At its core, one of the best things baseball in this town has offered, even in an era of ridiculous player contracts, is relative value to attend games.
When I was a teenager, it was a true value - $2 to sit in the center field bleachers at Tiger Stadium. It was lousy seat to watch the game, actually, but there were something like 10,000 of those lousy cheap seats. I looked at it as paradise at the time. Sitting out there on warm summer nights with my buddies was a treasure.
So, please, don't take this like I'm unsympathetic to the plight of fans upset the Tigers have raised ticket prices.
Yet, I do understand the increase on two fronts.
One is supply and demand. The Tigers are a hot ticket these days,. They have made the playoffs two years in a row, and three of the last seven years. They have reached the World Series twice since 2006. They are popular.
You can get a ticket very inexpensively to the Pistons these days. It was not like that during the "Bad Boys" or "Going to the Work" eras.

There is a price to pay at box office for on-the-field success

Secondly, the Tigers have consistently put significant funds into their club. They have re-signed their young stars like Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera to huge contracts rather than letting them leave as free agents. They have not hesitated, for many years, to sign or trade for expensive players. The classic examples the last two off seasons: The Prince Fielder and Torii Hunter free agent signings.
Also, the Tigers ticket prices are less than many other organizations.
As for back in the day, the bleachers weren't full most of those nights. And when the Tigers did develop a championship-caliber team, they let three of their main parts get away as free agents - Lance Parrish, Kirk Gibson and Jack Morris.
So in a sense, Tiger fans are at least getting what they pay for with a quality team on the field.