Colorado Rockies’ 12% Ticket Hike After 4 Straight 100-Loss Seasons
The Colorado Rockies lost 100 games for the fourth year running, then asked fans for roughly 12% more money. That is either nerve or a brutally honest lesson in pricing power.
The Colorado Rockies have just completed a fourth straight 100-loss season and lifted ticket prices by roughly 12%.
Most businesses would call that a resignation letter. In sport, it is a pricing strategy.
Club president Walker Monfort knows exactly how ugly it looks. He said there is never a right time, particularly after another 100-loss campaign, to ask customers for more. Fair enough. But the reason matters: the Rockies say they are trying to close the gap between their ticket prices and the Major League Baseball average.
There it is. The cold, useful truth.
The Rockies are not pricing the product according to how many games they won. They are pricing it according to what the market will tolerate for access to Coors Field, Denver, summer nights and 81 dates on the calendar that plenty of people still regard as a decent outing.
Fans can hate that. They probably should. Operators should study it.
A 15-win improvement nobody should celebrate
Colorado improved its win total by 15 games in 2026 and still reached 100 losses. That is the sporting equivalent of losing a stack of money, then announcing you have made “meaningful progress” because you lost slightly less than last year.
Paul DePodesta, the club’s president of baseball operations, at least did not try to sell the result as success. He said there had been progress but made clear the organisation was nowhere near satisfied. Good. Professional sport has too many people treating internal improvement as if customers owe them applause for it.
The hard result is the hard result: four consecutive 100-loss seasons. Colorado became the first club since the 1962-65 New York Mets to suffer that particular run of misery.
And this is not some low-profile franchise playing in a temporary stadium with no market. The Rockies have Coors Field, one of baseball’s great physical settings, in a city that is growing, wealthy and sports-mad. They have a ballpark people want to visit even when the baseball is ordinary. More accurately, even when it is bloody awful.
That is why the ticket increase is such a revealing business story.
A team that cannot sell hope on the field is monetising the part of its product that still works: the live event.
Coors Field is not just a baseball venue
The mistake fans make is assuming they are buying only the quality of the roster. They are not.
They are buying a seat in a city-centre entertainment precinct. They are buying a warm night, a beer, a few innings before dinner, a work outing, a family ritual, an excuse to see Shohei Ohtani or another visiting star, and perhaps a bit of baseball around the edges.
That is not a criticism of fans. It is how live sport works now.
The best franchises understand they are not merely teams. They are recurring-access businesses wrapped in tribal identity. The game is the centrepiece, but the commercial product is broader: hospitality, food and drink, corporate entertaining, premium seating, sponsors, merchandise, parking, broadcast inventory and a reliable reason for people to gather.
The Rockies are testing the strength of that bundle.
Monfort’s explanation was that Colorado’s prices need to catch up with the MLB average, while business decisions are meant to help the club become more competitive on the field. That second bit is where fans are entitled to become sceptical. Every sports owner says revenue helps winning. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it just helps an owner own a more valuable asset.
The difference is capital allocation.
If increased ticket revenue produces better player development, smarter scouting, more credible pitching investment and an actual plan to keep talented players, fans may eventually forgive the timing. If it disappears into a business that continues to produce 100-loss seasons, then the Rockies have simply proved they can tax loyalty.
The Penner investment changes the question
In April, the Monfort family brought Denver Broncos owners Greg Penner and Carrie Walton Penner into the ownership group through a minority investment by Penner Sports Group. Walker Monfort said this week that a majority sale is not under consideration.
That matters because minority capital is often misunderstood.
A new investor does not automatically mean a new boss, a blank chequebook or a ruthless reset. It can mean more capital, more commercial expertise and more pressure inside the room. It can also mean the existing control structure remains exactly where it was.
Greg Penner and Carrie Walton Penner have experience owning the Broncos, another major Denver sports asset. That gives the Rockies access to people who understand stadium economics, premium inventory, sponsorship sales and what a competent modern sports operation looks like. But access is not execution.
The Rockies do not need another glossy slide deck about “fan experience.” They need a baseball operation that makes the on-field product less embarrassing.
The timing is awkward for another reason: Major League Baseball faces a potential labour fight after the current collective bargaining agreement expires following the 2026 season. The Rockies are taking more money from customers while the possibility of disrupted 2027 games hangs over the sport.
That is a gutsy call. Or a tone-deaf one. Time will decide.
Kris Bryant is the expensive warning label
Kris Bryant remains the obvious warning label on the side of this business.
Colorado signed Bryant to a seven-year, $182 million contract before the 2022 season. Injuries have limited him to 170 games with the Rockies, according to reporting from the club’s end-of-season media availability.
This is why “spend more” is not a strategy. It is a slogan.
Every frustrated fan wants the owner to open the wallet. I get it. I have built businesses; I know what it feels like to watch someone with resources refuse to invest. But money spent without a sharp decision-making system is just a more expensive way to make the same mistakes.
The Bryant deal was not bad because it was large. It was bad because the return has been nowhere near the cost. That is the issue in sport, startups, property and every other business where people confuse writing a cheque with building an advantage.
The Rockies also had no starting pitcher earn a win after August 26. That is not a marketing problem. It is not a ticket-pricing problem. It is a core-product problem.
You can package a weak product beautifully for a while. Eventually, the weak product starts running the business.
The overlooked angle: the Rockies may be right on price
Here is the contrarian bit nobody will enjoy hearing: the Rockies may be commercially right to raise prices.
Not morally right. Not emotionally right. Commercially right.
If demand remains solid enough across season tickets, mini plans, group sales, premium areas and individual games, holding prices below the market does not make management noble. It just leaves money on the table. And a well-run club should not pretend otherwise.
The actual question is whether Colorado is charging more because it has earned the right, or because it believes its customers have nowhere better to take their entertainment dollars.
Those are wildly different businesses.
The first has pricing power because customers love the product. The second has pricing power because habit, location and limited substitutes protect it. Both can work for a while. Only one creates durable goodwill.
The Denver Gazette reported that some season-ticket holders faced increases closer to 14%, showing why averages can become a bit slippery when they land in an actual customer’s inbox. An “average” increase is a harmless boardroom phrase. A bigger bill for the same seat after another rotten season is personal.
That is where operators need to pay attention. You can raise prices in a disappointing period, but you must give loyal customers something tangible in return: better service, more flexibility, priority access, meaningful renewal benefits or a credible investment story they can see with their own eyes.
Do not insult them with vague promises of “building for the future.” That phrase should be banned from business until someone attaches a deadline, a budget and an accountable name to it.
What this means for you
Whether you run a startup, own a small business, manage a team or invest your own money, there are three useful lessons here.
First: know what customers are really buying. The Rockies are not selling only baseball. Your business probably is not selling only its obvious product either. Work out the full bundle: convenience, status, trust, community, time saved, experience, access. That is where genuine pricing power sits.
Second: never confuse a price rise with a strategy. Raising prices is easy. Earning the right to keep them up is the job. Before you charge more, answer one blunt question: what gets better for the customer, specifically? If your answer is a paragraph of fluff, you are not ready.
Third: new capital does not fix a broken operating system. The Penner investment may help the Rockies. But capital is fuel, not a steering wheel. If your hiring, product decisions, incentives and accountability are poor, more money simply lets you drive further in the wrong direction.
The Rockies have proved something valuable this week. A business can have a terrible year at its core activity and still possess real commercial leverage.
Just do not mistake that leverage for love. Customers will put up with plenty. They will not put up with everything forever.