Sky-High Secondary Market Ticket Prices To World Series Games At Wrigley Field Leave Tom Ricketts With 'Mixed Feelings'
(CBS) Want to see a World Series game between the Cubs and Indians in the most cost-efficient manner possible?
Buy a ticket to an early game at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Because ticket prices for Games 1 and 2 are significantly cheaper than the rest of the series, with the demarcation point coming once the series shifts back to Wrigley Field for Game 3.
The median price for Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday night is $1,119, while the average price is $1,201, according to Vivid Seats research. Those figures are similar for Game 2 -- $1,418 for a median price and $1,186 for the average price. The get-in price for the first two games is around $700.
Once the series returns to Chicago for Game 3 on Friday, Game 4 on Saturday and possibly Game 5 on Sunday, the prices skyrocket. The median price for Game 3 currently sits at $5,000, with the average price at $3,574, per Vivid Seats. The get-in price is $1,803.
As the Cubs seek their first championship since 1908, prices only jump for possible clinchers. The average price for Game 4 is $4,250, with a get-in price of $2,325. The average price for Game 5 is $4,342, with a get-in price of $2,515, per Vivid Seats.
The sky-high ticket costs have left Cubs owner Tom Ricketts with "mixed feelings."
"It's really great to hear that Cubs World Series tickets are more valuable than Super Bowl tickets," Ricketts said on the Mully and Hanley Show on Monday morning. "That I like. But you also look at this huge secondary market, and you don't begrudge the guys who do that for a living -- that's their job, that's what they do -- but on the other hand, it just feels kind of weird when you hear tickets trading for $5,000, $10,000. I have kind of mixed feelings about it. Anytime you have something with that much value, it's just going to happen. There's so much demand. There are people willing to pay up for that.
"It's a good thing. It's a little awkward, just the size of the dollar amounts. It's just the way the market works. You just accept it."