Tuesday, April 02, 2013
Mad About the Cost of TV? Blame Sports
(www.theatlantic.com)
Your cable bill—$80 or $90, or whatever it is—is best understood as two prices. The programming (i.e. the channels you watch) and the distribution (i.e. the infrastructure and profits for the cable companies). Every time you pay a cable bill, the channels collect a small fee. It’s called an “affiliate fee.” The most in-demand channels tend to negotiate the highest fees. And those tend to be sports channels. Take a look.
Read More...By my rough calculation, if you pay $90 a month for cable, you are ...
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1. TerpNats posted on September 11, 2012 at 09:23 AM # hit 0 | hit 0I can't imagine the Dodgers are going to keep up the kind of payroll they're presently racking up for very long. I suspect they're foregoing profits, perhaps even deficit spending, for a couple years to try and win a pennant and get back into L.A. prominence.
For a regular season weeknight game against a team other than say Sox, TB, etc, I can pretty much get in for the cost of stub hub transactions. In other words, almost free. I've done this multiple times this year.
If I pay attention when tickets go on sale at the beginning of the year, i can get decent upper deck seats for any game i want for 25ish. Again, multiple times this year.
But yeah, averaging the moat vip seats w/ a bleacher seat REALLY makes sense.
I can't believe I put down my slice of pizza to write this. ugh.
I thought only the Astros did that. I know that the Cardinals try to do that every year(even calling on 9/11 memory to help them profit the place up more, but fail every year)
I'm going to also guess that the "parking" factor doesn't account for the fact that a large percentage of people take mass transit to Yankees and Mets games, which is very cheap compared to parking.
What is the definition of cheap? I park within reasonable walking distance of Bush Stadium for $6....the most expensive parking lot, right next to the stadium is $15(soon to be ballpark village!!!!) if you are paying $4(roundtrip) or so for mass transit, I'm not sure it's that cheap.
Or that most people in NYC don't have a car.
It depends. If you commute by mass transit every day in NYC, you probably have an unlimited monthly Metrocard, so the cost of the trip to the stadium is effectively free (although I don't know the true cost, i.e. the extent to which our tax dollars are subsidizing those rides).
On the other hand, you shouldn't compare the cost of the subway with the cost of the parking, you should compare it with the cost of the parking + gas + some portion of the cost of the vehicle, insurance, etc.
Then you also need to add the time difference between the transit ride as a portion of your hourly salary then at the least. Transit is inconvenient because you are on someone else's schedule.
Then you also need to add the time difference between the transit ride as a portion of your hourly salary then at the least. Transit is inconvenient because you are on someone else's schedule.
I have no idea what the first part of this means, and I'm not trying to argue about mass transit versus car ownership because the answer always depends on where you live and where you work. I suspect 90+% of people don't really have a choice. But while you're on someone else's schedule with mass transit, you're subject to the whims of traffic when you commute by car. Nothing's perfect.
I meant compared to parking at NYS or Citifield.
This is a joke, right? Weeknight games, the 4, D, and B run something like every ~3-5 minutes during the times you would be going to games and every ~7-10 minutes when you would be leaving(with extra trains sent when the games are getting out). Weekends, the trains run every ~7-10 minutes. It's also generally faster to take the trains, even factoring in the worst possible wait times, than it is to drive. Especially for weeknight games.
*sigh*
Not really a joke. You are still not driving straight to your destination etc. It was a response to the comment that you have to factor in gas and monthly payment of the car. The convenience makes up for that. You really just need to compare the immediate costs, which is the cost of the transit ticket vs the cost of the parking lot...nothing else should be figured into it(specifics about whether you have a monthly pass etc shouldn't matter...it's how much is the average round trip transit ticket for one day vs the average parking lot cost and then compare to other cities)
No, you aren't driving at all, which is itself a benefit. In addition, as I mentioned, it is quite likely that it is faster to take the train than to drive, even including the time spent waiting for trains.
Ok.
Silly concept. Take a simple comment.... which is what is the ####### cost of a round trip train ticket vs a parking ticket and make it out to be something more etc...
Not really a joke. You are still not driving straight to your destination etc. It was a response to the comment that you have to factor in gas and monthly payment of the car. The convenience makes up for that. You really just need to compare the immediate costs, which is the cost of the transit ticket vs the cost of the parking lot...nothing else should be figured into it(specifics about whether you have a monthly pass etc shouldn't matter...it's how much is the average round trip transit ticket for one day vs the average parking lot cost and then compare to other cities)
It's not a big deal, but at the very least, I don't understand how the gas isn't an immediate cost of driving.
Because it's relatively minor, just like the time waiting for the train, and driving 18 stops before you get to where you are going. These things are designed to gauge immediate cost, not every little nitpick.... If you want to count gas, then you need to count wasted time. And I'm sorry there is absolutely no way that a 10-30 mile trip by transit is faster and more convenient than by car.
Have you ever driven to Yankee Stadium or Shea/Citifield? It's not fast or convenient.
It must be nice to live where you live. I always take transit to games because it's faster, cheaper and more convenient.
Again, this is for the stupid survey they did. All that matters is how much it costs to take the transit etc....Someone complained because "most people take transit so parking is a non-factor" and my point is how much does the transit costs? A round trip ticket for a random person. They have to either factor in parking or factor in a one way round trip transit ticket. Quibbling about the gas etc is kinda missing the point.
Nothing you said in the post I quoted was about money. It was entirely about speed and convenience.
And, as I said, transit is cheaper than driving. It beats driving in all three categories.
The Leafs made 80 million dollars last year and they suck. That's amazing to me.
Because it's relatively minor, just like the time waiting for the train, and driving 18 stops before you get to where you are going.
Cost of gas for a 30-mile round trip based on $4.00 gas prices and 20 MPG in traffic is $12.00. Cost of taking a family of four on the NYC subway is $18.00. They're both relatively minor and can be factored into the cost of getting to the game (including parking), which is highly variable and depends on the individual's situation (family size, distance to stadium, costs of owning a car, etc.).
For what it's worth, I'm going to the Mets game tonight and Google maps says it will take the same amount of time by car or mass transit in current traffic. Pretty sure at 6 p.m. it will be longer by car.
But my comment was a response to a comment about people taking public transportation and factoring in all the silly little bs other than what it costs out of the wallet on the day you go to the game. When people are talking about those type of expenses, most normal people (other words not the freaks on this board) don't care about the incidental costs. When they do these survey's they don't care about the incidental costs. It's all about what it costs out of your pocket on the day of the game.
Just because you don't doesn't mean most people don't.
Yes, exactly! And the subway fare is an incidental cost, just like gas and insurance! In fact, for many people there is no cost since they already have an unlimited transit pass. That was my point. You don't ride the subway so you don't know how most people think about it. They think about it the same way you think about driving your car to the game.
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