Let's talk about billionaires selling hot dogs for $9

And more basketball-adjacent money stuff.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Portrait of Mlle. Hortense Valpinçon; Edgar Degas; 1871

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The Suns announced a new $2 menu for home games for the rest of the season.

It’s really cool to let people who are paying a good bit of money to be at your place of business to watch your primary product (a basketball team) and likely wearing a bit of your brand kit get a normal deal on some basic snacks and, uh, water. Especially since these fans are banned from bringing in any outside snacks or, uh, water.

Of course, those prices on the left — the ones in strikethrough — are incredibly gross. $8.50 for water (and it’s more at some other arenas to this day) is ridiculous and worthy of scorn. $7 for a bag of chips that likely cost pennies to produce and a quarter or two to buy wholesale is outrageous. And there is nothing about the environment of a sports arena or stadium that makes selling those products more costly than other environments. The price is usurious simply due to the captive audience of the team’s own making — the team restricts the audience from leaving at halftime, paying a cheap hot dog from the sidewalk vendor and coming back in. It doesn’t cost the team $2 to purchase, prepare and sell the hot dog. It sure as hell doesn’t cost them $9.

So the question is whether Suns owner Mat Ishbia, who has also made non-national home games available to over-the-air customers without cable or streaming services and has spent out the proverbial wazoo for the team’s roster, deserves credit for knocking some concessions prices from the realm of the absurd to bordering on Costco Food Court levels.

Perhaps I’m being uncharitable, but thieves don’t earn gratitude by keeping their hands out of your pockets. The T.V. broadcast stuff is laudable, and the other teams who have pursued should be heralded as well. That’s good stuff that will only help the long-term sustainability of their business while helping fans. Good stuff. This value menu marketing splash is nice, too. I never buy concessions except water at pro sports or entertainment events at big arenas. But instead of giving credit for the one NBA owner who bucked the trend, we should shame all of the others into lowering their concessions prices. It’s disgusting to charge so much for so little just because you can.

Speaking of charitability, it’s always a great time to give to your local food bank.

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