KANSAS CITY, Mo. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks. And some more. And more.
A growing trend in all-you-can-eat seating at sports venues is making baseball's summer chorus sound more like "Take Me Out to the Buffet."
Dozens of arenas, stadiums and tracks have offered tickets that come with unlimited snacks. The seats have been a hit with fans, a moneymaker for the venues and a worry for obesity-conscious health officials.
Instead of paying for a ticket and multiple trips to the concession stand, the ticket includes everything and costs about 50 percent more. Alcohol and desserts are sold separately.
"I don't think you're ever going to get your value from it food-wise, but convenience-wise, I think it is a heck of a lot nicer than waiting in line for 20 minutes," said Drew Nurenberg, 30, of Malvern, Pa., who bought all-you-can-eat seats with his wife for a Philadelphia Flyers game last month.
. . .
Nearly half of the 30 major league baseball teams have added the all-inclusive seats, and others are looking into it. The NHL has nine teams offering the deal; the NBA has six. The idea has not caught on with the NFL, but NASCAR has put it in overdrive, selling the tickets at multiple racetracks.
Fans get bargain grub, and the venues are able to charge a premium for foods they already buy cheap in bulk.
The result is like a giant hot dog on a hook -- a way for teams to lure new fans to their games or get old ones to switch to higher-priced sections. In the past, unlimited food and drink were reserved for luxury suites, which cost up to six figures a year.
The Los Angeles Dodgers first offered all-you-can-eat seats in their right-field bleacher pavilion last season. They averaged 2,200 fans per game in a section that typically opened only when the left-field bleachers were full.
Last June, the Kansas City Royals opened four little-used upper-deck sections along the right-field line for select games. This season, they're adding a section -- for a total of 500 seats -- and making them available at every game.
Most all-you-can-eat seats cover only the basics: hot dogs, popcorn and soda.
"Just what the world doesn't need is another way to get as much food as they want whenever they want it," says Jeanne Goldberg, a professor of nutrition science at Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition.
The unlimited quantity has turned some sporting events into games of can-you-top-this in the stands, with fans competing to see who can shovel the most hot dogs down their gullets.

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