Report: Astros games are one of the most expensive family outings in MLB – Chron

If you're an Astros fan with kids, I have good news and bad news this summer.

The good news is the team is great, and you can take the little ones to watch them play in a mostly air-conditioned juice box while the world outside melts into a blur of ERCOT conservation notices. The bad news is attending an Astros game in 2022 is the fourth-most expensive experience in the league for families, according to a recent analysis by The Hustle's Zachary Crockett.

Over the weekend, Crockett published a report analyzing the growing costs of popular American family activities over the last 60 years. The activities Crockett measured were attending a movie at a theater, taking your kids on a one-day visit to Disneyland, and enjoying an evening watching America's pastime.

Utilizing data from FanCostIndex, Crockett found the average cost for a family of four to attend an Astros game in 2022 is $293.74. This figure, according to Crockett, is based on the cost of four tickets ($58.61 each), four hot dogs ($6 each), two beers ($7.50 each), two sodas ($5.50 each) and parking ($9.30). Importantly, these figures are adjusted for the cheapest available options for sustenance and services at the venue, as compiled by FanCostIndex.

The three teams with costlier family outings than the Astros aren't that surprising: the Boston Red Sox ($324.37), the Chicago Cubs ($312.85), and the New York Yankees ($302.86), respectively. It should be noted that the cost could for an Astros game could be much higher, given that their assessed parking cost of $9.30 was the lowest listed of all 30 MLB ballparks. Official Minute Maid Park Parking in Lots A and B actually ranges from $35 for pre-paid tickets and $50 on game day.

Also noteworthy: The three higher-priced parks are all easily accessible by commuter trains.

The cheapest family MLB outing in The Hustle's analysis belongs to the Arizona Diamondbacks, with an average cost for a family of four coming in at a lean $126.34. The league-average cost registers a heftier $204.76an unsurprisingly stark figure compared to the price of taking the family to the ballpark in 1960, which Crockett calculated to be $10.35.

What may surprise fans, however, is that even adjusted for inflation, the cost of going to a baseball game in 2022 is still twice the cost-adjusted 1960 figure. Crockett found that the price of baseball tickets, a ballgame beer and hot dogs have risen by more than 1,000 percent since 1960, outstripping the 888 percent price increase seen by all goods in the U.S. He identified parking as the most outrageously overpriced aspect of going to a baseball game in 2022, with the average price ($16.79) amounting to a 6,616 percent increase over 1960 parking prices (25 cents)or 7.5 times the rate of inflation.

It's a lot to swallow, and I don't think anyone would begrudge you watching more games at home until the price of hot dogs and parking real estate return from the stratosphereassuming that happens one day.

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Report: Astros games are one of the most expensive family outings in MLB - Chron