The New York Yankees sold $345 million of tickets in 2022, more than $100 million greater than during their prior season, based on a bond market disclosure made Wednesday.
The team sold $344.7 million in tickets and suite licenses for 2022, including $100 million collected in 2021 for the 2022 season, as well as $61 million sold in the fourth quarter of last year that almost certainly are deposits for the upcoming baseball season. The team disclosed the figures in a regulatory filing required as part of the financing arrangement with the state of New York, which built the current ballpark that opened in 2009.
The Yankees didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 2022 sales figure also includes nearly $73 million in tickets sold for the postseason. However, since the Yankees only played five of the potential 11 playoff games last year—they failed to win a game after the division series round—an undisclosed portion of those monies will be refunded or credited to 2023 tickets. It’s worth noting that Yankees fans rolled over $94 million in tickets purchased ahead of the 2020 season, which wasn’t played with fans in attendance due to the pandemic. The Yankees drew 3.16 million fans last year, according to information compiled by Baseball Almanac.
Ticket sales for the 2022 campaign, which featured Aaron Judge setting the all-time American League record for home runs, came in well ahead of 2021, when fan attendance was limited to less than 2 million by local capacity regulations due to COVID-19. The club collected $230 million in ticket revenue that season. In the last full season unaffected by the pandemic, the Yankees sold $336 million in tickets, including an undisclosed portion of $68 million in unplayed playoff games refunded to customers, according to a separate bond market disclosure.
Despite the jump in revenue last season, the Yankees appear to have had ticket revenue peak in 2009, the year the new Yankee Stadium opened and the last season the team won the World Series. That year, the club sold around $400 million in tickets, according to information compiled by Fitch Ratings. However, data isn’t disclosed for the prior Yankee Stadium, which had greater capacity and drew over 4 million fans annually before it closed. The nadir of ticket sales at the new Yankee Stadium was in 2016, when the team sold $231 million in tickets and didn’t make the playoffs.
The bond market disclosures count only ticket and suite sales, and therefore exclude any money made by the team from broadcasting, merchandise, concessions and other income.
