Fungible Convictions

The last few days I, and a good chunk of my colleagues, and my wife, and my wife’s colleagues, have been at the Media in Transition conference at MIT. There’s lots available online now about the conference proceedings, including podcasts that I’ve posted at the CMS website, but right now I want to pass on a thought I had at the conference while in the hard-core thinking mode at the same time that I passed a TV with the Sox/Yankees game on…

The new Yankee Stadium is getting slammed for its field-level luxury seating, which in this economy is ridiculously overpriced and is thus largely empty:

What I’m wondering is, why hasn’t sports adopted an adjustable pricing system for their seats? There’s the now relatively common model of eBay-style auctioning—that seems like a no-brainer and could be easily implemented for buying those seats online.

But for the Yankees’ situation, and really for any event that’s running a risk of not getting a butt in every seat, what about a physical, in-person auction at the stadium ticket booths?

Here’s what I imagine…

Some of those empty seats at Yankee Stadium cost $2500. On gameday, the Yankees organization knows those seats will stay empty. So outside the stadium before the game, they should set up parallel lines based on how much people would be willing to pay for those seats.

Line 1: $2000
Line 2: $1500
Line 3: $1000
Line 4: $500
Line 5: $100

People then queue up half an hour before the game. Whoever is willing to pay the most—those in Line 1–get first dibs. Anyone who thinks, “Psh, I’ll just lowball the Yankees and stand in Line 5″ runs the risk of losing available seats to people who go ahead and pay more.

This system would also encourage people to pay what they’re really willing to pay—because it’s a line. Changing one’s mind would mean going to the back of another line.

I see this as a fair, progressive way to sell seats that would otherwise remain empty due to overpricing.

Between 2001 and 2004, Americans under 44 saw their wages drop 8-9 percent. This according to the Christian Science Monitor in its article “America’s younger workers losing ground on income. ” Even more frustrating for my generation, wages increased for those older than 44.

Additionally, Americans spent more than they earned in January, the eighth month we’ve outspent our earnings in the last ten.

Let’s add onto that that my generation necessarily carries more debt than any generation before it, largely due to the cost of higher education. Let’s also throw in the fact that a higher percentage of people worldwide are receiving degrees than ever before, making the job market more competitive than ever.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to provide the same quality of life for my kids than my parents gave mine. I’ll be paying my own student loans for years, I have a mortgage that in adjusted dollars buys me less space than it would have ten years ago, I’m paid less than many of my peers by virtue of being in the book industry, my generation will have to pay for the retirement (and health costs) of baby boomers at a moment in history that we’re a few breakthroughs away from extending life another ten or twenty years.

But right now, as in, the present, we can’t complain too much. Even on my pitance of a salary, I have good benefits, enjoy Netflix, get dependable heating in the winter, and can travel a bit. And I think other yuppies my age could say the same.

But, man, those numbers are still worrying. I knew hourly wages had been dropping over the last decade, but really—the average American isn’t saving any money month to month? And my parents’ pay is going up while mine is going down? Is it because they are, in a sense, “rarer” because of their experience or unoutsourceablity? Or are there so many boomers in leadership positions now that they’re effectively funneling an increasing amount of money to them at the expense of me and my peers?

Oy. Is this what the 1970′s felt like? Economic insecurity. Constant bad news from around the world. Cynicism. A feeling that we’ve abdicated the throne of exceptionalism—Nixon then, Abu Ghraib now.

What’s going to be our Lake Placid Olympics? Who will perform our Miracle on Ice? Where’s my Mike Eruzione?