American reporter blown away by cheap food prices at Tokyo baseball stadium, locals less impressed

With foreign media in town for the Major League Baseball season opener, Tokyo Dome’s concession stands shine bright.

Major League Baseball held its season opening games this week at Tokyo Dome, which instead of a red carpet went with black and yellow as the color scheme of its welcome as Pikachu showed up to greet the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs.

That wasn’t the only surprise that put a smile on the faces of fans and media members from abroad, though. Among the journalists covering the MLB Tokyo Series, as the pair of Dodgers/Cubs games were called, was Darren Haynes, sports reporter for southern California TV station KCAL, which broadcasts as channel 9 in the Los Angeles area. Haynes was no doubt happy to see the Dodgers pick up a pair of wins during the trip, but another source of joy came from Tokyo Dome’s food and drinks, as shown in this video taken in the stadium’s concession areas.

Haynes starts off praising the wide selection of chow, with everything from sushi to chicken nuggets on offer. His appreciation gets kicked up to an even higher level, though, when he sees how low the prices are.

“Wait, hold on. Stop. Look at that,” says Haynes in the video, accompanied by a record scratch sound effect as he points to a menu with Coca-Cola, melon soda, ginger ale, and other soft drinks for 400 yen. “400 yen is two dollars and 69 cents,” Haynes converts. “To buy a soda at Dodgers Stadium is $10.99.”

That’s not the only bargain that catches Haynes eye, either. He’s also surprised to learn that Tokyo Dome sells hot dogs for 600 yen, roughly US$4, which is less than half the price of Dodger Stadium’s “Dodger Dogs,” which cost US$9. Tokyo Dome’s 600-yen French fries are “like half the price of [French fries at] Dodgers Stadium.” Then there’s a price gap for beer. At Tokyo Dome, a freshly poured Kirin Ichiban Shibori will cost you 900 yen, which converts to about US$6.15. At Dodger Stadium? You could be paying US$17.50 for an Estrella Jalisco…in a can, as this photo from the Los Angeles stadium shows.

So clearly you get a lot more food and drink for you buck at Tokyo Dome…but there are a couple of catches here, the first of which is that you’ll need to have “bucks,” i.e. U.S. dollars, to really feel like you’re getting a great deal. The yen has dramatically weakened in value versus the U.S. dollar over the past few years, and the exchange rate makes Tokyo Dome’s food and drink prices feel a lot cheaper if they’re converted into dollars than they do for the local population that’s getting paid in yen. What’s more, prices like 900 yen for a beer or 600 yen for French fries are still fairly sizable markups from what you’d pay for those things at casual restaurants or convenience stores in Japan, so for Japanese locals, all of those to-Haynes bargains feel pretty expensive.

That said, it is true that the markups for food and drinks at stadiums, amusement parks, and other entertainment facilities in Japan tend to be less severe than at their counterparts in the U.S. It’s also true that subjective descriptions like “cheap” or “expensive” are heavily dependent on perspective, so if you’re a traveler from the U.S. catching a game at Tokyo Dome, odds are you’re going to be very happy with the prices.

Source: Twitter/@SportsCentralLA via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Wikipedia/DX Broadrec
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