For Those Who Can Afford It, Yankees Sell Tickets for $2,500

March 25, 2008— -- Here's the pitch: You pay the Yankees $2,500. They give you one of the choicest seats in their new ballpark, right behind home plate, plus waiter services, free parking, free food and access to three private clubs.

Beginning in 2009, when the New York Yankees open their new $1.3 billion stadium, some 1,800 very rich, very lucky people will be within spitting distance of Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.

The tickets, some of the priciest in all of sports, indicate for some a trend in skyrocketing prices that keep families and working class people from enjoying a game in New York. The Yankees, however, insist that the suites (there are two other less expensive luxury areas) encompass just 4,000 of the new ballpark's 47,000 seats.

Ticket prices in the new stadium's grandstand and bleachers will cost the same as they do now, said Lonn Trost, the Yankees' chief operating officer.

The maximum face value price for a luxury suite seat is now $1,000 in the Legends section.

In Philadelphia, fans can buy a seat in the Philly Diamond Club, getting comparable services, for $75 a ticket.

Twenty years ago, a box seat in Yankees stadium cost just $10.

"Some people can afford to fly first class and others can't," said Trost, who added that the Yankees had enough affordable seating that families would not be priced out of attending games. "This is about providing luxury. It is an additional experience."

"There will be 47,000 regular seats, 50 percent of which won't have a price increase." he said. "Eighty-eight percent of those will be less than $100."

The new stadium will have bleacher seating for 5,000 people at $12 a seat, and grandstand seating for between $20 and $25.

Fans have long worried that increasing ticket prices, combined with travel expenses and concession costs, have made a day at Yankees Stadium prohibitively expensive for families.

"A decent seat in the upper deck near the front runs about $65," said Steve Klein, 28, a lifelong Yankees fan and New Yorker. "If a father wants to take his family from just a few miles upstate, he is first going to have to pay $14 for train tickets for his kids both ways. It might cost $200 bucks just to get back and forth from the stadium. Then he has to pay $400 for O.K. seats. It is difficult to get out there paying less than $50 for food — and for the love of God, don't even think about walking into the gift shop."