Boston to Oakland, which would make this a no-brainer. Can't seem to find them now, the best I can come up with on such short notice is via Orbitz and is $357 round trip. Not too bad. Now we need some transportation to and from the airport to the stadium and back, along with some fine concessions. Since the same BART station services both the Network Associates Coliseum and the Airport, let's estimate on the high side and say $10 round trip - 3 miles each way by car. Lastly, concessions. Remember, it is $1 taco night. So let's say we splurge on 3 beers ($7 each) and 5 tacos. Add $26 to the bill. Here is the summary:
- 1 Ticket $26
- 1 Round Trip Flight $357
- 1 Round Trip BART Pass $10
- 3 Beers $21
- 5 Tacos $5
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Total: $419
Now for the hometown boys. Again, for comparison sake we will try and keep things as parallel as possible. Let's go with a weeknight game against another good team from the West. Let's go with tonight's game against Anaheim. Now as any local knows, Fenway is forever sold out so forget the walk-up tickets. And come on, we need 20th row, 1st base side. This calls for a ticket broker. Ticketsnow.com has what we need. Two field box seats on the first base side that are almost identical to the Oakland tix. And what a steal at $165 each. Now, all we need to do is get there and enjoy some concessions. We won't even count the tolls and gas, let's get right to the parking...and that'll be a cool $30 if you want to be within 2 miles of the park....$25 if you park in Natick. Once at the park, let's get the same 3 beers ($6.50 a piece) and instead of 5 tacos, we can go for 5 famous fenway franks here in Boston for a total of $16.25 ($3.25 each). That should bring us up to speed....to the calculator for the tally:
- 1 Ticket $165
- 1 Parking $30
- 3 Beers $19.50
- 5 Hot Dogs $16.25
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Total: $230.75
Well...the tale of the tape clearly shows that although the ticket prices are worlds apart, the flight makes the trip to Oakland a full $188 more than a game at Fenway....but still, the fact that it is even a thought puts the price of a sox game into perspective. If only I had caught that Jet Blue special for $99....
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