You have lots of choices at Target Field

Gonna buy tickets to the Twins’ new ballpark? Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to plan:

The old Metrodome may have had questionable sightlines, but at least the ticket pricing was simple. The new Target Field, meanwhile, has 120 single-game ticket variations--more than five times what was available in the old park. The Twins aren’t alone--the New York Mets and Florida Marlins both offer more than 100 choices.

The choices come from the facts that rather than be limited to the bleachers vs. the box seats, you can now choose to sit in the Gold Bond Medicated Powder Loge, the Planters Corn Nuts Reserved Boxes, or any other number of sponsored (or not) sub-sections in a given ballpark. And the prices of those seats can be one thing on a Wednesday night and something altogether different on Saturday. And of course, if the Yankees are in town you can expect to pay more than you would if the Royals are visiting. With X number of potential seats times Y number of days of the week times Z number of opponents, and I’m not at all surprised that there are 120 different variations.

But it makes a lot of sense. Some tickets are hotter than others. The way the prices and the options vary on the secondary market reflect this. Sure, it may be potentially-aggravating to try and find the cheapest possible seats, but as long as teams aren’t being deceptive in their pricing practices, I have no problem with them creating dozens if not scores of pricing tiers based on how great or how little demand there is for given seat at a given game. To do otherwise would be to throw money away.

But yes, it does seem kind of silly at first blush. Indeed, when I read the article I was instantly I’m reminded of this old gem.