Red Sox, Cubs, Yankees are most expensive teams

Team Marketing Report's annual studies on the average price of attending a baseball game for a family of four are not popular among some teams, in part because the process is spectacularly complex and inexact.

But TMR does its best, and people like me can't resist using their figures.

They show that in 2010 the average price of a non-premium MLB ticket is up slightly to $26.74, and the average Fan Cost Index is down slightly, to $195.08.

(FCI counts two adult and two child's game tickets, two small beers, four small soft drinks, four hot dogs, two programs, two caps and one car worth of parking.)

The Red Sox and Cubs topped both the FCI and ticket rankings, with the Yankees third in both categories at $316.32 and $51.83.

The Mets were sixth in both categories at $226.88 (down 12.4 percent from last year) and $32.22.

The Diamondbacks were last at $115.24 and $14.31.

But the fact only non-premium seats are included in the ticket averages is a key point. The Mets have an MLB-high 37 percent of their seats considered premium, and those average $133.98.

The Yankees' premium seats average $312.11. That's the highest figure in baseball, but way down from last year's TMR-reported average of $510.08.