As Darren Rovell reports on the Return on Investment (ROI) in Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg's $593 million purchase of the Texas Rangers, I've been pondering the risk/reward of a $32,000 ticket to tonight's World Series game.
This week I blogged that Ray Thibodeau at Cantor Fitzgerald in San Francisco was seeking tickets to tonight's game on Craigslist, tongue firmly planted in cheek. I pointed out that tickets available on StubHub were going for as high as $32,000.
Not quite.
Just because someone wants $32,000 doesn't mean he or she is going to get it.
StubHub PR rep Vanessa Barbieri says the most expensive ticket sold so far on StubHub for tonight's game is for seats right behind home plate in the Dugout Club: $6,112. I'm assuming that's for more than one seat. She says the most popular game is Game 3 in Texas, where the most expensive ticket(s) to date went for $4,600.
Barbieri says the average World Series ticket on StubHub is selling for a mere...$800. That's $100 higher than San Francisco fans were paying for potential World Series games before the Giants won the pennant, and $350 higher than Rangers fans were paying beforehand. As for sales volume, Barbieri says, "We're seeing double the amount of page views than this same time last year and are shattering sales records."
Interestingly, she says fans started "hedging their bets" and buying tickets since Labor Day. "They knew that it was completely risk-free to buy tickets on StubHub for contingent games because they would get a full refund for games not played." Why didn't I think of this?
By the way, Darren will have a live report on StubHub on Street Signstoday.
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