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Chicago Blackhawks Ticket Prices Keep Rising, Are They Getting Too Expensive?

By Keith Schultz

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The Chicago Blackhawks announced that their ticket prices would be going up again next year for season ticket holders by 8 percent over this season’s prices.  Here is a graph of the ticket price increases included in a graph on a Chicago Sun-Times reporter Mark Lazerus tweet.

As you can see it’s not getting any cheaper to go see your favorite hockey team at the United Center.  There of course is a couple ways to look at it so let’s dig into the numbers.

First of all let’s look at why the prices are going up.  It’s the price of doing business at the highest level Period!  The Blackhawks have built a great franchise and great franchises have great players and those players have to get paid.  The price of a great franchise is that the two main superstars are about to get hefty pay raises next season and both will be making over $10 million dollars a season.   To put a quality product on the ice does cost money something Rocky Wirtz Dad was afraid to do but was always concerned about the bottom line.

The other thing to look at and really is key to the ticket increases is that the Hawks increased prices last season and had a 99 percent renewal rate.  Their is a waiting list to get season tickets so just natural supply and demand says if there is demand and no supply prices will rise, so there should be now surprise that price increases will continue year after year.

The downfall of the price increases is two-fold for me.  First off, what was the point of the lockout and not just the last one any of them? Salaries keep going up, ticket prices keep going up and it gets more and more expensive in a league that still trails all of the other major sports leagues.  The NHL is two years removed from the lockout and nothing really has changed except for the length of contracts while not making attending games wallet friendly for the average fan.

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Lastly, it makes it almost impossible for blue collar working families to attend games comfortably.  Sure you can save up and go to a game but personally I took my family of 6 to games in 08, 09, 11 for less than $50 sure the seats were nosebleeds but watching hockey high in the rink is just fine with me.  Now this season on Stubhub the cheapest ticket to see the Hawks in Nashville was $54 which meant as much fun as it is to take the whole family to a game it just wasn’t happening.

It’s a double-edged sword when you look at it, do you want a great team or do you want affordable prices and in the current era of Chicago Blackhawks greateness price increases have just only begun at the United Center.

What do you think?

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