Will White Sox follow Cubs lead on ticket prices?

After a 101-loss season, the Chicago Cubs announced that they would be reducing ticket prices by an average of 2 percent. The biggest price cut is for bleacher seats, which will be reduced by 10 percent. Season ticket holders will pay $1-2 less per game.

White Sox fans were criticized/called out/shamed by numerous members of the media who, while never actually having to purchase tickets themselves, or pay for parking, or pay for meals, continually were perplexed that attendance for a team that spent most of the season in first place was low. The failings of the Chicago media, however, don't extend to the West Coast. Jim quoted CSN Bay Area's Ray Ratto this morning but it merits another mention:

It is never the customer’s job to support the entrepreneur, and never has been. It is the job of the entrepreneur to attract the customer. It has always been so, and anyone who believes the inverse is, well, an idiot.

We've debated ad nauseum why White Sox fans didn't come out in droves to see the 2012 club. But it doesn't take much more than a look at your ticket stub to see the biggest reasons why. As pointed out by Chris Jaffe of the Hardball Times, who does yeoman's work each season on ticket prices, the White Sox trail only the Yankees (what's that you say, they have trouble with attendance, too?) in the cost of the cheapest ticket combined with parking. When you expand the analysis to a family of four purchasing the cheapest seats and parking at the stadium, it amounts to a whopping $94.30, the fourth highest in baseball.

Jaffe also compared the costs for the two Chicago teams, noting that the Cubs already have an advantage in fan support and the White Sox haven't engaged them on ticket prices by significantly under-cutting the North Siders' prices. So I guess we'll see how the White Sox respond.