Venue Detail
New York Yankees
Revenues From Sports Venues Pro Facilities Report
February, 2011
New York Yankees
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1 E 161st St Bronx, NY 10451 Phone: 718-293-4300 Fax: 718-293-8431 URL: www.yankees.com
Owner
George Steinbrenner
League
Major League Baseball American League, Eastern
Venue
Yankee Stadium, 1 E 161st St, New York, NY 10451 Owner: City of New York Managed by: Team Built: 2009 Capacity: 57,545 Permanent concession stands: 304 Concessionaire: Legends Hospitality Management Suite caterer: Legends Hospitality Management Soft drink: Pepsi Cola
Ticket prices
Season tickets range from $1,215 to $21,060 Single tickets range from $12.00 to $400.00
Attendance
2007 average attendance: 52,739 2008 average attendance: 53,070 2009 average attendance: 45,918
Luxury Suites
Quantity: 47 Term: 5 to 10 years Price: $600,000 to $850,000 Seats: 16 to 22
Club seats
Quantity: 4,374 Term: 3 to 10 years Price: $8,100 to $202,500
Financing
Under the financing plan for the ballpark, the Yankees will pay for the construction through $930 million in bonds issued by the city, of which $860 million will be tax-exempt. Taxpayers will also bear some of the costs because the team will pay back the bonds through payments in lieu of taxes to the city.
The city would spend at least $138 million to demolish the old ballpark, create new parkland to replace the 22 acres being used for the stadium and to make improvements to other nearby parks. The state's share would be $70 million of the $320 million cost of building four parking garages that could be used by local residents throughout the year; the remainder would come from private developers.
The Yankees agreed to contribute $50 million over 20 years to underwrite programs for Bronx community groups. That will include $800,000 a year in grants for the groups, $100,000 a year in sports equipments, and 15,000 tickets a year to Yankee home games.
The Yankees’s new ballpark was built across the street from historic Yankee Stadium. The team funded the ballpark with financing help from the city’s Industrial Development Agency. The team gets breaks on energy and property taxes and mortgage recording expenses.
The new Yankees venue includes five levels with about 53,000 seats, standing room for 1,000 and 60 luxury suites.
The Yankees were spurred to build by changes in league rules that require the team to share its profits with other franchises. The Yankees are the most profitable team in the league and have paid out $60 million a year to other teams.
By financing a new ballpark, the team will be able to put $40 million toward the debt and reduce the money it gives to the league. The action allows the Yankees to put the money toward their own product rather than strengthening their competition.
Baseball's 2002 collective bargaining agreement permits teams to deduct stadium debt service and construction costs when calculating revenue sharing.
Bottom line? Baseball's 29 other teams will effectively bear a third of the cost of the Yankees' new ballpark.
Already the most valuable team in baseball, the New York Yankees will tap a whole new revenue gold mine when the ballpark opens.
A window opened into the normally secretive world of Yankees finance through a bond prospectus that provides a rare, if partial, look at the Yankees' stadium revenues.
From 1997 to 2005, growth in ballpark revenue far outpaced the rise in attendance. Annual attendance rose 58 percent, from 2.6 million to 4.1 million, whereas ticket and luxury-suite revenue soared 202 percent, from $52 million in 1997 to $157 million in 2005.
The new ballpark will boast more than three times as many luxury suites as the old, and as a result, ticket and suite revenues are projected to soar to $253 million when the new ballpark opens in 2009.
They will probably be much higher. The $253 million figure in the prospectus assumes attendance in 2009 of 3.4 million, which is the equivalent of 79 percent of the new ballpark's 53,000-person capacity over 81 regular season home games. Given that the Yankees sold 90 percent of their tickets in 2006, 88 percent in 2005, and were on pace for another 90 percent showing in 2007, ticket sales aren’t expected to sag.
And the ticket and suite figures don't include two other sources of revenue – concessions and sponsorships – that Yankees president Randy Levine expects will get a boost from the new ballpark.
The Yankees' previous concessionaire, Centerplate Inc., obtained 9.6 percent of its 2006 sales – the equivalent of $62 million – from its contract with the Yankees, according to SEC filings.
The Yankees formed a new concession firm with the Dallas Cowboys for the new venue. The team could conceivably net $30 million annually on gross concession sales of $100 million, estimates former Yankees marketing director Joseph Perello.
According to the bond prospectus, the team's lease with New York City (which will own the new ballpark) stipulates that the Yankees keep “all cash and receivables” related to naming rights and advertising and specifically raises the possibility of the Yankees' selling naming rights “for parts of the stadium.” In other words, fans may enter a building called Yankee Stadium but find themselves sitting in the Bank of America bleachers or purchasing snacks at the Pfizer food court.
Perello, now a sports consultant, thinks the Yanks could collect $50 million to $75 million a year in sponsorship money this way. (Baseball, Facilities, Financial, MLBVenueReport, Professional Sports)