You see, I just bought a pair of Mets season’s tickets, and am a little afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake!
No, not because the Mets may tank. I’d like to say I’m inured to that, though closer to the truth would be I’m keenly aware of the possibility. I’m more concerned about the issue of how easy it will be to resell the tickets to the games I can’t make. While I can afford the tickets, I’m counting on being able to recoup at least half the cost of the tickets to all the games I won’t be making. I’m doing the math now (yes, I should have done it BEFORE) and realized I have no real basis for my input.
I’ve spoken to a few holders of seasons tickets for various local teams. For football games it’s no problem, there are only 8-10 home games anyway and they generally just use the tickets the majority of the time.
For basketball games it’s a little more gray. There it’s dependent on how well the team is doing. You’d have to give me a nice discount, for example, for the privilege of paying to see the Knicks play these days, though ten years ago I’d have jumped at the chance to pay a 50% markup of face value for reasonable seats.
Baseball, now, is a long season with many weeknight games, and some weekday games. Only the truly fanatic would make all 81 home games. In that context, I would think any season’s ticket holder would expect some tickets to go to waste. That is the cost of being guaranteed tickets to the gotta-be-there games, be it Opening Day, key matchups or playoff games.
What I’m worried about is exactly how many will go to waste. In my favor(?) is the fact that it’s a brand new ballpark, they sold 4MM tickets for the last season at Shea and the new park has 10,000 fewer seats. I’m already not going to be at many games I know will be “hot”, for example the Subway Series matchups with the Yanks, and maybe could even get a premium on those seats. This season at least, the stadium could be close to sold out for every game. But balanced against that is the economic downturn. How many people will still be looking to buy tickets that run to $100 a game for the most popular matchups?
They say I can automatically and easily list my unused tickets on StubHub, but since I’ve never BOUGHT tickets myself through that venue I have no idea how much traffic goes there.
Can anyone give me an idea of what I’m in for? A minor soaking is expected, but am I gonna take a bath in a 12-foot pool here?