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.)