ALDS tickets a hot commodity

September 29, 2010 by Benjamin Kabak 8 Comments

At 10:01 a.m. this morning, I logged onto to Yankees.com hopping to find a seat — any seat — for the Yanks’ American League Division Series games. After watching the Ticketmaster website do its thing, I was greeted with a “No tickets found” page. No matter where I searched, I couldn’t find one single ticket for sale. Seats, it seemed, were wiped out in the presales for season ticket holders.

Luckily for us, the secondary market is alive and well. Our partners at TiqIQ tell us that, for the ALDS, Yankee Stadium tickets are going for 74 percent above the regular season average and are selling for well above face value. That’s hardly surprising, and this is a trend that will continue throughout the playoffs. Tickets for Game 3 are going for, on average, $202 even though it’s unlikely that the Yanks will host three home games during the first round of the playoffs. The sellers can keep their profits if the Yanks do not enjoy home field advantage, and buyers can get some of their money back.

Meanwhile, RAB Tickets should be your place for playoff tickets (and, yes, we get a cut of the sales). For Home Game 1, date still to be determined, there are 8343 tickets available, and for Home Game 2, we have 9511 listings. Check it all out at RAB Tickets.

After the jump, a neat graph of average World Series ticket price vs. the number of tickets available. Tickets for the Giants, Phillies and Rangers are going for top dollar.

nsalem

Play off tickets not intended for true fan usage
Dream of Electric Sheep

The last Yankees playoff game I went to I went with couple British blokes , we got 3 tickets to the tune of 1300 dollars. The exchange part of it was exciting , I feel like i was in an episode of the Wire.
- nsalem
  
  If the secondary market (euphemism for ticket scalping) wasn’t “alive and well” you would have been able to purchase the tickets at a fair price. It’s a sad fact of life that there are those who can’t find a better way to earn a living than reselling tickets to sporting and entertainment events.
  - http://www.secondavenuesagas.com Benjamin Kabak
    
    There’s a bit of an economic difference between scalping and the online secondary market. Because so many seats are aggregated at one place for, say, StubHub, the price people charge and the money people are willing to sell out is a better indication of the true value of the tickets than face. It’s true that brokers get their hands on way too many tickets, but it’s also a free market at work in a way.
    - Dream of Electric Sheep
      
      pretty spot on Ben, we did on a whim. The Yanks won that night we got wasted by 3rd inning at the old YS. The subway ride back into the city was full of revelries and nincompooperies.
      
      Good times.
    - nsalem
      
      Junk bonds are (were) also the free market at work in a way. The only difference between the online secondary market and ticket scalping is that the online market is now legal. There is absolutely no difference in the concept. It’s about turning a quick buck. It is so
      odd how when Elliot Spitzer was New York AG he was so vehemently opposed to the practice but upon becoming governor
      it was alright to deregulate the “industry”. Gee, I wonder what changed his mind. Maybe it helped him afford the finer things in life. When scalpers control 20 to 30 percent of the market, I consider it out of hand. I wish it was illegal so the average fan would have fair access to these tickets. I have always been against this practice and the legalization of it has not changed my mind. Perhaps if the scalpers hadn’t gotten hold of the tickets first, you would have been able to purchase your tickets at face value.
https://twitter.com/Carcillo_ Carcillo

If I can make an assumption, and I apologize if this is common knowledge and I come off as ignorant as a result, but if theoretically a person purchases tickets to Game 1 of a playoff series, but it ultimately turns out that the team does not end up drawing the HFA, and as such their first home game of the series is Game 3, does that mean Game 1 ticket purchasers get Game 3 tickets instead?

And is there a trickle down effect as well, if such is the case? Game 1 would become Game 3, 2 becomes 4, etc.?
- http://www.twitter.com/deanezag Zack
  
  Yes. If you purchase Yankee Home Game #1 for the ALDS, then you have the first Yankee home game, whether that ends up being Game 1 or Game 3.