Baseball Beer Prices -- Cheers to the Giants!

Smiles at $6 a pop...

​Nouveau Giants fans unaccustomed to adversity may have been left weeping into their beers by the team's disappointing opening series. But, in addition to the reassuring notion that a World Series pennant is fluttering over AT&T Park, San Francisco aficionados can cry proudly into their suds in the knowledge that we can afford to.

The 2011 Team Marketing Report "Fan Cost Index" is out, and it reveals that brews at Giants home games, while exorbitantly priced, are far from the most expensive beers to be had at a ballpark. A small draft will run a Giants fan a cool $6. That's steep -- but cheaper than brews in Boston, both Chicago ballparks, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minnesota, Toronto, Detroit, D.C., Baltimore, Miami, and Atlanta. The Red Sox, incidentally, claim the most exorbitantly priced beers in the realm -- $7.25 for 12 ounces.

You can read the entire Fan Cost Index here, by the way.

Team Marketing Report comes out with its index every year, ranking the ballclubs by affordability in terms of lugging a hypothetical family of four to the game. Since said family parks in stadium lots, eats pricey ballpark food, and, worst of all, is provided with team gear priced at inflated levels harking to precrash Iceland, the overall "affordability" is highly suspect.

That being said, the index's ranking of beer, ticket, and parking  prices is fascinating. Here in San Francisco, incidentally, the average ticket runs $25.01. That's a 14 percent jump from last year's price, the biggest markup in the league. You may not get what you pay for when you shell out more for a Giants game, but you certainly do pay for what you get.

The World Champs' ticket prices, it seems, are below the league average: $26.61. Red Sox fans can grumble about the most expensive average seat prices along with their pricey beers: $53.38.

​The Sox have only the second most exorbitant parking prices in the league, however. The Yanks beat them there, $35 to $27. The Giants weigh in at an even $20 (why make change?), well above the league average of $12.96. That being said, it's hardly a fair fight when competing against parking-rich, sprawling megalopolises such as Minnesota ($5), L.A. ($8), or Tampa (free parking!). 

In Tampa, meanwhile, the stadium "only" charges five bucks a beer. Combined with free parking, that could be problematic.