$50 to park for the USC game -- a bargain, I'm told
At last week's USC-Cal football game, after I parked in a private lot a half-hour's walk from the Coliseum for the tidy sum of $30, I told people it's a good thing I didn't end up an hour away -- I didn't have $60 in my pocket.
This'll teach me to make jokes.
Without a media parking pass for Saturday's USC-Notre Dame epic, and assuming the campus structures would fill up as early as they did for Cal, I went back to the same private lot on the grounds of a religious school at Hoover and 32nd about four hours before kickoff.
"Thirty dollars?" I said to the woman at the gate. "Fifty," she said, pointing to a hand-lettered sign.
Fifty. 50. 5-0h.
I asked the man and woman in charge, What's the difference between Cal-game parking and Notre Dame-game parking?
"It's supply and demand," the man said.
Now, Milton Friedman is gone, so you'll have to play free-market economist and explain this to me. The same confusion came up when the parking lots across the street from Staples Center that were $20 for regular-season games went up to $25 for the playoffs.
Attendance doesn't go up, certainly not by a factor of 67 percent -- there were 90,000-plus for the Cal game, there were going to be 90,000 plus for the Notre Dame game. Wait, it must be that people weren't as desperate to park for the Cal game -- they just kept driving around the block during the game, enjoying the faint roar of the crowd.
The parking attendants said $50 really wasn't so bad, that it would be higher closer to the stadium. Indeed, a block into my walk, I passed a lot charging $70.
In the press-box elevator, a couple of photographers expressed sympathy over my half-hour march across the USC campus, through Exposition Park, half-way around the Coliseum. They'd parked right across from the Sports Arena for the low, low, bargain price of $80.
I used to associate price gouging with the aftermath of earthquakes and floods. Now it'll be earthquakes, floods and Trojans football.
-- The game: My gut says USC (an 8 1/2-point favorite this morning) wins comfortably. My head says Notre Dame won't make it that easy. Trojans 27, Fighting Irish 23.
Comments
You coulda parked at the Shrine for $40 and walked down Trojan Walk. nice walk and get the full experience. try it next time
Posted by: Matt | November 26, 2006 02:46 AM