Hey, That Might Just Pay For The Left Side Of The Infield!
$57 million from old seats is a tidy sum. But add $25 baggies of dirt to that, and you’ve got a lot of money:
Posted: March 24th, 2008 | Filed under: Architecture & Infrastructure, Crap Your Pants Say Yeah!, SportsThe Yankees and Mets are in secret talks with the city to buy their old ballparks before the wrecking balls hit — so they can plunder them for lucrative memorabilia to peddle to fans, The Post has learned.
A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg confirmed the negotiations but would not say how the deals might go down — specifically, whether the city would hope to get a lump sum from the teams or a percentage of the profits of any sale or auction of items.
“At other stadiums, everything from the scoreboards to the dugout urinals have been snatched up by fans, but Yankee Stadium is in a whole other league of collectibles,” said Mike Heffner, president of Lelands.com, which has handled several stadium garage sales.
“Each brick could sell for $100 to $300,” Heffner said. “I doubt we’d have any trouble selling every seat in the house for as much as $1,000.
“With its huge fan base, Shea Stadium will also fetch a big payday.”
Yankee sources and a Mets spokesman separately confirmed the teams’ negotiations with the city but refused to give details, citing their ongoing talks.
While the city owns the two stadiums, experts said the teams are in a far better position to bring in bigger bucks from a sell-off because of the emotion factor.
A tiny baggy of infield dirt from Yankee Stadium could fetch $25, experts said.