Abstract

Minor League Baseball continues to grow for a myriad of reasons, paramount of which is the localized entertainment, access to players, and low price structure compared to Major League Baseball. A number of studies utilize the so-called “Fan Cost Index” (FCI) where economists look at the typical family cost associated with attending a sporting event. In order to create a parallel analysis at the minor league level, a variation of the Fan Cost Index was created for teams in the New York Penn League (NYPL) during the 2006 and 2007 seasons. This Modified Fan Cost Index (mFCI) was employed to evaluate the cost of a comparable basket of goods for each of the NYPL teams. Additionally, such information will be used to compare prices of minor league baseball to that of major league baseball, major league sports, and the United States during the same period of time.