While a ticket to the home opener is going to sell for more than a Monday night game in mid-April against a team like the Marlins, for the ticket price to be cut more than 50 percent against teams like the Giants, Cardinals and Tigers shows how bad the situation has become.

I will admit in this day and age, $85 a ticket for the Champion’s club with the food and beverage included and a great view of the field is not a bad deal for those with the extra money to spend. But that places the Wilpons in a bind because they projected that in order to break even at Citi Field – before they ever signed KRod and Bay – ticket prices were set way way higher than they are now. And that was with an average attendance of 38,200 per game. No way they are going to command such revenue with such prices drops even if they do nearly sell out Citi Field each game. The prices for season-tickets and luxury suites dropped as well.

So how do they break even given the confines of Citi Field’s limited seating capacity and that nobody is going to pay those 2009 prices either for individual seats or season ticket holders. It means retaining the downsizing initiated by Sandy and a small market type payroll for the many years in which the Wilpons have to pay off their debts and therefore unable to benefit from the fruits of owning SNY.

So even if we come in droves, it is not going to make a major change in acquiring better players – the Wilpons cannot do that without 2009 ticket prices. The team will begin to really improve when the debt situation improves and not a minute before. It’s going to be quite a while till that happens until they sell the team and for that, they will have to include a portion of SNY for that is where the real money comes in.

Which is probably true!