Two New York Yankees fans made headlines last week after prying the ball out of the mitt of Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts during a World Series game. The pair were not only ejected from the game, but also banned from the following World Series match. This has sparked the question: Do expensive ticket prices affect sport fans’ behavior at games?
Over the years, there have been several questionable and rude incidents at sporting events, including heckling players or throwing items on team members. Some experts believe that this fan behavior correlates with the astronomically high ticket prices. Although it would seem that fans would want to control themselves to avoid being kicked out of a game after spending so much money on tickets, these prices could also lead to a sense of entitlement.
“People seem to feel like they have more license to act in a rude and disrespectful fashion,” Harvey Milman, professor emeritus of psychology at Metropolitan State University of Denver, told USA Today.
Daniel Wann, a psychology professor at Murray State University, echoed similar sentiments, noting that “we may have a new entry in the annals of fan behavior.” However, Wann explained that “we didn’t get here overnight.”
“You would think that if you’re going to pay all of that money, you wouldn’t want to do something that’s going to get you kicked out of the game,” Wann explained. “People don’t go to the games expecting to. Once you get in the environment and you get wrapped up with other fans, you’re not thinking about the ticket price. You’re thinking about the game on the line.”
Over the past year, ticket prices across both sporting and entertainment industries have taken a turn for the worst. According to CNN, ticket prices to sporting events increased by a whopping 15% from December the previous year. In terms of baseball, tickets increased across MLB by 3.5% last year. The increase of prices is largely due to Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s infamous dynamic pricing system, which sees prices increase based on demand.
