Game 7 of the World Series is Wednesday night, and thousands of tickets are available for sale, remarkably, to watch the Cleveland Indians host the Chicago Cubs. Prices are falling and it appears Cleveland fans are desperate to sell.
"It seems that 'Believeland' is not believing, at least at these prices," said Jesse Lawrence, founder and CEO of ticket marketplace TicketIQ. "It's the most interesting ticket narrative we've seen in our seven-year history. It's really behavioral economics at it's purest."
In 2014, the last World Series that went to a Game 7, supply dropped 35 percent from the end of Game 6 to noon on game day. That's when the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals. This year, supply is down only 5 percent. Much of that is because of Indians fans giving up on the team, flooding the secondary market with new tickets to sell, almost offsetting all the new purchases.
You can see in the chart below, how Game 7 prices tanked right after Game 6 ended on Tuesday night.
"Indians fans have very fresh memory of what blowing a 3-1 series lead looks like, and they don't like what they're seeing in this series," said Lawrence. Remember, the hometown Cavaliers came back from down 3-1 just a few months ago in the NBA finals. The Indians themselves blew a 3-1 lead against the Red Sox in 2007. The Indians have lost six straight playoff elimination games going back to Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.
On TicketIQ's app and site, 37 percent of the Game 7 buyers are coming from the Chicago area, while only 22 percent are coming from Cleveland. Remember — the game is in Cleveland.
There were 3,600 tickets available at noon Wednesday, which is more than double the 1,500 tickets available at the same time Tuesday —ahead of Game 6.
