It was recently in the news that the NY Yankees do not provide free wifi for their players on away game flights!!! That's earth shattering news because teams usually charter flights for their players, coaches, and support staff. These flights are typically equipped with amenities such as Wi-Fi, comfortable seating, and in-flight entertainment.
To estimate the cost of Wi-Fi for a baseball team during their charter flights throughout an entire season, we need to consider several factors:
- Number of games per season
- Number of away games
- Average flight duration
- Cost of Wi-Fi per flight hour
In a regular MLB season, each team plays 162 games, with half of those being away games. So, a team would have 81 away games. However, not all away games require flights. Some games are played against nearby teams, and the team might travel by bus or train. To account for this, let's assume that 70% of the away games require flights. That's approximately 57 flights (rounding up). Since teams often play multiple games in a series against the same opponent, they don't need to travel between every away game. To factor this in, let's assume that they take a flight for every 3 away games. This results in 19 flights (57 away games / 3). Now let's estimate the average flight duration. Flight times can vary greatly depending on the distance between cities. In the United States, an average flight time can range from 1 to 6 hours. For this calculation, we'll assume an average flight duration of 3 hours.
As for the cost of Wi-Fi, it can also vary depending on the provider and the specific package the team has. For this estimation, we'll assume a cost of $25 per hour per person. Assuming a traveling party of 40 people (including players, coaches, and support staff), the cost of Wi-Fi per flight hour would be $1,000 (40 people x $25). Now, we can calculate the total cost of Wi-Fi for the entire season:
Total cost = (Number of flights) x (Average flight duration) x (Cost of Wi-Fi per flight hour) Total cost = 19 flights x 3 hours x $1,000 Total cost = $57,000
The Yankees are a franchise worth 6 Billion, but they make their players pay $9 for wifi. To which the fans said: "we could care less, those millionaires have to pay $9 and that hurts?"
