Cardinals raise ticket prices to pay for payroll increase

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ Fans will pay more to see a game at Busch Stadium, as the St. Louis Cardinals move to increase their payroll by $10 million. <br><br>The club plans to raise ticket prices an average of

Monday, December 4th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

ST. LOUIS (AP) _ Fans will pay more to see a game at Busch Stadium, as the St. Louis Cardinals move to increase their payroll by $10 million.

The club plans to raise ticket prices an average of $4 a seat, or about 21 percent. That means the top ticket, a field box, will go up to $36 from $30, while a bleacher seat increases to $10 from $8.

Season-ticket holders were told of the increase in letters received late last week.

Team president Mark Lamping said the money will be used to increase the club's payroll to $75 million. It was at $72.4 million at the end of last season.

``Ownership will continue to invest every available dollar they have into payroll,'' Lamping said. ``That's the way we've been operating for the past several years. In fact, ownership has been required to make a significant investment in the club over the past several seasons.''

The tax on Cardinals tickets, which is 12.6 percent, also was blamed for the price increases, Lamping said.

``This is sort of a harsh reality,'' he said. ``We have the onerous tax situation, we simply don't have the ballpark to generate revenue comparable to other teams, and there's the fact we have a small media market.

``This is a very significant increase, and we acknowledged that in the letter. But we feel that now is not the time to get less aggressive. Most of our fans understand the aggressiveness in baseball right now.''

While the San Francisco Giants pay no tax on tickets, the Cardinals are responsible for 7.6 percent sales tax and 5 percent admission tax on every ticket, Lamping said.

``We're getting very close to finding ourselves with the only way to raise payroll is to put it on the backs of the fans in higher ticket prices, and we can't do that repeatedly,'' said Lamping.

The team cannot cut payroll if it intends to remain competitive, Lamping said.