Preseason Tourney Gate Fee, What Gives?

Comment: I just wanted to comment on the cost of the gate fee last night.  $5 per person is insane.  I paid $20 for my family to watch our son play his games last night.  If he continues to win, that will be $100 for one week!  There are A LOT of families I heard complaining last night about this.  We have already paid registration fee, uniform fees and fundraiser.  Now, $100 to watch a week’s worth of baseball.  That is asinine.   I understand charging, but last year it was $3/adult and $1/student and senior citizens.  Now $5/person no matter age?  What gives?

Response: Thank you for your comment. We understand the costs associated with playing any sport or anything these days. Your assumption of paying gate every night is incorrect. The simple facts are we collected gate admission Monday and Wednesday nights only. So if your team played every night, 1 person would have paid $10 to watch a week of baseball. Divide $10 by 5 nights and you get $2 per night. Even if your team was eliminated after the first 2 nights a person only paid $2.50 per night. Actually cheaper than your stated last year costs.  Not to mention we lowered the team entry fee by $50-$75 depending on team age.  Add in that seniors were free and the over all combined team costs dropped even more.  Additionally, by collecting gate on fewer days we were able to save the cost of paying gate workers (for 3 days), relatively minimal savings but a savings to BAYB none the less.

So, what did we get from saving teams and parents money, a group of verbally abused 14 and 15 year old gate workers, one physically assaulted volunteer, and a lot of griping. The griping is expected given that 5 years ago the cost was $2 per day (same daily total as one would have paid today) and people still complained. The abusive language and assault we cannot and will not tolerate.

BAYB tries to assist the youth in our community in many ways other than just playing baseball. One such way is providing sources of income for teens. We respectfully request that you help us help our youth by recognizing their age and save negative comments and complaints for our adults. Please greet every child with a smile.

With all that said, we are not perfect. We will make mistakes I am sure. If we do something right please let us know that as well. Comments such as this help us improve our business processes and we thank you for taking the time to submit your comment via baybcomments@windstream.net .