Forest City Ratner's savings from scrapping the MetroCard bundled with ticket: perhaps $2 million to $3 million a year

“We might be able to put a ticket on a MetroCard, but we might not be able to put a MetroCard on a ticket," Forest City Ratner executive Jane Marshall said at a public meeting in May 2011. 

And the plan was part of the suite of strategies promised in the  Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments the developer signed with the Empire State Development Corporation.

But Forest City Ratner officials and consultant Sam Schwartz yesterday said it would be impractical to link a MetroCard to a ticket, that it would not serve as a practical incentive, and that many arena-goers already have unlimited ride MetroCards.

All of those are plausible, but another angle on the issue should be clear: scrapping the plan would save Forest City Ratner a lot of money.

Let's say every ticket were bundled with a MetroCard, with two $2.25 fares.

If the arena were chock-full, with 18,000 patrons, that $4.50 fare over 41 home games would represent $3.3 million.

But let's say they figured out a way to only offer MetroCards to two-thirds of the crowd. At 12,000 fares, the cost would be $2.2 million.

And this is without counting pre-season games.

So, is Forest City Ratner just keeping the cash, or spending the money to otherwise deter driving?