Posted on by Shannon Shark @metspolice

Ticket Fees at Mets Games (aka Higher Price, Worse Seats?)

I haven’t done much Mets Policing in the “calling them on the carpet” way lately because the year has been running smoothly.  Mistakes were made in 2009, and they were corrected.  Eventually Dave Howard will meet me in Promenade Left for a game and we’ll discuss the plexiglass but other than that things have been going OK.

However, I sense a disturbance in the force.  Here’s what you guys are saying:

Tom: I purchased tickets for Thursday’s game on stubhub in section 110. They were $25.00 and with tax and other fees it came out to $34.95. If I were to purchase those tickets through the Mets they would (have) been $120 plus ther absurd fees they charge.

Shannon says: I don’t think $120 is at all the correct number, but the goal of this article is to demonstate how the fanbase feels.  Let’s see what happens if I try…

On Friday I punched in mets.com for two $23 tickets for Saturday.   Section 501.  There were $6 in fees (ok let’s assume that covers the people in the ticket office and the electricity and air conditioning and the overhead of operating the ticket office 365 days a year and the website maintenance) but then there was a $5 order charge.

What is an order charge?  Is there some way to order tickets without ordering tickets?  Why not add a “performance viewing fee” or a “ballpark entrance surcharge?”

For my experience, two $23 tickets cost $63 assuming I want to pick them up at the box office.   Otherwise add on $5.  I’m confident in saying two $23 tickets cost $63.

So I went to Stubhub.   Cheapest ticket (I am cheap) was $24.50  but in 511.  That’s a better seat.  Let’s see how it plays out…

2 tickets x $24.50 $49.00
Delivery  (Electronic – Instant Download)  $4.95
Total $53.95 USD*

Lower Prices, Better Seats from mets.com?   Not in this first attempt.

Jim: Speaking of absurd fees…Congressman Anthony Weiner was on Boomer & Carton this morning discussing possible legal action against these fees….  He suggested the teams want to keep, say, the $19 “face value”, but really wanted to bump those seats up to $29. So they add the service, order, printing fees and voila…you just paid $29 for $19 seats.

WFAN audio

I have never operated a baseball franchise so I don’t know the mechanics of the ticket business.

As a consumer I can tell you when something says it is $20 and it costs me $30 to get it I feel ripped off.  Kind of like my cellphone bill.

Let’s see how far Rep. Weiner gets with this.

(Paul from Paul’s Random Stuff has some more thoughts on this.)

10 Replies to “Ticket Fees at Mets Games (aka Higher Price, Worse Seats?)”

  1. couldnt agree more. the best thing ive found was to buy tix day of at citi. there was no fees at all. i paid $19 total for my tix last nite. and for future games i buy them at the stadium as well, only at the kiosks, for a $1 fee.

  2. My favorite is the $2 print at home fee. You’re actually saving team supplies and money by using your own paper and ink to print out your tickets yet they charge you for that right.

  3. I feel ripped off. You would think that pricing would include all services and not just the opportunity to buy tickets … almost like paying $2 for a slice then an extra $0.50 to eat it on premises. Rediculous.

    Never bought off of stub hub, but the fact that they make the buyer pay a fee instead of the seller pay the vig makes me not want to buy there.

  4. I agree with you shannon on outrageous Met ticket fees but your Stubhub calculations did not add the 1 percent buyers fee or min of 5 dollars.Sothat makes it 58.95 still better seats and cheaper then METS.COM .And Al Stubhub charges 1.5 percent to sellers and 1 percent to buyers which means MLB STUBHUB and I BELIEVE NY METS make money on both ends of that Stubhub transaction

  5. Am I the only person who finds tickets cheaper on mets.com? I paid $24.20 in fees plus $4.95 for eDelivery charge (it costs more to electronically send things I guess). So far on mets.com I’ve seen $7 in fees (and the $5 order charge and the $2 print at home) which still equals $14, less than half of the fees I paid Stubhub.

  6. I tend to feel ripped off buying tickets as well. I’ve purchased 5 games so far in 2010. 2 from the box office at 10:40 on Saturday morning for day games. I wasn’t terribly disappointed, but the advertised price was the price I paid. One I bought from a friend. She discounted for me. One I got from mets.com with the fees (I wasn’t chancing it with the Mets HOF induction ceremony), and one from GaryKeithAndRon which is a whole different story (t-shirt and swipe card, and it’s charity).

    When I go to see the New Jersey Devils, I usually buy my tickets at the box office right before entry, or sometimes in advance while I’m buying that night’s ticket.

    But it’s not just the damn fees. I wanted to take my winnings from “Beer Money” on Thursday and buy an expensive ticket down in the restricted area (where we’re not allowed during BP) or behind home plate in front of the broadcast booths, and those seats cost more than I was willing to spend. I remember similar seats at Shea going for much much less. My $130 price range had me down the outfield lines on the Field Level. As my dad says, it’s “obnoxious”.

    The fees are a rip off. Most of the face value prices are also a rip off.

  7. the more tickets you buy at once the cheaper it is on metscom.
    Also, by ‘better’ seats I’m pretty sur ethe Mets meant higher level seats, not the promenade for the most part.

  8. Oh yes the Mets only charge a 5 dollar service fee per order but there is also a ticket service per ticket

  9. Oh yes the Mets only charge a 5 dollar service fee per order !This would save some if you are buying more then one game at the same time . But there is also a per ticket service charge which is at least 7 dollars per ticket and goes even higher as the seating catergory goes up

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