Colts Jack Cheap Ticket Prices 42%

The people holding the cheapest tickets in Lucas Oil Stadium are being slammed with a 42% hike in their ticket prices from $24 to $34 according to the Star's Philip Wilson. Ticket holders in other sections currently paying $64 a ticket will see their prices hiked to $74. The affected ticket-holders represents 10% of the stadium's capacity. When CIB leaders announced the construction of the much larger stadium, they boasted about the significant number of cheap tickets that would be offered by the Colts to allow lower and middle income residents to attend the games. There has been recent backroom deal-making talk between the City of Indianapolis and Sen. Luke Kenley (R-Noblesville) considering the imposition of a ticket tax on Colts and Pacers games. This move almost seems intended to thwart those efforts. Kenley says he considers a tax on ticket-holders and stadium concessionaires as a way that Colts owner Jim Irsay and the Simons can get some skin in efforts to bail out the CIB's $50 million annual operating budget shortfall.

Blogger Paul Ogden contrasts the Colts' decision to raise tickets with Tony George's decision to cut ticket prices for some Brickyard tickets by 40% from $75 to $40. The Hulman Family has never asked the public to pay one subsidy to their world famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a sports venue whose economic impact on the area economy dwarfs the contribution from the Pacers and the Colts. Indianapolis and state taxpayers have spent billions over the past 20 years subsidizing the two professional sports franchises owned by two of the state's wealthiest citizens, billionaire Jim Irsay, an admitted pill-popper, and billionaires Mel and Herb Simon. "Based on the current economic challenges and the tire issue from last year, we wanted to reach out to our fans and let them know we care," Joie Chitwood (IMS spokesperson) said. The Star's Steve Ballard notes that ticket prices at the Daytona 500 have also been slashed to move tickets to the NASCAR opening race event that historically has always been sold out.