Nats Could Use Some Designated Sitters in Those Pricey Seats

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 3, 2008

Down here, in the royalty seats at Nationals Park, you're close enough to see the muscles flexing on slugger Wily Mo Pena's cordwood forearms. Down here, you're close enough to hear the pop that a 93-mph fastball makes when it slams into a catcher's mitt. There's even an intoxicating smell down here. Eau du Turf, anyone?

Down here in the Lexus Presidential section (official sponsored name), in fact, some of the fans are closer to the batter's box than the pitcher is.

So how come hardly anyone is sitting down here?

The question has been kicked around ever since the Nationals opened their sparkling new ballpark on the Anacostia to a full house a little more than a month ago. In that time, the team has sold tickets for roughly 75 percent of the seats for a given game. Except, typically, in the section that holds the best seats in the house.

The other night, in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Nationals might as well have draped the infield tarp across most of the 500 cushy seats directly behind home plate. The section was no more than one-third full, with not a soul in sight in dozens of rows.

The big hole where the people are supposed to be looks strange enough when glimpsed from less-privileged vantage points within the stadium, but it looks downright dowdy on television. Because many of those vacant seats appear in the background of every pitch shown on TV, home viewers could easily conclude that no one's in attendance, even when there are thousands of enthusiastic fans in the rest of the park (as there were against the Pirates that night).

"We're trying to show the action on the field, but there's no way around showing that piece of the stands," says Todd Webster, a spokesman for the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which carries Nationals and Orioles games. "There's nothing you can do about it short of hiring George Lucas or Steven Spielberg" to dress up the background with a computer-generated crowd.

Officially, at least, the Nationals say there's no problem. Team spokeswoman Chartese Burnett says some of the exclusive seats are spoken for, but people just haven't bothered to claim them. "We've always had a very large no-show number," she says. "That's just been a tradition here. We've also typically had a very late-arriving crowd, just as we did at RFK," the team's home in its first three seasons in Washington.

But that explanation leaves out some key details; Burnett declined, for example, to say how many season tickets have been sold in the section. Nor would she divulge how many of the seats are usually sold on a single-game basis.

There is, in any case, a much simpler explanation for the 41,888-seat park's vast wasteland.

"They're expensive tickets," declares Beth Ladd, a fan from Alexandria who was one of the lucky dozens of people sitting in the Presidential seats for the Pirates game Thursday night.

A season ticket to the Presidential section is $300 per game. A single ticket runs $325 (and $335 for "premium" Saturday games). You want the front row? That'll be $400, please.

Those numbers put the Nationals, who are cellar-dwellers in their division, at the top of the heap in at least one major league category. The most expensive season tickets to New York Yankees games, for example, are $250 per game. The Boston Red Sox -- last season's World Series champs -- charge $325 at their top end. The priciest seat at Oriole Park at Camden Yards is $80.

Direct comparisons, though, aren't entirely fair because a Presidential ticket does entitle its holder to such perks as a Nationals Park parking pass ("based upon availability"), a free buffet and access to the stadium's three high-roller clubs. From one of the clubs, fans can also peer down at the Nationals' indoor batting cage and postgame news conferences.

But doesn't the pricing disparity suggest that the Nationals overestimated their appeal among Washington's wealthiest baseball fans?

Burnett says yes, more or less: "I think with everything about the park, we're still in the evaluation phase. . . . We're taking a look at all things across the board. Who knows? Our pricing structure may be tweaked."

Not that the fans sitting in the luxe section have too many complaints. "These are incredible seats," enthuses Pat McVeigh, 36, sitting about eight rows back from the field for Thursday's game. "I'm not sure people understand how spectacular these views are and how elite these seats are."

McVeigh says his company, Bridge Education of Arlington, bought four Presidential seats as a business investment. For his firm, which provides technology training, the chance to bond with potential clients, partners and vendors for a few leisurely hours at the park is an invaluable marketing opportunity. "As a baseball fan and as a businessman, this is certainly worth $300 to me," McVeigh says. "No question about it."

A few rows away, Beth Ladd's husband, John, a lawyer, enjoys the close-up view. As the Ladds' three young sons take in the game, John Ladd calls the seats "fantastic." But he does acknowledge being a bit puzzled by the sparse turnout surrounding his family. "I'm sure the owners have a plan," he says, "but I don't know what the plan is."

McVeigh suggests that a little promotion wouldn't hurt. "Once word gets out, I think these will be the most sought-after tickets in town," he says.

"When you sit at the club level or in the suites, you get removed from what the game is all about, what you loved about it as a kid," he says. "When you sit here, you can hear conversations on the field, you can hear the snap of the bat. It brings you back to your first game, you know?"

McVeigh certainly didn't have to worry about anyone obstructing his view. On Thursday, he was sitting a few rows back, about 60 feet from home plate -- all by himself.