I'm a huge sports fan, but after my experience of completely ignoring the Summer Olympics this year and realizing that I missed absolutely nothing, I decided to rethink my Major League Soccer season tickets. These are tickets I've had for years now and it's always been something really fun, but I did a cost/benefit analysis and it doesn't really pass muster.
1.) The expense isn't as bad as other pro sports season tickets ($675/season in good seats), but due to lack of a resale market I could only resell missed games for at most 1/2 the face value of the ticket.
2.) Every time I went to a game, I had to pay $10/park.
3.) Game times were always around mealtime, so I usually ended up eating fast food outside the stadium or eating at the stadium pub before games. $15-$40/game and it wasn't good for my health.
4.) The stadium is far enough away that I needed to drive to get to games plus pay a highway toll to get there. Cost: $4.00/game
5.) Issues with traffic management after games made me get home late at night after weekday games, so I would end up feeling really tired at work the next day. Lost productivity = $ Who Knows But A Lot.
6.) I learned from a reliable source that the players were referring to the fans as "Trekkies" due to their devotion and stats-knowledge. Made me realize the players are just your typical jocks and I'm basically paying them to have gym class and sleep with models. Realization = Priceless.
So with conservative math, I'm looking at savings of at least $1300/season. That's a decent amount of money to add to the stash.
If I really feel the need to watch other people play soccer, I can just subscribe to the league's online streaming package, which would cost about 5% of what I'm currently paying to go to games. Isn't personal financial growth fun?
