Are Rising Ryder Cup Ticket Prices Justified

IF you attended a session at last year’s Ryder Cup in Italy you will have paid between 100 and 200 euros for the privilege. You will probably be aware by now that to repeat the process in New York it is going to set you back a scarcely-credible $795. For one day’s golf - that’s four foursomes and four fourballs or 12 singles matches.

And it doesn’t end there. Even worse, the huge army of volunteers who give up their time to help run the event are being charged $350 each in order to do so. It might be time that the PGA of America looked up the dictionary definition of the word “volunteer’. It is a disgrace.

Those who take part in the Ryder Cup famously don’t receive a cent, although the Americans each receive $200,000 which they can donate to a good cause of their choice. I am willing to wager a sizeable sum that those players will be looking for a serious hike in that amount next year.

I have been doing some sums.

A crowd of 50,000 will attend each session at Bethpage Black next autumn. Over the course of the three days of competition they will be paying the PGA of America approximately $120m. And that is without taking into account the money they take in over the practice days and the income they will cream off from food, drink and merchandise sales.

So how on earth do they justify a price increase of more than 300%?

Bryan Kams, of the PGA of America, did his best when talking to Golf.com. He failed miserably.

This is what he had to say:

“We wanted to be transparent and say, instead of listing a lower price and then someone gets to the checkout and it’s 70% more, it’s $140 in taxes and fees. That is the checkout price. I guess, in some way we just felt like, why would we do that?”

Why indeed.

There was more psychobabble…

“We knew that it was going to be critical to get this [the pricing] right and to try to do something that we felt was on par with where we viewed ourselves and where our position was in this world.

“But at the same time, understanding there is some nuance to Ryder Cup tickets. It’s a full day event versus three hours. It’s without a seat, but a GA ticket allows you the chance to be on a rope line, [compared] to if I bought the standing room only at Yankee Stadium last night. So we try to factor all those in. And it’s never as simple as saying it’s apples to apples. But we we took a lot of feedback and got to this point where we felt like, look, this is this is what we feel confident in.

“The general price is I think just indicative of A) this market, B) where we position ourselves, where we feel like we are [in the greater sports landscape], and then the demand,” Karns said. “I think when you get into a situation where the demand is so high, you know, you want to do your best to price it so you don’t create this massively inflated secondary market.”

Kams and his cohorts at the PGA of America can put it any way they want. This is nothing more or less than pure unadulterated greed. Sadly, it is absolutely certain that the event will sell out. And I am even willing to have a little side wager and say that tickets will probably sell for even more on the black market.

To put all of this in some sort of perspective, it costs around £300 for the best seat in the house to watch the Wimbledon men’s singles final, Champions League final tickets for 2024 ranged from £160 to £610. FA Cup final tickets range from £45 to £250, a day four ticket to watch England take on India at Lord’s next summer ranges from £90-£175, and final round tickets for The Open at Royal Troon in 2024 - the oldest and best of golf’s majors - cost £110.

The most expensive ticket in sport is for the Super Bowl final, which will set you back around $2,000.

Less than 50 years ago you couldn’t give away Ryder Cup tickets. Yes, it is now the most exciting team event in golf but in what world can anybody seriously justify charging genuine golf fans $795 to stand 10-deep and see little or no actual live golf?

The world has gone mad.

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