So, you want to get a couple of tickets to take your 10-year-old son to a World Series game at Fenway.
Great idea. There's nothing like a father and son spending a day at the ballpark—especially if it's the World Series.
Of course, you'd like to have reasonably good seats, so the boy can see the game and maybe even latch onto a foul ball.
Simple, right?
Hold on there pilgrim.
Those tickets are awful hard to come by—unless you happen to be a local politician who hasn't set foot in Fenway since the 2004 Series, or one of those Hollywood glamor hogs who feel like poppin' in and grabbing a seat behind the Red Sox dugout.
But the dad and his kid?
No way they'll ever get that chance—not unless Pop hits the Massachusetts state lottery the day before the game.
I decided to surf around some of the online ticket outlets (scalpers, for all intents and purposes) to see what the going price was for "decent" tickets to Game One.
The results:
Loge Box Seat, $2,144 PER TICKET
Loge, Box Seat, 14 rows above Red Sox dugout, $1,901 PER TICKET
And you ain't gonna believe this one...
Obstructed View, $2,144 PER TICKET
Remember, Fenway is one of the great old ballparks, and the architecture of the time included poles in the grandstands to keep the roof from falling down. Classic.
If you haven't sat behind a pole at Fenway Park, you haven't seen baseball.
And if you HAVE sat behind a pole at Fenway, you DIDN'T see baseball.
But back to Dad and Son. A couple of ducats to the game—around four grand. That only leaves enough for a bag of peanuts...and certainly no hot dogs.
But, what the heck—you can't expect everything for a mere four grand.
The problem is common to every other sport in the nation—professional and collegiate. It's gotten to the point where real fans may never see a championship game of any sort—other than at a sports bar or on their living room couches.
I've been fortunate to sit in on World Series games at Fenway Park—1967 and 1975—and have been in the Boston Garden for Stanley Cup games and the NBA Finals.
I have yet to make it to a Super Bowl in person—and probably never will, even though my beloved New England Patriots have been in five of them.
The main reason I haven't gone?
The outlandish price I would have to pay for a ticket.
Will professional sports ever do anything to curb the price gouging—and bring the true fans back into championship games?
Probably not.
And that's a shame.
Some of my best sports memories are of classic postseason moments. Today, though, a dad who wants to bring his kids to a postseason game has to hock the family jewels just to get in the building.
The politicians, the movie stars, and the rich and famous will all be there, of course—sitting in the best seats in the house and not knowing the difference between a base-on-balls and the infield fly rule.
What a pity.
9 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Dave Nemetz about 1 year ago
Couldn't agree more. It is financially untenable for the vast majority of the population to see a championship or even a playoff game. The scalpers hoard up all the good seats, and dish them off to the big spenders, who are often there just to impress clients and have no real devotion to their teams. That's capitalism, I suppose, but isn't scalping supposed to be against the law? Some smart person is going to come up with a solution to this, cause the way things are no just doesn't work.
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Jim Manley about 1 year ago
Couldn't agree less. The problem is that tickets aren't priced at the market price to begin with, which encourages more speculation in the resale market. Tickets would be marginally cheaper if sold at higher prices to begin with. That said, only the price system ensures that those who value the tickets most receive tickets first. The people paying high prices ARE the true fans, by the truest measure possible.
Everyone who viscerally disagrees with me should listen to this: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/07/ticket_prices_a.html
and this:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/01/munger_on_price_1.html
And the father/son scenario is a red herring; take your kid to a regular season game, or a playoff game, if you want to share the experience. Or pay the market price for WS tickets if you judge the experience to be that much better.
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Marty Andrade about 1 year ago
I expect to see one World Series game in my lifetime. I will be willing to pay scalper prices to make it happen. That's supply and demand. If we regulate scalpers I will probably never be able to see a world series game since the price controls will create a shortage and remove any incentive for secondary market exchanges. World Series tickets will go from being a marketplace to being a lottery and thus preventing people like me and thousands of others who want to see a World Series game at any price (because we are big fans).
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Mike Allen about 1 year ago
Marty, your points are well taken, and I can understand how you would be willing to pay market price to see a World Series game live. But, not everyone is in a position to do so, and the majority of those that are not, are the blue collar, hard working guy, or gal, and to shell out a couple of grand, plus the bucks for the extras, well, it's just not in the budget of most people.
I truly believe that we have reached a crossroads in the pricing of tickets for special sporting events, and perhaps, perhaps it's time for congress to step in and squash the price gouging.
I, for one, would back legislation that says that tickets for professional sport teams, and perhaps colleges too, can only be resold to a maximum of (fill in percentage here) over face value.
By the way, in 1967 I stood in line outside of Fenway Park when Bleacher and Standing Room tickets were going on sale. If memory serves me right, the individual ticket price was $6.00 each, or it may have been $8.00. And, each person was allowed to buy up to four tickets for EACH GAME.
I was there with a buddy of mine, and we were prepared to buy 16 tickets each. A couple of catholic school girls where standing behind us and they only wanted ONE TICKET each for ONE GAME.
Needless to say, we jumped all over them -figuratively speaking of course- and gave them the money to get us, each, 15 more tickets each.
When we left Fenway that day, we had more tickets than Carter has Little Liver Pills. (Old timers will know what I mean by that.) And, we did not sell one single one for profit. They were ALL for friends, business associates, and family.
All of that, of course, was before the TicketMaster types got into business and began to monopolize sporting event tickets.
Today, what has happened is a serious problem, a problem that gets worse and worse with each passing season.
And, I am afraid, that the only way to stop it is through the legislative process, either state by state, or by the federal government and the United States Congress.
I, for one, am all in favor of it being done.
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Marty Andrade about 1 year ago
It is important to consider a couple of unintended consequences to regulation in regards to these tickets.
Sure, you might be able to prevent scalpers from picking up large numbers of tickets but you would also create a black market for these tickets. It doesn't matter what you do, some people who legally purchased tickets and who really wanted to use them are going to end up missing the World Series either through greed (They realize they can't afford to say no to 2000 bucks a ticket) or there is an "event" (death in the family or sickness). Under your rules these people can 1) choose to sell their tickets within the law and get near the face value or 2) choose to enter a black market and get several times face value.
If they choose black market they will expose themselves to certain dangers which don't exist in open markets (eBay is an open marketplace with safeguards against fraud). The price of available tickets will go up worse than they are now with regulation since blackmarkets (due to the danger) are much more expensive than open markets (of course there are some exceptions).
And there will be black markets.
Personally, I (living in rural Minnesota) would not be able to spend a day waiting in line for tickets. My free time doesn't come in such large chunks. But I have squirreled away money with the goal of oneday getting tickets (or a European beer tour, haven't decided yet). If your plan to regulate prices follows through I would never get tickets unless I entered a black market and lost the protection of an open market.
Simply said, you will never be able to stand between supply and demand forcing the market to follow what you believe will be fair prices for tickets. You will only create a blackmarket which will lack safeguards enjoyed today by anyone bying tickets on eBay.
So, I would rather have the market we have today, including the limits on the numbers of tickets each person can purchase combined with both online and front office ticket sales, and accept the secondary market prices set by supply and demand than to create an unsafe black market which will also surther raise the costs of getting a ticket.
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Super Bowl Tickets about 1 year ago
Going to the Super Bowl or the World Series is not as hard as you think. I have written two books on the subject:
http://www.superbowlsecrets.com
and
http://www.worldseriesticketsecrets.com
You just have to know how to trick ticketmaster and get ahead of the public during ticket onsales.
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Jim Fisk about 1 year ago
Before we jump on the ticket scalpers and bemoan the "true fans" who can't get tickets, let's remember a few things. I was at a dinner a few weeks ago where the Chairman of the Red Sox spoke, and he said that the Sox had sold out the last 400 games in a row. All the good seats at Fenway are sold as season tickets, and are kept by the ticket holder or their heirs for decades. All season ticket holders are entitled to buy playoff tickets for their exact seats to each round of the playoffs and the World Series.
So, where do the really good seats that the scalpers are selling for this Series come from? They come from the "true fans" who have season tickets at Fenway. Look at StubHub for tomorrow night's Opening Game of the Series, and you'll see lots of tickets available for sale at the field level, between first and third base, for $3000-5000 each. THESE ARE BEING SOLD TO SCALPERS BY SEASON TICKETS HOLDERS, my friends. And, outlawing scalping won't do anything to solve the problem...New York State outlawed scalping for decades (and may still) but you could always buy a scalped ticket to the Series at Yankee Stadium. It's like Prohibition...there are things that laws can't solve because human nature and desires are too strong.
Meanwhile, I'm going to Thursday night's game at Fenway because a business friend invited me. I don't know how he acquired his ticket, but it's in the third row near the third base dugout..it has to have come from a "true Red Sox fan" who sold his ticket.
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Marty Andrade about 1 year ago
There's a lot of judging going on here. We all want to judge others. Some want to judge the scalpers for trying to make money, others are judging season ticket holders for not being better fans, maybe even I, someone who has admitted to be willing to pay market price for WS tickets, am too being judged.
I don't judge others for spending their money on cars or stereo systems while I spend money on beer. We all have different wants and desires, "price" is merely a reflection of where scarce resources fit into those wants and desires (and needs).
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
If you want to start letting the Gov't regulate prices instead of having a true free market just save yourself some time and head to Cuba.
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