Bernie Sanders Announces Bill to Make Teams Slash Ticket Prices — This One's Got People on the Fence

Sep 01, 2026 10:35 AM
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Bernie Sanders Announces Bill to Make Teams Slash Ticket Prices — This One's Got People on the Fence
AP Photo/Noah K. Murray

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), once again, is asking for sports teams to slash their ticket prices.

But beyond the hot pretzel logic of telling baseball fans they have a "human right" to watch sportsball live, we're talking about peanuts to get in the door for most games.

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The socialist senator floated the populist proposal to cut ticket prices on X.

Sanders was thoroughly ridiculed.

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Now, if Bernie Sanders were economically literate, he wouldn't be a communist. 

So the ship has kind of sailed on trying to explain to radicals why their ideas won't work.

What we're primarily concerned with is if people think it might be a good idea. 

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So, ironically, Sanders may have stumbled into an argument that free market proponents can appreciate, although their solution would be the exact opposite.

What we should do is stop subsidizing sports leagues, film studios, and "public-private partnerships." There should just be one tax code for everyone, a low "fair" tax, and no government handouts for businesses.

That would be a different kind of "socialism" — one where all of the individuals in society are treated equally and fairly.

If an American wants to watch a baseball game and can't afford it, there are so many options right now to get the next best thing: He can watch it from his living room.

But that presents another problem: Sports leagues have divided up their streaming partnerships into so many channels that your average consumer has to spend hundreds of dollars a year to simply watch his favorite teams for an entire season. And don't get me started on the idiotic "blackout" restrictions.

If we had broadcast television showing nearly all of these games, maybe fans could afford a few hundred dollars to get good seats at a game. As for now, we're stuck with supply and demand: If fans decide to boycott the ticket prices because they are too high, then the ticket prices will go down.

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I saw this with the New York Mets this year. Although they have one of the highest payrolls, the team has struggled throughout most of the season. 

The ticket prices are now a "whopping" $5-10 to get into the stadium.

Now, of course, you've got parking if you drive there. And you've got pricy hot dogs. And overpriced beer. 

But you could get in for $20 if you wanted to pay your own way in. 

Just like everything else where the government gets involved, this kind of intervention tends to drive up prices or force businesses to shut down. 

You could bet that if the government tried to make sports teams slash ticket prices, it would backfire. Bigtime.

The road to socialism, after all, is paved with good intentions. And bad ideas.

Editor's Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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