The Price Of Santana Tickets

When I was 17 I saw Carlos Santana play at the Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua, New York on a warm summer night. It is arguably the greatest concert I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few; it was the best three-and-a-half hour musical investment of my young life. I don't remember how much the tickets cost, but I want to say it was somewhere around ten bucks for general admission.

Vince Gennaro writes about the price of seeing Johan Santana on your roster from a Major League Baseball owner's perspective. It is arguably the least interesting way to spend ten minutes of your life, unless you are an sports economics major. Actually, you will probably finish the article faster than I did since I fell asleep part way through and had to start over. Twice.

I know now I am in no way qualified to handle anyone's money, and have no interest in doing so whatsoever. Also, I learned that by signing Santana, Gennaro thinks the Yankees would possibly be good for 98 wins. I think. Graphs are pretty. Now pardon me while I pop in my copy of Caravanserai and curl up on the couch.

Comments

[sf rod]

ahhh canandaigua, home of cisco and wild irish rose. good times indeed....for bum wine connoisseurs. could this have anything to do with the haziness of your concert memories?

[attackgerbil]

It was 1986 I think. I was a pretty straight kid, didn't drink much at all. When we did, all _I_ could afford was the cheap(est) beer (by a very liberal definition was that swill called beer), and I didn't know any better anyway. The drummer in our band was younger than me but looked like he was 27. Furry beast. We would pool our money, send Greg to the store, and go all out on the fine drinking experience that is a case of Milwaukee's Beast. Or Genny Screamers. Whatever was on sale. Praise the Beast.

For that show, I went with Danny (my baseball buddy and lead guitarist in our band), his siblings and his parents (his family were some of the nicest, welcoming people) and I was completely sober. Danny and his pop thought Carlos a god, as did (do) I. Stunning concert.

Carlos got pissed at security, because they kept making people in reserved seating under the shell sit down when they tried to dance. About an hour-and-a-half in, security was man-handling this guy that was dancing in the aisle. He stopped mid-song and said, "Hey, you work for me. Let him go."

He then waved his arm to the people up on the slope of the amphitheater, inviting everyone inside. The band played for another two hours straight, no breaks. Everyone was on their feet, dancing for the rest of the show, pressing towards the front. AWESOME concert.

[walein]

What Vince Gennaro said.
I'd like to see him do the economics on Japanese players and the potential revenue someone like Matsui and Dice-K generate.

[Hudson]

Weird... What happened to the "Santana: Worth It Financially?" item? Did it get deleted and replaced with this one? I posted a pretty long comment on that.

[Tom sf]

Ahh, Caravanserai, now THAT is Sanatana! I saw Carlos 3 times, twice in the early '80, once was at some hockey facility on Cape Cod. Al DiMeola was the opening act.

[Paul SF]

Oops, sorry, Hudson. I posted that and didn't realize AG had beaten me to the punch, so I hurried and deleted it without realizing anyone had commented already...

The gist of my point in that post was that I hope the Mets cough up the prospects and make everyone happy, especially after I've started watching the 2007 World Series box set and fallen in love with the play of Jacoby Ellsbury all over again...

[walein]

I thought 2007 was a strike year.

[Paul SF]

I thought 2007 was a strike year.

So that's what happened to the Yankee pitchers!

[Hudson]

Well, I can't regurgitate the whole lost post, but basically I was arguing that Gennaro had undervalued the financial benefits of winning a World Series (as opposed to a more narrow stat analysis), especially to the Yankees franchise which is in a relative drought.

Santana's value should be assessed less in terms of $$$ per K and the like, and more in terms of how much he can do to put a team like the Yankees, which has been contending but not going all the way, in a position to win it all -- which has tremendous immediate and long-term financial benefits, especially to a fan/advertising base which expects Gold medals, not Silvers and Bronzes.

[Paul SF]

I agree on that note. Gennaro seems to focus on the micro at the expense of the macro. How much does a World Series win add to the value of a team? Does anyone doubt the Red Sox are worth far more than the $700 million the Henry group bought the club for in 2001 -- thanks mostly to the two Series titles? 2004 made the Sox at least a $1 billion franchise. 2007 added at least several hundred million to the cost. If the Sox were to create a dynasty (something a Santana acquisition certainly makes a reasonable possibility) from 2007-10, it seems the $150 million Santana might cost on the high end would be recouped by the ownership if and when they decide to resell the team...

[A YF]

A team is worth whatever someone would pay for it. Still, I don't think winning one or two WS makes the Sox worth $1B or more. The simple reason is that there's no way their revenues increased by all that much to support that kind of valuation. I bet they're turning a profit, but it's in the $10 to $30 million range a year. It's not like they're selling more tickets and with no new stadium on the horizon, revenues aren't likely to grow much more. No doubt it's a money-making operation, but I can't see how that increases the value by $300 million or more in six years.

The Sox are run by very smart economics guys first (even as Dice-K didn't bring back the windfall that was projected). If Santana was going to add hundreds of millions to the bottom line, they would have already made the deal.