Americans keep getting priced out of fun. Here's how it impacts us at home
"Fundflation" — the surge in entertainment and experience pricing since the pandemic — is pricing out consumers, particularly Gen Z, from both live events and at-home activities like streaming and gaming. As subscription services and gaming hardware costs double, younger consumers are cutting back on leisure spending and exploring free alternatives like physical media.
Summary
Since the pandemic, the entertainment and leisure industry has experienced significant price inflation, termed "fundflation" by economists. A PNC chart created for CNBC shows that amusement parks and concerts saw much higher price growth than broader inflation measures in 2023, and this surge is recurring in 2024. Streaming services have become increasingly expensive: Netflix's ad-free standard account costs $20 per month in July 2026, up from $14 five years prior. When consumers subscribe to multiple services like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Hulu, annual costs exceed $1,300. Gen Z is being hit hardest by fundflation despite spending more on experiences, as younger workers have faced job market challenges, depleted savings, and five years of inflation fatigue. Gaming costs are also soaring—Microsoft doubled Xbox Game Pass prices in 2025 and increased console costs in 2026, with expectations for hardware prices to double by 2027. Nintendo announced an 11% price increase for the Switch system by September. Both companies attributed these increases to tariffs and global memory shortages. Some consumers are responding by abandoning entertainment spending entirely or reverting to free hobbies and physical media like books, CDs, and DVDs. However, a significant portion of fans remain willing to sacrifice other spending or incur credit card debt to attend live sports events, suggesting consumer resilience despite repeated economic shocks.
Key Insights
- Fundflation items like amusement parks and concerts normalized somewhat over time but are now surging above average prices again, showing a second wave of leisure cost inflation.
- Younger workers like Gen Z have had more difficulty getting jobs, run down their savings, and experienced five years of inflation fatigue, making them most vulnerable to funflation impacts.
- Microsoft expects hardware prices to double by 2027 and has attributed price markups to tariffs and global memory shortages, while simultaneously announcing thousands of job cuts.
- Nearly a quarter of sports fans say they would cut back on other spending to attend live events, and about a fifth say they'd go into credit card debt for the same purpose.
- Physical media like books, CDs, and DVDs are experiencing a resurgence as consumers seek alternatives to expensive streaming and digital entertainment services.
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] Since the pandemic, we've talked a lot about how the experiences that were put on hold, like concerts or sporting events, saw prices surge as consumers race to make up for lost time. Economists even had a name for it, fundflation. Take a look at this chart PNC made exclusively for CNBC. [music] You see back in 2023 that funlflation items like amusement parks or concerts [music] had much higher price growth than a broader basket. that normalized a bit over time, but now that funflation [0:30] category [music] is surging above average once again. >> The way that it has slowly happened over time, especially if you're like I'm a millennial. If you're like Gen Z, you don't…
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