The Billiken's Bluff

I ordered the chicken fingers and fries for $7.00 at Shea Stadium. This seemed like a bargain and everyone on line in front of me agreed. A Snapple was $4.50, a slice of pizza, $5.00. 3 Chicken fingers and fries for $7.00. Great.



There was little to no chicken in my chicken fingers (and I feel like I sound like George Castanza sitting in the coffee shop complaining to Jerry and Elaine about perceived slights to the wallet, but I won't be deterred I'm fighting through this, this is, after all not about $7.00). The chicken was real, this wasn't a case of glutens and fillers, but there was maybe a 1/16 of an inch of chicken surrounded by inches of bread crumbs.



I'm not saying that cutting costs to increase profits is evil; I'm saying that so many breadcrumbs are abnormal and disheartening.



But there may be more too this. I felt like I was watching something unfold. The inevitable progression of things.

I moved from Levi's to Guess to Versace, now it's diamonds like Liberace.

This proportion of chicken to breadcrumbs was a preview of things to come. A future when protein is no longer available. Crusts are quarters of inches thick, meat reduced to nostalgic slivers. Genetic mutant potatoes, deep-fried forming the underbelly, the sustenance.





or something like that.



Mets/Dbacks, last Wednesday night. It was a pitching duel, 12 innings of shutout baseball on both sides. To keep myself occupied after finishing the chicken fingers and fries I did some quick McKinsey-style business analysis:

A standard God-fearing order of chicken fingers should contain a 1/3 of a pound of chicken. The Shea Stadium variety had maybe an 1/8 of a pound. Chicken costs $2 per pound. So the Mets are saving $.42 per chicken finger combo by lowering their chicken count. The Mets draw approximately 30,000 fans per game. Let's say one in four fans opt for the chicken fingers, so 7,500 chicken finger meals sold per game. There are 81 home games. So here are the savings resulting from including negligible quantities chicken in Shea chicken fingers:

81*7,500*.42 = $255,150 per year

This is actually a lot of money. If you can cut these types of costs on multiple items and still sell product... well this is a good business model. But some perspective...

Pedro Martinez will make $14.8 million in 2006 salary. He will pitch approximately 32 times this year (if he stays healthy). This equals $464,843 per game. He pitches on average 7 innings per game, so his salary per inning pitched is $66,406. In other words, the chicken finger savings will cover the cost of Pedro Martinez for a little less than 4 innings of work in 2006.



This doesn't seem to be an ideal way to fund a baseball team.



[Note to consulting companies: I am equally adept at analyzing all aspects of concession sales and operations. You can reach me at billikenbluff@yahoo.com to make any employment offers.]