The mission: research how much the ticket market has crashed by jumping on Stubhub and buying a pair of “buy it now” seats for the remaining Saturday games at Citi Field.
There are no more home Saturday games in July. The prices below were available on Stubhub Sunday morning at 11am.
Aug 1: Diamondbacks
| 7 | 2 | $22.00 each |
Aug 15: Giants
| 15 | 2 | $19.00 each |
Aug 22: Phillies
| 16 | 2 | $35.00 each | View Details |
The Phillies tickets seemed pricey, so I decided to head to Mets.com. This made me laugh:
| Price Type | Price Level | Level | Section | Row | Seat(s) | Qty | Price | Fee(s) | Cost | |
| REGULAR | Caesars Club Bronze | 300 | 310 | 11 | 10-11 | 2 | 138.00 | 10.00 | 296.00 | |
| The number of seats you requested in Promenade Reserved was not found. However, seats were found in Caesars Club Bronze. Click on “Check Out” to accept these tickets and continue. | ||||||||||
$296, no thanks. $70 on stubhub will be fine.
Sep 5: Cubs
| 11 | 2 | $21.99 ea |
Sep 19: Nationals:
| 12 | 2 | $12.75 each |
Oct 3: Astros
| 12 | Up to 2 | $11.00 each |
So I can right now get into Citi for the rest of the season (6 games) on Saturday ($243.48 + 15% stubhub charge) for $280 for a pair. (In theory that’s $700 for a 15 game plan although the math there is very shaky since enthusiasm is down, early season weekends would have cost more, some of the 15 games in a {cough} Saturday plan were weeknights, one Saturday was a Yankee game.)
My official plan cost me $600-something for 15 games, compared to the hypothetical $700 I just mentioned, so Stubhub is not an incredible bargain. However, let’s factor in some real world behavior.
Of the 6 games in the package, how many would I really want to attend? October 3rd – likely a meaningless game. although the past two seasons the final Saturday was a biggie.
September 5th: Labor Day weekend. Are you going away that day? I will.
What if you just watch the Phillies game on TV and knock $70 off the price and now the 5-pack is $199.50 for two tickets to 5 games which is just $20 a pair, and I will remind you that includes all fees.
About those fees – remember those $11 seats I found in Sec 524 on stubhub for the Astros game? Let’s try buying them from the box office:
| ASTROS – OCTOBER 3 on Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 1:10 pm at CITI FIELD | ||||||||||
| Price Type | Price Level | Level | Section | Row | Seat(s) | Qty | Price | Fee(s) | Cost | |
| REGULAR | Promenade Reserved | 500 | 504 | 17 | 27-28 | 2 | 19.00 | 5.00 | 48.00 | |
$48. Including $10 in “fees.” What are these fees? 504 and 524 are comparable..524 probably better.
I guess you could argue that you were better off with a 15 game package, and your own seats….but it’s definitely debatable. Personally I wouldn’t want those September games (kids have sports, fall has a different rhythm – and if I changed my mind I could just stubhub. I do have a Sat package and will likely sell my September seats.)
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