Arizona Diamondbacks introduce $50 summer pass

The Arizona Diamondbacks have launched the D-backs Ballpark Summer Pass that includes June & July home games for just $50. The offer allows fans to a seat for all 25 home games. The Ballpark Summer Pass delivers tickets directly to your mobile device through the MLB.com Ballpark app and guarantees a ticket in the Outfield Reserve seating area for all June & July home games with options to upgrade. Fans can purchase up to four Ballpark Summer Passes. Quantities are limited. For more information and to purchase, visit http://dbacks.com/summer.

This is certainly a startling move, effectively getting you into the ballpark for as little as two bucks per game, if you used the pass to its maximum extent. It wouldn’t take anywhere near that for the pass to pay for itself. The Outfield Reserve seats in question have a normal price of between fifteen and twenty dollars per game, so you’ll be saving money, after you attend just three or four games. Certainly, if I wasn’t working until 8pm weekday nights, this would be an extremely attractive option, simply for flexibility. Though I’m not sure I could get Mrs. SnakePit there without the upgrades: she believes the upper level is accessible only with oxygen and sherpas.

In order to get the offer, you need to have the MLB Ballpark App on your phone. Here’s how it works, according to the team site: “Download the MLB.com Ballpark app. Beginning Tuesday, June 6, you can sign into your MLB.com account with the email address used to purchase your pass and see your tickets. Your seat locations will be assigned 2 hours before each game. You can view these in the MLB.com Ballpark app. When you're ready to enter Chase Field, access your tickets in the MLB.com Ballpark app, scan in with your barcode and enjoy the game!” Also worth noting, a pass can take 24 hours to be activated, so probably won’t get you in on the day of purchase.

The D-backs are not the first team to have tried the approach recently. The Oakland A’s - struggling even worse with attendance, barely averaging 16,500 per game this year - sold about two thousand of their not dissimilar “Ballpark Pass” promotion, before ending it. This allowed fans to attend every home game at the Oakland Coliseum during the month in question, for a price of $19.99. It’s not clear if the D-backs will place a similar cap on the number of Summer Passes they sell. And perhaps surprisingly, the St. Louis Cardinals had a similar offer before the season started, for $29.99 per month [that one excluded Opening Day].

It’ll be interesting to see what impact this has on attendance. We’ve already seen some dismal crowds at Chase Field, reaching its all-time low on April 26, with an official figure of only 12,215 against the Padres. Despite the team’s early success, crowds at home have been down over 3,500 per game, compared to the same period last year. If sustained, that would leave the team barely breaking the one and three-quarter million mark for the year, easily an all-time low. At least this way, while the team may lose some money in ticket sales, they will be hoping to benefit from other areas - and perhaps get some new fans, prepared to pay more than $2 per game down the road.