The Orioles are "raising season-ticket prices on all plans" by an average of approximately 5%, the team's first increase in cost since '08, according to Eduardo Encina of the Baltimore SUN. Single-game tickets "also will be overhauled," and there will be "no more fixed pricing, as the Orioles are instituting single-game dynamic pricing." The new system "encourages fans to become season-ticket holders, who will save between $2 and $16 per game over initial single-game prices." The club's 81 home dates will be divided into five different pricing levels, ranging from "value" to "elite." The "majority of the games, 49 total, will fall under the 'classic' level" (Baltimore SUN, 12/7). In Baltimore, Peter Schmuck noted the Orioles on Friday "signed an unheralded middle reliever, surrendered outfielder Nate McLouth and pitcher Scott Feldman without a fight, and began informing season-ticket holders that prices are going up." Those decisions are "made at a different organizational levels, but the timing of all this is enough to make a marketing consultant jump off the Warehouse." Schmuck: "To be fair, that timing is coincidental, and the O's have not bumped up season-ticket rates for several years." It is "unfortunate that the franchise has found itself in a perfect storm of bad public relations, but it's not like the front office couldn't have seen it coming" (Baltimore SUN, 12/8).
