Minor League baseball, Major League prices at Wichita’s Riverfront Stadium
.jpg "Matt Canterino was the opening night starter for the Wichita Wind Surge and a top prospect for the Minnesota Twins.")
As a baseball fan, there’s very little that gets my blood pumping faster than the start of a new season.
Other than manning second base myself, there’s no place I’d rather be right now than in the stands, in the sunshine, with a roaring crowd cheering a walk-off homer or game-saving double play.
But the way the home team is doing business these days is making it hard to root, root, root for them.
Somewhere along the road to $15 tickets that you can’t buy with a $20 bill, the Wichita Wind Surge has lost its way.
And they better find it, pronto, before we end up with an empty stadium.
Like many in this community, I was elated when Wichita returned to the world of Major League-affiliated baseball. It had been a long time since the Wichita Wranglers left us for Arkansas in 2007.
But I, and apparently lots of others, are less than elated by what it costs to go to a game.
Yes, you can view the action from a grassy knoll in the outfield for $10, $8 for the little ones.
If you want an actual seat in the park, all tickets are $15 face value.
But that’s not what you’ll actually pay.
On top of that is sales tax ($1.13) and CID tax, (30 cents). Those moneys go toward the $75 million taxpayers are spending to pay back the municipal debt to build Riverfront Stadium.
Then there’s a $4 “ticket fee.”
I originally wrote that off as an Internet service charge, which is common when buying tickets to anything online. But I later found out that a ticket at the walk-up window on game day is $19, so it appears you pay the extra $4 either way.
The most galling charge is that the team also levies an extra 8% on all tickets, concessions and merchandise called the “ballpark development fee.”
It has nothing to do with developing the ballpark and goes straight to the Wind Surge’s bottom line.
When the city made the deal to lure the team here from New Orleans, it gave the owners 4.5 acres of prime riverfront land for a dollar an acre to build a “baseball village.”
Jordan Kobritz, the team CEO, has said the ballpark development fee will partially offset those development costs, meaning part of your ticket will pay to build someone else’s restaurants and bars.
At $21.63 actual per ticket, a family of four would spend $86.52, just on seats.
Some people here can afford that kind of outlay on a regular basis. Most can’t.
Contrast that with the Arkansas Travelers in North Little Rock. You can get seats in their park for $9 reserved or $7 in the bleachers.
Most of us can swing $28 to $36 for a family outing, with a little left over for peanuts and Cracker Jacks.
Actually, if you were in Minneapolis, you could go see the Wind Surge’s MLB parent team, the Minnesota Twins, for less than the Wind Surge.
A ticket to watch the Twins play the Los Angeles Dodgers this week, walk-up, was $14 out the box office window, tax included.
Cheaper seats at the Twins’ Target Field include outfield bleachers as well as the upper deck, and I’ve spent many enjoyable afternoons and evenings with family and friends in such seats.
At Target Field, you can get a $15 seat in the family section with a free hotdog and soft drink included. For the first week of the season, you could buy an upper-deck ticket to any Twins midweek game all season for $4.
Obviously, prime tickets to the Twins are more expensive. That’s how it is at every park I’ve ever been to except Wichita Riverfront.
If you can afford great seats, I’m happy for you and have at it.
But when prices exclude large families and those of more modest means, that means our city-financed and city-owned ballpark isn’t doing its job.
On Sunday of the Wind Surge opening weekend, about as nice a weather day as we get for baseball, official attendance in our 12,000-capacity stadium was 2,721.
That’s embarrassing and continues a Wind Surge experiment that so far has seen more strikeouts than earned runs.
When the team left New Orleans, it was Triple-A, one step short of the majors. A realignment of baseball’s farm system dropped Wichita to Double-A status.
What was supposed to be the inaugural season in 2020 was canceled by COVID-19.
And Lou Schwechheimer, a gregarious baseball visionary who brought the team here and was well-liked by all, died from COVID, leaving the operation in the hands of investment managers.
Even the name Wind Surge isn’t well liked, although it did launch a lot of flatulence jokes.
Ask yourself, how many times have you seen someone in a Wind Surge T-shirt who wasn’t specifically going to or from the ball park?
What the front office doesn’t seem to understand is something that Schwechheimer knew instinctively: Baseball is not just another product to be sold.
When done right, it’s a deep bond, a mutually beneficial give-and-take relationship between a team and a town.
Build that and they will come.
This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
CORRECTION: This story has been changed from an earlier version to correct where the Wichita Wranglers went when they left Wichita and to provide additional information on prices at Twins games.
