What would you pay for World Series tickets?

How much would you pay for a ticket to the tonight’s World Series Game 6 at Yankee Stadium? $500? $750? For that kind of chump change you better bring your binoculars. Expect to pony up at least $1,500 for a sweet view, and thousands more to rub elbows with celebrities in the Legends sections.

With four hours until the first pitch, we found thousands of tickets for the taking on resale sites including StubHub, TicketsNow, RazorGator, and FanSnap, as the Yankees go for the clincher and the Philadelphia Phillies try to stay alive for a winner-take-all finale in Game 7 tomorrow evening in the Bronx. 

The World Series is one of those star-studded events in which ticket supplies can’t come close to the demand. Forget about double-digit unemployment, 401k losses, and plummeting home values. It doesn't seem to matter. This Series is setting a record for prices as stratospheric as any Ryan Howard or Alex Rodriguez home run. 

Tonight’s game is the highest-grossing event in StubHub’s 9-year history, according to Joellen Ferrer, spokeswoman for the company, which serves as the official “fan-to-fan marketplace” for Major League Baseball. Game 2 (also at Yankee Stadium) ranks as the second-highest grossing event, followed by Super Bowl XLIII (Arizona Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Steelers), World Series Game 1 (in New York as well), and the 2009 BCS national college football championship game (Florida vs. Oklahoma).

Ferrer says fans are paying an average price of $984 to attend tonight’s game. Tickets have gone for as little as $175 for a bleacher seat (that’s what a buyer paid several weeks ago; the going rate today is around $480) to $10,001 near the Yankees' dugout.

As you might expect, prices are being driven up by Yankee fans seeking to witness history on their home turf. Forty-six percent of buyers are from New York; only 6 percent are from Pennsylvania. Ninteen percent of buyers are from New Jersey.

With many fans anticipating a possible Game 7, prices are slowly starting to climb as well, though relative bargains are still to be had because the market for a deciding game is still in flux. As of this writing, the average price paid for a Game 7 ticket is $807, Ferrer says, and prices will invariably increase should the Phillies tie the Series tonight. (If a seventh game isn’t played, you get a refund.)

When it comes to spending, however, it's not just Yankee fans who have deep pockets. The Philly faithful, too, are willing to dig down to watch their beloved Fightins’. The average price paid on StubHub for a ticket to Games 3, 4, and 5 in the City of Brotherly Love was $770, $863, and $603, respectively. Fans spent and average of  $655 and $751, respectively, for tickets to Games 1 and 2 at Yankee Stadium.

Overall, the current average sale price of a World Series ticket in New York is $789 vs. $736 in Philly.

We thought we unearthed an incredible bargain when we found a ticket for Game 6 on TicketsNow for $170. When we looked a little closer, however, we realized it wasn’t a ticket for the game itself; it was a ticket for a preferred parking spot.

Comments

[Winston Loughlin]

You would have to pay me to go to a baseball game. The game has been spoiled by allowing it to become a marathon event.

How much has the average length of a MLB 9 inning game increased in the last 40-50 years?

Reduce the time between pitches & innings. Stop stepping out of the BB. Once you're in there, stay there

etc., etc., etc.

[Glenn Jernegan]

Category: "Let them eat cake..."

Article Nov. 4th in the Wall St. Journal:
"Lawmakers Score Ticket Deal
Baseball Sells Officials Scarce World Series Seats at Face Value, Far Below Going Rate"By BRODY MULLINS

WASHINGTON -- Tickets for Wednesday's World Series game are nearly impossible to come by at face value. But that isn't the case if you are a member of Congress or one of their aides.

Federal lawmakers and people who work for them have gotten their hands on scores of tickets to the sold-out World Series games this year between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies courtesy of a perk not available to the public.

Major League Baseball and the teams sell a limited number of prime seats to lawmakers and congressional aides at face value, often hundreds of dollars less than the going rate.

The league has sold about 75 World Series tickets to a total of 15 lawmakers or aides in the past week, according to Pat Courtney, a spokesman for Major League Baseball. Mr. Courtney declined to identify which lawmakers and aides sought the tickets.