Baseball is all about timing, and Orioles fan Sam Angell isn’t sure the team’s just-announced season-ticket plan changes — raising his ticket prices for 2025 and reducing his stadium discounts — were rolled out at an opportune time.
“The idea of a rise in price doesn’t bother me. They’ve said all the right things and done as much as a reasonable person can expect,” said Angell, 39, a Silver Spring resident who shares his four tickets with his father and two other fans.
“It’s the timing. They haven’t been to the World Series in 40 years. They haven’t extended any of these guys yet,” he said, referring to the contracts of young stars such as Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman and Jackson Holliday. “If they’re going to do this, they need to back it up.”
While Angell was evaluating his options, countless other fans were taking to social media to complain about the new season-ticket rules and pricing.
It was the first time that a team policy has been widely criticized since David Rubenstein and his investment group took over ownership from the late Peter Angelos on the day before opening day in March. Pundits and fans have been openly wondering how much he will invest to keep the team’s top talent.
Rubenstein, who has thrown himself into Orioles celebrations — including dancing on the dugout with the Oriole Bird and splashing fans with water in the Bird Bath — has acknowledged being in a honeymoon period since purchasing the team.
If ticket prices are an investment of sorts, then fans are expecting to see a return.
The ticket shifts were announced in emails Friday with “Time to Renew” in block letters and a notation below that fans should renew by Sept. 6 “to receive priority access to 2024 postseason tickets.”
The Orioles declined to comment on the changes, which are designed to incentivize fans to upgrade from a “flex” ticket plan to a pricier “reserved plan.”
A flex plan allows fans to “bank” various amounts of cash — the maximum will be $6,000 in 2025, plus a $40 fee — and use it for available seats at regular-season games that the fans choose.
A more traditional reserved plan locks in the same seats for 13, 29 or 81 games. For an 81-game plan, the cost ranges from $3,213 for two tickets to 10 times that amount for the best seats. For a 13-game plan, the minimum cost is $477.
Under the new structure, the disparity in benefits between the two plans will widen. Those benefits include varying levels of priority access to postseason tickets, and discounts ranging from 10% to 30% on stadium concessions and merchandise.
For example, a medium-level flex plan called “Pro” will offer 15% concessions and merchandise discounts next year, compared with 25% this year, according to the team’s website.
That same plan had offered priority access to postseason game tickets in 2024, with the exception of the World Series. It will still offer postseason tickets in 2025, but that access is guaranteed only for the wild-card round and American League Division Series in 2025, not the AL Championship Series or the World Series.
Angell, who is in his second year as a season-ticket holder, said he was still deciding whether to renew his “Flex Pro” plan by the September deadline. While he would still be able to participate in a presale for postseason seats (except the World Series), he is worried that availability will be limited if he waits until after Sept. 6. His plan, which costs $1,200 this season, will rise to $1,540 in 2025.
Other fans such as Ben and Eileen Day, a married couple from Bel Air who purchased flex plans for the first time this season, hope Rubenstein will put more money into stadium upgrades. While they expected to see a ticket price increase between new ownership and the team’s improvement over the past few years, they haven’t yet decided whether to renew their plan for next year.
“That part is a bummer,” Ben Day said of the decrease in benefits for flex plans. But Eileen added they would be “willing to pay a lot” for a better sound system in the ballpark.
Ticket prices are increasing in 2025 for some seats, but not all.
Over the past several months, the club reviewed season ticket inventory and determined, based on demand, which seats would increase or decrease in price. The outcome was that about two-thirds of seats will increase in price next season and about one-third will decrease (a small number will remain the same), according to the Orioles.
With all the price changes, the average single-game ticket cost went up a little more than $1 per seat per game, according to the club.
To many fans, winning makes price increases easier to digest.
The club, which won 101 games last season, entered Wednesday 70-50 and trails the New York Yankees by a half-game for first place in the American League East.
Jeff Baker, 61, who is from southern Pennsylvania, has been a season-ticket holder since 2013. Currently paying for a reserved plan, he acknowledged that he doesn’t know how many more eras of Orioles baseball he has left to see and said he understands raising prices — as long as the money goes toward fielding a competitive payroll.
“I don’t want the Orioles to be constantly competing from behind in the AL East revenue-wise,” he said.