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What's the item?

Sports ticket prices

How has the price changed over the past two decades?

Prices have more than doubled since the Labor Department started tracking sports ticket prices in 1999.

Why have prices gone up?

Because as every sports star from LeBron James to Carmelo Anthony has said, "It's a business."
Costs, including athlete salaries, have surged. But there are three main reasons why teams are hiking ticket prices:

First, they would rather sell fewer seats at higher prices, than more seats at a lower price. It's similar to how airlines often make more money from their Business Class section rather than from selling lots of seats in Economy.

In addition, dynamic pricing — or adjusting prices based on demand — has allowed teams to wring out more money per ticket.

And then, there's this: Teams are offering more premium experiences — meaning swanky club areas and plush seats — because those seats allow them to charge higher prices.

All these dynamics are familiar to Bob Hinz. He's been a fan of the Baltimore Orioles for just about as long as he can remember.

He has many fond memories of the team and of Camden Yards, a ballpark that was kind of revolutionary when it was unveiled in 1992, with its retro design and old-school charm.

Hinz and his wife at the field in Camden Yards.

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Bob Hinz

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And Camden Yards largely retained that identity over the years. Unlike other, more modern ballparks, Camden doesn't have ginormous seats behind home plate — or servers to bring cold beers to fans at their seats.

Want a hot dog? You walk up the stairs for one — just like everybody else.

"Baltimore is a blue collar town," Hinz says. "Always has been and always will be."

Tickets have been affordable enough for Hinz to remain a season ticket holder for about two decades, even through seasons when the team was pretty bad.

But Hinz was shocked when he got his renewal notice for next year. The Orioles, which were bought recently by an ownership group led by financier David Rubenstein , had introduced a major revamp to their season ticket offerings, leading to bigger — and more expensive — packages.

Hinz was floored. He and his wife bought seats for 13 games — at a cost of about $1,400 this past season. To retain their seats, the Orioles were now requiring them to sign up for a 20-game package.

"I looked at it as a per-game price," Hinz says. "And the per game price was up 35% from the prior year."

(Full disclosure here, this NPR reporter is an Orioles season ticket holder who got the same message.)

"It's a business"

Many fans reacted with outrage on social media .

In a statement to NPR, the team says the actions are intended "to deliver more tailored benefits," as well as "greater flexibility, in a simpler benefit program providing the best possible experience."

"These changes were made to ensure our Members were getting the best value for their investment," the Orioles added.

The Babe Ruth statue outside Camden Yards in Baltimore, Md., on April 7, 2023.

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Rob Carr

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Getty Images

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And the team says its new season ticket options of 20-game, 40-game and full-season memberships are intended to align with 27 other Major League Baseball teams.

Hinz, an accountant, gets it. Like other Orioles fans who spoke to NPR, Hinz says, "It's a business."

Nonetheless, he was surprised.

"It really didn't matter ... what kind of fan I was or how long a fan I was," he says. "It's just, this is the price and that's it."

Understanding sports economics

For Victor Matheson, a professor at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts who's an expert on sports economics, actions like the ones the Orioles are taking make complete sense from a business perspective.

Across pro sports, Matheson says, teams are making the determination that "they can make more money selling fewer, more expensive tickets rather than lots of cheap seats."

One way Matheson says teams are doing that is by replacing aging stadiums with nicer ones that have fewer seats, with the aim of raising more money per ticket sold.

Teams are also widely adopting dynamic pricing, or adjusting prices based on demand. They can do that because teams are now able to leverage technology to gather as much information as they can on their fans — and their ability to pay.

And then there's one of the biggest reasons of all: Teams are increasingly focusing on selling premium seats and what they label as premium experiences. That could mean special club areas or, during certain times in NFL games, the opportunity to stand on the sidelines.

"You concentrate your efforts on, you know, finding those super premium experiences for a small number rather than maximizing the total number of bodies you get through the gates," Matheson says.

The cost of enhancing the fan experience

In Baltimore, the Orioles are adapting to what they believe will be a better — and nicer — future.

For example, as part of a $600 million funding from Maryland taxpayers, the team is undertaking major renovations of Camden Yards, including a bigger scoreboard.

But it is also using some of the money to build a "premium club." A video rendering on the team's website shows a luxurious setting, with its own entrance and tables and bartenders pouring wine. The team told NPR the club is intended to provide "a more elevated club experience" where members "can entertain clients and friends."

The team also says it wants "to welcome fans who are looking for different experiences," including the recent introduction of a "Bird Bath Splash Zone" section — where fans get soaked with a hose during periods of the game.

On one level, Hinz understands. But he never realized how much that Orioles future would cost him as a loyal fan.

"It just felt a little like I'm just another number, and that's all that really matters to them," Hinz says.

So he and wife thought long and hard. The fan in him wanted to renew again. He still remembers how, as a kid, "there was a certain prestige associated with being a season ticket holder."

But the accountant in him knew.

"My wife and I, we need to do what makes sense for us," he says.

And then Hinz sighed. After more that 20 years, he's giving up his beloved tickets.

He'll always love the Orioles. But as they say in sports, at the end of the day, it's a business.
Copyright 2025 NPR

The Department of Justice on Thursday joined a lawsuit to block new congressional district lines approved by California voters last week through Proposition 50 .

Gov. Gavin Newsom championed the congressional maps as an attempt to help Democrats win more seats in the House of Representatives, countering Republican-led gerrymandering in states such as Texas. But California Republicans argued in a suit filed last week that the maps unfairly advantage Latino voters over other Californians.

The Trump administration joined that lawsuit, asking a judge in the Central District of California to block the new map from taking effect for the 2026 midterm elections.

“California Democrats are openly gerrymandering by race in this case,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media platform X. “That’s immoral and illegal.”

Proposition 50 was overwhelmingly approved last week, winning support from 64% of voters. The measure sets aside political lines drawn by an independent citizens commission and enacts a map that could help Democrats flip up to five seats currently held by Republicans — and protect a handful of incumbent Democrats from competitive challenges.

The measure’s passage was a political win for Newsom and Democrats in the midst of a nationwide fight over political maps. New district lines in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina could net Republicans a handful of additional seats, while states including Virginia, Indiana and Florida are considering their redistricting plans.

The lawsuit against the Proposition 50 map argues the new lines were designed to maximize the voting power of Latino residents, thereby violating the equal protection and voting rights of non-Latino voters. The DOJ argues that it is not necessary to draw districts where a majority of voters are Latino because white California voters often prefer candidates of various races and ethnicities.

“Recent elections show that Hispanics have not struggled to elect politicians of their choice in California,” the complaint said. “That is because results in California are largely driven by party-bloc voting, not race-bloc voting.”

An analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the Proposition 50 map has the same number of majority-Latino districts (16) as the maps enacted by the independent commission in 2021, which have been used in the last two congressional elections.

While the lawsuit quotes supporters of Proposition 50 touting the Latino-majority districts, Newsom and Democratic leaders in the state Legislature argued throughout the campaign that the purpose of the maps was explicitly partisan: to help Democrats retake the House. That could help the state thwart a challenge under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

“These losers lost at the ballot box and soon they will also lose in court,” said Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Newsom, in a statement.

The passage of Proposition 50 has scrambled the electoral playing field ahead of California’s June primary. Sonoma State University professor David McCuan said the measure could face more legal challenges from Republicans facing political headwinds.

“You could see half a dozen to a dozen [lawsuits] … challenging both the process of how Prop. 50 got to the ballot and the constitutional legal questions related to Proposition 50 itself,” he said.

There’s a parking lot in the city of Los Angeles lined with plywood platforms where unhoused people can set up tents and access meals, bathrooms and other services — all at taxpayers’ expense.

The Lincoln Safe Sleep Village in South L.A. opened in 2022 and is one of only a handful of similar encampments around the state. Public records show it was contracted to provide space for up to 88 residents last fiscal year.

But two observers who made separate visits to the location during that time — one of them a commissioner with the governing body that oversees the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the other a “special master” appointed by a federal judge — found the site was operating at half capacity.

Still, LAHSA paid a nonprofit organization $2.3 million to operate the site — with 88 spots.

A federal judge this week described the situation as “obvious fraud.”

The nonprofit that runs the site, San Francisco-based Urban Alchemy, told LAist it reduced the site’s capacity by half in April 2024 at the request of L.A. city officials and LAHSA. The homeless services agency did not update its funding formula for the site until more than a year later.

LAHSA records show Urban Alchemy was paid in full.

The situation has emerged at a time when LAHSA is under intense scrutiny for failing to properly manage hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with service providers, and the city of L.A. remains under a court order to provide more shelter for the city’s unhoused residents.

Federal court scrutiny

During a sometimes tense federal court hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter described the situation at the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village as "obvious fraud." The hearing was the latest in a series of court appearances stemming from a settlement between the city of L.A. and a group of downtown business and property owners known as the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights.

The judge has been overseeing the settlement, specifically the city’s progress in meeting obligations to provide housing and shelter for unhoused people. The agreement requires the city to open nearly 13,000 new shelter beds by next year.

According to testimony on Wednesday, Michele Martinez — the special master Carter appointed to help enforce the terms of the settlement — visited the Safe Sleep Village on June 9. She tried to verify the number of beds available at the site with city officials, but did not get an answer, Carter said.

Three weeks later, the city responded by questioning whether Martinez’s inquiry was proper.

In a June 30 email, L.A. Deputy City Attorney Jessica Mariani argued that Martinez had “no authority or basis to review or provide any assessments.” However, the Mariani added, the city was still looking into Martinez’ questions about the safe sleep site.

Carter questioned Mariani during the hearing, noting that the city (through LAHSA) continued to pay full amounts for more than 80 spots at the site and tell the court those spots existed, even though at least half appeared to not be available at the time.

"Is the City's position when the Special Master notes obvious fraud and that the documents don't match, that you are bringing forth to this Court that Ms. Martinez should disregard that and not report this to the Court when you try to curtail her monitoring activities?” the judge said, according to a transcript of the proceedings .

Carter described the city’s actions as potentially “contemptuous.”

LAist reached out to Mariani and the City Attorney’s Office, but has not yet received a response.

Weeks before the special master’s visit to the site, LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa stopped by the South L.A. campground. The 10-member LAHSA Commission makes policy and funding decisions for the regional homelessness agency.

Szlasa said later that he noticed during his visit that half of the campground was closed down. He said budget documents sent to him for approval described the site as a “low-cost, high-impact” program serving 88 people.

“We at LAHSA must ensure that we receive what we are contracting for,” Szlasa wrote in a social media post describing his findings.

He filed a public records request with LAHSA to obtain the contracts and payment details for the Urban Alchemy campground.

“I want to understand, first and foremost, why this was misrepresented to the Commission,” Szlasa said. “Then I want to understand if Urban Alchemy was actually in compliance with the contracts.”

He continued: “I am concerned this Safe Sleep program — which I happened to arbitrarily spot-check — is not an outlier.”

A drone's view of the South LA site prior to one section closing down in 2024.

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Jay L. Clendenin

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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LAHSA response

LAist reached out to LAHSA for more information about its contract with Urban Alchemy and about the number of people who lived at the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village during the last fiscal year.

LAHSA authorities said the site had a 41% average “utilization rate” during the budget year that ended in June, based on capacity information Urban Alchemy provided in a database called the Homeless Management Information System.

But the agency’s calculations appear to have been based on outdated capacity data, not on how many spaces were actually available for use.

LAHSA said it was Urban Alchemy’s responsibility to update the information in the database.

"All providers are required to record their data in [the database]; if the data is inaccurate, it would be based on that data entry,” a LAHSA spokesperson said.

LAHSA did not respond to LAist’s questions about when it learned capacity at the site had been reduced. An agency spokesperson said LAHSA has been “engaged with” Urban Alchemy about the site since April 2024, and that the program has been “under review.”

In April, when the city of L.A. submitted its quarterly bed report to Carter, it described the South L.A. campground program as having 88 beds.

But approximately half of those beds had been unavailable for about a year, according to Urban Alchemy.

The city adjusted the count to 46 spots in its July 2025 update.

LAHSA’s troubles 

LAHSA manages more than $742 million in contracts with 121 service providers.

Over the past year, audits and reports found the agency had mismanaged hundreds of millions in contracts for homeless services, including a failure to collect accurate data on nonprofit vendors or properly track how they spent taxpayer dollars.

The South L.A. campground is the only “safe sleep” site of its kind currently in LAHSA’s portfolio, the agency told LAist. LAHSA also administers funding for about a dozen “safe parking” sites, where unhoused people can legally park and live out of vehicles they own.

LAHSA has paid Urban Alchemy more than $12 million to operate the Lincoln Safe Sleep Village since 2021, according to the agency’s records.

The nonprofit told LAist has operated under the terms of its contract, and that it followed direction from the city to close down part of the site, reducing its capacity.

The city of L.A. has not responded to questions from LAist about that claim, including whether it gave the nonprofit that direction.

"We're focused on providing the highest-level of service for our guests,” Urban Alchemy spokesperson Jess Montejano told LAist. “Given the resources provided, we're helping as many guests as we can have a safe place to sleep and get better connected to services and support."

Urban Alchemy did not clarify why it was told to close part of the campground, but property records show a South L.A. nonprofit called the Coalition for Responsible Community Development purchased the property in 2020.

It has plans to convert the property into a 60-unit affordable housing complex. Until that project is ready to start construction, the site is expected to keep operating as a safe sleeping location, according to the office of L.A. City Councilmember Curren Price, who represents the area.

“When the site first opened, beds were consistently full,” Angelina Valencia-Dumarot, Price’s communications director, told LAist Thursday. “That’s why the current occupancy rate is especially concerning.”

She said council offices are too often left out of updates by LAHSA.

“We can’t address problems quickly if we’re finding out only after numbers fall or from the press,” Valencia-Dumarot said.

A sign at the South LA campground

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Jay L. Clendenin

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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What should this cost? 

At full capacity, the monthly operating cost for the South L.A. campground would have been about $2,180 per participant.

Shayla Myers, a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said these campground sites are expensive to operate.

“They are the kinds of programs that shock the conscience of taxpayers,” Myers said, adding that they cost much more than paying rent, while keeping people unsheltered.

LAHSA staff say per-person costs for homeless programs differ based on location, hours and staffing needs.

Examples include:

• The region’s safe parking sites, which receive about $1,200 per participant per month to provide a set of similar resources to vehicle dwellers, according to LAHSA contract documents. 

• LAHSA programs that provide temporary rental assistance to families and cost about $2,000 per household per month, officials said. 

• The city of L.A.’s Inside Safe program, which moves people from encampments to hotel rooms. It costs about $6,900 per person served each month, according to a recent report by the city’s chief administrative officer.

Urban Alchemy has operated temporary campgrounds for unhoused people in the city and county of L.A. since 2021, including one in Virgil Village that has since closed and another in Culver City that is still operating.

In 2021, L.A.’s city administrative officer reported the Virgil Village campground cost more than $2,600 per participant per month.

Culver City opened its campground in 2023, so that the city could legally enforce a ban on camping in public approved that February. The city spent nearly $4.6 million on the campground in 2025, according to budget documents .

The Culver City site has space for 40 people, and the city says the occupancy rate is around 85% this year . That’s a cost of more than $11,000 per person served each month.

Myers said interventions like this will always cost more than moving people into homes.

“It doesn’t matter whether you're paying for a hotel room, a shelter, or in this case, lines drawn on a parking lot,”said Myers. “Continuing to provide shelter to folks who are unhoused — rather than providing permanent housing — is always going to be exponentially more expensive.”

After the city finalized its budget in June, LAHSA allocated $1.2 million — instead of $2.3 million — to Urban Alchemy for the South L.A. campground for the current budget year.

LAHSA now lists the site’s capacity as 46 tent spaces, authorities said. The agency said the site now has a “utilization” rate of 70%, compared to 41% the previous fiscal year.

That’s at a cost of about $3,100 per participant per month.

Nick Gerda and Makenna Sievertson contributed to this story.