America wrote:
Sox have been doing something like this for a number of years. Its called the ballpark pass. I used it the year they debuted it and it was OK.
This Cardinals "$30 subscription" is really a $180 per person ticket plan for SRO. So even if the Cardinals are good and you make it to all 81 games you're still paying $2.25 per. If you make it to more realistic but still pretty high number of games, lets say 30, its $6. That's one dollar less than you can get just impulsively buying an upper deck seat at Guaranteed Rate 30 minutes before first pitch. And you get a seat. And most of the time that $7 is basically GA and you can sit anywhere you really want. Worth the extra dollar imo.
What the Cardinals are probably banking on is a bunch of people being lured in by the installment/subscription nature of the plan "just a dollar a day!" and they use it like crazy in April and May, when even the Cardinals have some trouble drawing sometimes, before kind of forgetting about it or burning out by the busy summer. I'm guessing the average number of visits per holder will be something like 10, which averages out to a cost per use more than the cheapest seat at Busch. And even for the heavy users it'll still get them out to that ballpark village thing which will probably make more money than god.
So yea, long story short if I'm paying $180 for a ticket plan from the Sox I want at least 8 games with good seats for good opponents in July/Aug when the threat of a 40 degree near-rainout is near zero. If the Sox wanted to do some sort of subscription plan that offered maybe 5-10 games a month, an MLB.tv subscription and some perks/gear then I'd be interested.
No one is paying $29.99 for a monthly subscription to the Sox. The Cardinals are actually good. But the concept is what they need. Most people would rather get drunk at the bars in the park anyways.
Sox would need to charge maybe $14.99 or $19.99. Something like that.