A Simple "Yes" Would Have Done

From Wallace Matthews of Newsday: 

When I asked Yankees vice president Randy Levine if this meant the team had misjudged the market, he [said] "For a very small number of seats, in this economy [...] I guess it was a mistake.''

Reason #446,785 why I hate you, Randy Levine. You are that guy. The one who will never admit when he's wrong. 

It's not even entriely your fault. The economy went south between the time you set the prices and the when the time came to sell the tickets. Not too many people saw that coming. 

"A very small number of seats?" Okay, maybe in relation to the capacity of the Stadium, but they represent a huge chunk of the revenue. For one $2650 Legends ticket (there are 122 total), you could buy 189 bleacher seats or 120 in the Grandstand. There are 1200 seats priced over $325 and the prices of about 600 of them have been effectively cut in half. Those seats were what the entire "Robin Hood" pricing model of the New Stadium was built around. That's not a "very small" loss in revenue. 

A fun little aside... Here's a nice fabrication that I turned up in the ESPN article linked above, dated March 21st, 2008:

The New York Yankees will charge $500 to $2,500 for seats near home plate in the first five-to-eight rows of their new ballpark. They already have commitments from ticket-buyers for all 122 of the front-row seats.

Oh, did they? Then we must have varying definitions of the word "commitment", because those are the seats that they are now halving prices on and giving away to those who already purchased at full price.

Randy, you fucked up. We all see the empty seats. It's not up for debate. Are you 7 years old? Stop acting like you didn't break the window, we saw you and Lon Trost throwing the ball as hard as you possibly could on the front lawn. Would it kill you to just admit that things didn't go according to plan?