By Shane Monaghan
Cubs’ fans are not happy their team is down 0-2 to New York. But with ticket prices plummeting, at least they can find a better seat for Games 3 and 4 at home.
“The Cubs fans that waited did save themselves some serious money,” said Chris Leyden, a content analyst at SeatGeek.
The average price of tickets sold for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field has dropped 19 percent on StubHub and 16 percent on SeatGeek since before the series started Friday, according to representatives at both sites.
As of this afternoon, tickets for tonight’s game were being sold for an average of $556 on StubHub, and $575 on SeatGeek.
“Typically, tickets will drop in the time leading up to a game, but what we are seeing here is far from typical,” said Leyden.
On Friday, tickets sold for an average of $689 on StubHub and $684 on SeatGeek. As soon as the Cubs went down 0-2 in the series, Leyden said, listing prices began to plummet.
Cameron Papp, StubHub communications manager, offered basic economics as a different possible explanation for the significant drop in prices. “There was a lot of inventory, which usually means the price will drop,” he said via email.
Christopher Dawson, who lives in Edison Park, had been trying to peddle his ticket by marketing his listing on StubHub with a series of tweets. He said he was hoping for as much as $450 for his ticket in section 240, but after the Cubs lost both games in New York, he settled for $180.
“It was very difficult to sell because I only had one ticket,” admitted Dawson. “But going down 0-2 made the prices drastically drop.”
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Even with demand down in the Chicago area, the price of tickets sold is still much greater than in any of the three cities with teams remaining in the MLB playoffs, according to data provided by StubHub and SeatGeek. Tickets sold for an average of $339 on StubHub for Game 1 of the NLCS in New York, and the average price of tickets for ALCS games played in Toronto and Kansas City has not exceeded $300 on either StubHub or SeatGeek.
Also, tickets for tonight’s game are still being sold for 71 percent more than Game 3 of last year’s NLCS in San Francisco when the Giants took on the St. Louis Cardinals.
“It is pretty unprecedented,” Papp said Friday when tickets for Game 3 were still going for nearly $700 on StubHub, “We are talking World Series numbers.”
There are two tickets listed for as much as a $1 million on StubHub for Game 4, but Papp insists the site has never sold a ticket for that kind of money. The low-end listings for $135 are more likely to get scooped before first pitch Wednesday night, he said.
