Why Stadium Food Prices Are So High and What Can Be Done

I'm at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and I just paid $7.99 for this hot dog from concessions. But less than a mile away, I could get a nearly identical one for just $2.29. That means I'm paying 249% more at the stadium. And it's not just hot dogs. A 24-oz beer at the stadium costs nearly 92% more than it would at a bar down the street. And this burger costs nearly 70% more than it would at a restaurant in the same neighborhood. I love the Dodgers, but this sucks. Last year, I paid $11 for a bottle of water at a Lakers game. Instead of just accepting it, I asked a simple question.

Why? What I found was that most stadiums use a kind of monopoly power. There are 39 places to buy food at Dodger Stadium, but they're all operated by or in partnership with one company. We need to make sure that the corporations in this country are not squeezing every single extra dollar off of the consumers' backs. The thing is, fans helped pay for most of the stadiums across the US with their taxes. And it's that fact that could be the key to stopping stadium food from being so expensive in the future. In my search to understand how we got to

$8 hot dogs, I found three turning points that transformed stadium operations into mini monopolies. First, the rise of the all-powerful concessionaire. America's earliest stadiums didn't have dozens of concession stands like today. Instead, independent vendors would flock to games and sell snacks like popcorn, peanuts, and of course, hot dogs. Those vendors set their own prices. It wasn't until the late 1800s that independent vendors began consolidating into larger concession businesses and signing exclusive contracts with stadiums or teams. So, instead of multiple independent vendors, only one vendor or company would be allowed to sell food at a given stadium.

This significantly limited vendor competition. They were able to knit together their contracts at several stadiums and arenas that happened to be in the same market. So, it'd be very typical for one vendor to specialize in a particular area of the country, like in the northeast. For example, a concessionaire named Harry M. Stevens founded Harry M. Stevens Incorporated, a company that provided concessions to three of New York's major league teams at the time. The Yankees, Giants, and the Dodgers. He would establish his pricing based on a cut. So, if a hot dog was 10 cents, then he would get the cut of that hot dog. They actually became much more sophisticated before the teams themselves became stadium operators.

Even with less competition, from the 1950s to the 70s, prices stayed low. For example, at Brooklyn's Ebbets Field in 1956, a hot dog and a beer cost 60 cents total, roughly $7 to $7.50 in today's money. Two decades later, that price hadn't moved much. In 1976, a hot dog and a beer sold for $1.25 at Queen's Shea Stadium, or about $7.53 today. Nobody was trying to get rich running these venues. They were simply trying to provide an amenity uh for the folks who were coming to the venue.

Most stadiums still follow this concessions model. Like I mentioned, there are 39 different restaurants at Dodger Stadium, but their prices are all set by or in conjunction with Levy Restaurants, which has provided all the concessions for the stadium since 2005. And it wouldn't be long before concession companies and teams wanted to cash in. That leads us to the second shift, one in ownership. Before the '80s, most US stadiums were owned and operated by local governments, which meant cities got a share of the profits from food sales. But by the time the '90s rolled around, many US stadiums were in need of major facelifts. In that decade alone, 95 new sports venues were either built, renovated, under

construction, or in the planning stages. This transition wasn't cheap. The average cost of building a sports facility rose from $3.8 million in the 1950s to $200 million in the '90s. Shea Stadium, the spanking new park is dedicated by Mayor Robert Wagner and manager Casey Stengel of the New York Mets, who have found a new home. To get these expensive construction projects done, teams started contributing financially to the stadium's construction. While they weren't paying for all of the venue, they were typically in for estimates would say about 40% of the cost of building the venue, on average.

Take the Baltimore Orioles, who contributed $9 million to the construction of luxury skyboxes at Camden Yards. And during the construction of the Seattle Mariners ballpark in 1999, the team contributed $145 million toward the $517 million budget. With bigger investments came a new type of contract. Take a look at this lease agreement between Yankee Stadium and the New York City Industrial Development Agency. Under this agreement, signed in 2006, the Yankees manage and control the stadium's operations, keeping all revenues derived from concessions facilities. Essentially, sports teams said, "If we're going to help build and operate the stadiums, we want all, or at least most, of the profits." And this is when we start to

see the steady increase in concessions pricing. Across the NFL, the average price of a 16-oz domestic beer was about $10.96 in 2025. That year, the most expensive one sold for $16.99 at Northwest Stadium, home of the Washington Commanders. To put that into context, this 12-pack of 16-oz beer cost me $14, or roughly $1.17 per bottle. I went to Dodger Stadium to see just how much a single day at the park would cost me. Can I just have the um the Dodger dog? Okay. And a bottle of water. It's pretty good. Worth $8? I don't think so. Hi. Can I get the Stella? And then um do you guys have the Dodgeritas here?

Two drinks are $65. Can I get your bacon cheeseburger? One? This one. In total, I spent over $100 at the park for a hot dog, a burger, and a few drinks. And I'm not alone. How much do you think you spent on concessions, Around 250. Seven or eight drinks. And then we got the helmet of nachos. And that's about it. That was a lot of The drinks are a lot. How much did you spend on like drinks in total? Yeah, probably had four or five, maybe 100 bucks. Realistically, I spent like $66.

Essentially, we're paying for the contracts cuz you're paying $45 for parking and then $26 for beer. How much did you spend on concessions, food and drink at the stadium today? Um about like three 350, probably four. All right, do you come to like the games a lot? No, that's why, girl. If I come a lot, I'm going to mess up my purse. Technically, she could bring in her own snacks. Dodger Stadium, along with most MLB stadiums, allow outside food and non-alcoholic drinks. But baseball stadiums are an outlier. That's because other major league sports, like the NFL, NBA, and NHL,

generally restrict outside food and drinks. This lack of competition turns spectators into a captive audience. We've made it to the third shift. In the case of stadiums, you have thousands of fans in your venue for say a two-to-three-hour window, where the only items that are available for them to purchase as amenities are items that you control the price of. Stadiums aren't the only places with a captive audience. You've probably experienced this before. At the airport. But there's one key difference. At most major US airports, there are rules that keep food prices in check. Local airport authorities can cap how much a airport can charge under a policy called street pricing plus. For example, in the New York area, if this chocolate bar cost an average of $8.27

on the outside, airports can only charge that street price plus a 15% upcharge, capping the price at $9.51. You can take a look at our So Expensive episode about airport food to see how difficult it is to enforce street pricing plus. But at least there is a policy in place. And right now, New York lawmakers are trying to implement something similar for stadiums. The Fair Concession Pricing Act. The bill would allow venues to charge a maximum of 20% above street prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages. To really understand how something like this would work, I spoke to New York State Senator April Baskin. So, for people who haven't read the bill, what exactly is the Fair Concessions Pricing Act? If you're at a stadium or an arena and

there is a hot dog for sale, um if the 10-mile radius around the arena has establishments that have hot dogs that are priced at $5, that means that in the arena, the hot dog cannot be any more than $6. One of the main arguments for implementing street price for airport food is that it's sold to a captive audience. Since that's also the case for stadiums, it should be pretty easy to enforce street pricing, right? Not exactly. The difference between an airport and a stadium is that while airports are well understood to be pieces of public infrastructure, even if the stadium is publicly owned in full or in part, there is a uh a legal argument that can

be made that if the stadium is privately operated, that once one enters into the building, then it becomes a private environment. Judith is right. LaGuardia Airport, for example, is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, while Yankee Stadium is operated by well, the Yankees. But that's why New York State plans on getting creative. For example, when Yankee Stadium was built in 2009, the total cost was about $2.3 billion. But about $1.2 billion dollars that came from public subsidies and city tax breaks. The team also doesn't have to pay property taxes because the stadium was built on publicly owned

land. The Fair Concession Pricing Act would require stadiums that receive any taxpayer money to adhere to street pricing plus 20%. If a stadium violated the rule, it would risk losing tax exemptions, face fines up to $10,000, and have to repay a portion of the public funds they receive. Historically, public investment in stadiums was based on the premise that stadiums would provide economic benefits to surrounding communities. But experts aren't so sure that's the case. In one survey from 2017, 80% of economists agreed that stadium subsidies cost taxpayers more than the local economic benefits. When local governments make these types of investments, they have to also think about the cost burden on the people, not

just the investment, but even afterwards, after the investment, people are still spending their money. Another bill called the Honest Oversight of Ticketed Dining and Onsite Grub Act, or Hot Dog Act, would direct the FTC to study stadium concession prices nationwide and recommend ways to make them more affordable. You got a price, you know, $16 for a beer, and you have no idea how that money is being chopped up and where it's going. We need to make sure that the corporations in this country are not squeezing every single extra dollar off of the consumers' backs. Both the Fair Concession Pricing Act and the Hot Dog Act are currently active, but neither has been passed into law yet. These proposals are meant to force the hands of teams and stadium

operators. But I was surprised to find at least stadium making a change on its own. And it says it's working for the stadium and fans. When Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened in Atlanta in 2017, it launched what it called fan first pricing. It's a model that prices concessions at or near what you'd pay on the street, like $2 hot dogs and $5 beers. We took those core items um and made sure that they were available what we call street pricing. If you could go outside the venue and get a Coca-Cola, you know, for $3, then we expect it to be $3 inside the stadium. With cheaper concessions, you would think the stadium would make less money, right?

Actually, the opposite happened. The stadium says fans spent 16% more on food and drink, and it saw a 30% increase in total transactions. Overall spending also increased by 20%. Speaking with Tim made me realize just how much concession prices influence the fan experience. They have the freedom to further invest, if you will, in the experience. So, that ultimately results in hats being purchased or a jersey being purchased or other items within the experience now going into the basket, if you will. The model we have

in place leaves people feeling more valued and feeling more fulfilled. And then yet, when they leave the venue, oftentimes they have taken or purchased more things, but do so in a manner where they're like, "Wow, I got a lot more for my money." Tim says the fan first pricing model has also caught the attention of other stadiums. It can be done in full scale like us, or it might be as simple as a fan friendly meal pack. So, with everything I've learned, the only question left is, will anything actually lower the price of a stadium hot dog? The answer depends on who you ask. For State Senator Baskin and Congressman Goldman, these bills are a step in the right direction.

We need to push forward and make sure that the consumers rights are front and center. And that's why we are pushing forward with this bill and at a minimum there's a lot of transparency and there's more data that we can study and learn more about this. How realistic is it for it to become an actual law? The success of all of these bills really depends on the people. And how much they push people like myself and my colleagues to get it over the finish line. When we agitate the consumers and remind them how much of their hard-earned tax dollars went in to creating that arena or that stadium, it will help them connect the dots.