NBA Team Reducing Their Concession Prices To $2 Sparks Debate About Price Gouging — 'Why Was It $9 Before If It's $2 Now?'
It's hard not to feel like they have a point.
Drazen Zigic | Shutterstock Most of us are feeling a bit tight in the wallet these days, and the wild pricing of things like concessions at movies or sporting events makes them prime candidates for penny-pinching.
It seems the NBA's Phoenix Suns have noticed and have drastically slashed their concessions prices in response. But it's led to no shortage of people asking why the prices were so high in the first place.
The Phoenix Suns announced they are slashing many of their concessions to just $2.
The NBA team drew plenty of cheers when its owner Mat Ishbia, who also owns the city's WNBA franchise, the Mercury, recently announced a new "value menu" that will be available at its Footprint Center arena in downtown Phoenix.
In social media posts, Ishbia explained that the change was in response to the lack of "food options for families who don't want to spend a lot of money." So Ishbia slashed prices drastically — $9 hot dogs are now just $2, as are bottles of water and soda and bags of chips and popcorn that were all priced at frankly insane amounts.
Many applauded the price change and thanked the Suns for putting its fans first.
The Suns are certainly not alone in their formerly ridiculous concessions prices. Paying through the nose for stale popcorn and a leathery hot dog has always been part of the fun of attending sports games, just like it is for movies.
And like at movie theaters, concessions are one of the biggest revenue streams in the business. A cup of soda, for instance, costs a business literal pennies, with the average restaurant markup being about 1,150%. So, just imagine what it is on a $9 sports arena soda.
It really is absurd and can take a lot of the fun out of attending an event if you can't afford it. So unsurprisingly, many Suns fans heaped praise on Ishbia, thanking him for "putting fans first," while others criticized sports team owners in other cities who would likely never dream of initiating such a cut to their bottom line.
Others couldn't help but ask why the prices were so high to begin with and saw it as a sign of the times.
There's no denying the savings are dramatic. Ishbia tallied in a follow-up post that a meal that used to cost a family of four $98 will now be just $24. Not everyone was quite so ready to pat Ishbia on the back, however. Because the move does kind of beg the question: If Ishbia can so easily afford to slash these items down to just $2, why was a freakin' hot dog $9 in the first place?
The simple answer is, of course, because it can be. Because people are willing to pay for it. But some couldn't help but see the move as a sign of the times. As one X user put it, "this is cool to see but also reveals just how much of inflation is really just price gouging."
Others countered that a move like this is an example of the basic business principle of a "loss leader" — a thing that makes no money but draws in spending that does, in this case, ticket sales. It's hard to make that argument here, though. Nobody's buying a Suns ticket to get a $2 hot dog for starters.
But more importantly, Ishbia will still make money hand-over-fist on all those $2 sodas that only cost him pennies, for instance. And while sports arena concessions and, say, groceries aren't exact analogs — they're two very economically different businesses — we are in sort of a golden age of price-gouging.
Independent economic studies have found that much of the "inflation" we've seen in recent years, and which became such a decisive issue in the election, was little more than straight-up price-gouging — or "greedflation," as it's sometimes called. Some manufacturers and retailers have even admitted to doing it, and then, after slashing prices in the past year amid soft demand, reaped similar praise to the applause Ishbia has received.
There's no denying that Ishbia's move was the right one. The economy is hard enough without a hot dog costing $9 at a sports game. Still, the move drives home the point that much of the prices we've come to accept as just standard, business-as-usual, "what the market will bear" going rates are actually just… kind of made up out of thin air. Sign of the times, indeed.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.