Pandemic Hampers World Series’ Ticket Sales

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The World Series didn’t earn its usual revenues this year. (Courtesy of Twitter)

In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, seats in sports stadiums are limited. The World Series limited their tickets to be sold in a “pod” — a group of four people socially distanced from other pods. The reduced number of seats have led to a spike in ticket prices. Last week, the Dodgers outlasted the Rays in six games to win the World Series. The World Series sold the most expensive ticket since the pandemic started: individual tickets for $6,499. 

“The current event climate is making for great deals for fans who are comfortable attending a live event,” said Adam Budelli, spokesperson for StubHub. “While inventory on the primary is lower, we still see the same ratio of inventory on StubHub that we’d usually see, which means an equal opportunity for fans to capitalize on the marketplace.”

During the pandemic, the NBA, WNBA and NHL used the bubble format to have their seasons. None of the players could leave the bubble, and no one could come into the bubble, forcing fans to stay home to watch the NBA, WNBA and NHL seasons.

The most expensive seat to be sold during the pandemic is the upcoming Super Bowl, sold for $34,000 on StubHub. The overall most expensive cost has been game 6 of this year’s World Series —  an individual purchased four seats, each costing $6,000 . According to information, provided to Front Office Sports by StubHub, that is a total of $24,000 to sit the first row in the Home Plate Club.

In the past, since Oct. 26, average ticket prices for the World Series have sold for $753 a ticket. That average price for tickets sold is down 32% from last year’s World Series ticket sales. The average sale price this year is 12% lower than last year’s sales.

“We see fans getting tickets to these games for the low $300s. The highest price of a ticket sold is under $7k, [which is] relatively unprecedented for such a championship matchup,” Budelli said.

Last year, the highest sold ticket was $16,500, a price reached in games 1 and 6 of the World Series. If this year’s World Series hadn’t gone to a six-game series, it would have been the lowest attended World Series since 1908. The series in total drew 62,232 people, according to Baseball Almanac.