Take me out to the ball game…. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks…. Professional baseball teams earn substantial revenues through ticket sales. To maximize profit they offer significantly lower ticket prices for youths (whose demand is elastic) than for adults (whose demand is inelastic). This discount may be as much as fifty percent. If this type of price discrimination increases revenue and profit, why don’t teams also price discriminate at the concession stands? Why don’t they offer half-priced hotdogs, soft drinks, peanuts, and Cracker Jacks to youths? The answer involves the three requirements for successful price discrimination. All three requirements are met for game tickets: (1) The team has monopoly power; (2) it can segregate ticket buyers by age group, each group having a different elasticity of demand; and (3) youths cannot resell their discounted tickets to adults. It’s a different situation at the concession stands. Specifically, the third condition is not met. If the team had dual prices, it could not prevent the exchange or "resale" of the concession goods from youths to adults. Many adults would send youths to buy food and soft drinks for them: "Here’s some money, Billy. Go buy six hot dogs." In this case, price discrimination would reduce, not increase, team profit. Thus, youths and adults are charged the same high prices at the concession stands. (These prices are high relative to those for the same goods at the local convenience store because the stadium sellers have a captured audience and thus considerable monopoly power.)

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