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As a die-hard Mets fan that cannot bear the thought of being shut out of big games and (God forbid) playoff games, I was just wondering what the consensus was on how hard it is gonna be to get tickets starting in 2009 and going forward. If you have been following the announcements from the team going back almost a year only those people with a full season ticket account will have priority for seats at Citi Field. According to a 'certain blog' they will be making an announcement soon regarding people with partial season accounts. I never had an account with the team before this season. Like many others I either relied on the box office for most regular season games, and my usual routine of lottery/craigslist/scalping at the stadium for big games and playoffs games. I've never spent more than $150 to get into any game(including Game 7 in '06), and I've gotten into every game I've ever wanted to. Last year was the first time Ive ever had trouble getting seats for some weekend games. I actually couldnt find a ticket for a Saturday Braves game. I make a decent living, but almost $3K for season tickets is a lot. I did as much homework as possible before committing to buying them. I read about the attendance in SF and Philly the 1st few years in the new stadiums. The best I can figure is that the Mets drew 3.8 Mil last year with no Johan, an awful awful September, and no real 'value' to having season tickets . Thats an average of 47,000. This year with Johan(where most games will sell out), the finality of Shea, and knowing that if you never had an account before you needed season tickets(even if they do honor partial plans its only gonna be those accounts that have been around for years that have a shot). Knowing they are already 175,000 tickets ahead of last year at this time you have to think they will draw 4-4.2 Mil this year. That an avg of roughly 50,000 in a 55,000 seat stadium. According to my rep all the UD Reserved season ticket accounts are gone, and there is no waiting list. The website shows only Mezz Box and UD Reserved as available, and the cheapest seat is $2,600 each. It seems to me that season ticket holders are gonna account for most of the seats in Citi Field. I do think some long-time partial accounts will be honored, and the few remaining seats will go 'lottery style'. MLB requires all teams to sell a certain amount of individual tickets. So unless I'm off a team that is gonna draw over 4 Mil this year, in an old stadium in a baseball crazed city will be moving into a 45,000 capacity $800 Mil stadium with a total annual capacity of 3.65 Mil. I dont think ANY games will be available for less than 1 1/2 face for at least 3-5 years, and for big games/weekend and playoffs I can see the cheapest seat being $200. If they are as good as advertised(or win the whole thing this year, in which case all bets are REALLY off), maybe more. There have been some spotty arguments on that 'blog' about tis issue, but I was hoping I could start a coherent conversation dedicated to the topic...
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These are approximations, but:
The full season ticket base is only about 15K. Including the combined partial plans, the met ticket base is around 24K. The 7 packs are another large chunk. last year was the 1st year ever that the mets attendence exceeded what the capacity of Citifield is x81. Now the whole priority for full plans makes sense, the more plans you can sell the less work the team needs to do selling tickets, but its a limited set in the market for people to actually buy full plans. I'd say the chance that they don't sell partial plans is close to zero. I even say theres a pretty solid chance they keep up the 7 packs as well.
This whole thing is tad overblown. If you do your work and plan ahead, you'll be able to get tickets.
Thats not to say its not going to be hard to get tickets to games. Team is good/ novelty factor,etc. But if you want to go, get a 7 pack or partial plan, or risk just scalping. -
I don't think getting tickets to games at City will be as hard as the Mets will have us believe ("unless we buy season tickets NOW!!!").
Obviously, big games will go quick and the entire 2009 season will probably be big games because of the venue, but I don't think it will be like Fenway or Wrigley where the season pretty much sells out the day tickets go on sale.
Packages will probably be limited simply because there are less seats, but the Mets do not historically average 45,000 a game (although they did last year), so there should be seats available to those who want to go. They just may not be available when they want to go (Yankees, NL East rivals, playoffs, etc).
It may take more than just walking up to the window an hour before the first pitch, but there will be tickets to those who want them.Comment
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I just cant fathom that they only have 15K season ticket holders. I just cannot believe that there were 32,000 "walk-up"/games in packages per game last year. Do you really think they sold 23,000 individual tickets per game last year? Even if I go with your assumptions, how come they are only selling UD and Mezz box seats right now? Wouldnt you sell as many season tickets as possible telling people without them they have no chance? Why not keep the 'need season tickets' theme and keep packing people in. Once I heard they stopped selling the $1400 season tickets I knew I made the right move...There are only so many cheap seats that will be available, and I think they have them accounted for already....Comment
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My feeling is that there will be between 15,000 and 17,000 tickets availalble for each game, after full season ticket holders... That leaves those seats for partial plans, seven packs and value packs, (I am sure)... I would say that for tough ticket games, they will use the Lottery system (which is being employed my a lot of teams nowadays)... I would figure for the remaining games (weeknights, April, etc.) there will be tickets avaialble same day...
I've used StubHub a lot and gotten tickets for less than face value when I buy them day of game...Comment
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No way in hell will there be any same day tickets available for MANY years. Thats absurd. I agree that there will be roughly 15K available for each game after season tickets. Remove the partials(which will account for a lot of seats to the weekday/early season games themselves) and that leaves only a few thousand tickets per game. The best case is that all those will sellout the day they go on sale like the Red Sox. You cant compare demand at Shea to that at Citi Field. Not for at least 5-10 years, and thats if they arent a good teamOriginally posted by tfc3rid View PostComment
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"I just cant fathom that they only have 15K season ticket holders. I just cannot believe that there were 32,000 "walk-up"/games in packages per game last year. "
Consider it this way, If the full season plans + Partial equivilants was over 35K, how could they possibly have games with less than 35000 attendence?
Attendance in MLB is based on tickets sold, not turnstiles.
Mets had 7 games under 35K attendance last year.Comment
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Fair point. My argument would be that many of those seats are still spoken for by weekday/weekend partials plan holders, and I already conceded that many people with long standing plans will probably get some sort of extension. Meaning those seats STILL wont be 'available' to the public. Those seats will go to the accounts holder and their friends and family, or be sold online. Only a few seats will be available through the box office. Which most people seem to agree with me on. So, unless Im wrong there will only be a few thousand seats available per game. No ones gonna put their seats online for less than over face value. The 10,000 seat difference gave THE METS 10,000 seats to sell to the public for big games, and they could only charge face. With those gone the 'rights' to almost every seat at Citi Field will be spoken for by individuals with accounts. Only some will be selling their seats to each game. The crux of my argument is that demand is going up at least 3 fold, and supply is limited by 10,000 per game. In a way the Mets will no longer dictate the market price. Somethings gotta give. I realize that there are usually seats available for 'regular' games now, but thats with 55,000 seats in an old stadium. See my point?Originally posted by StadiumGraveyard View PostComment
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Honestly, your best bet is probably a 7 pack or partial plan and selling off what you don;t want, there obviously will be people wanting them if you want to get rid of them.Comment
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I agree with this point but I do think that for some games there will still be tickets availalble and held for day of game... Not a lot...Comment
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Why would they do that if they could sell em before the season starts like the Red Sox? Try to get a same day ticket at Fenway. I think you see my point though. The reason why tickets have usually been available(and modestly priced) for Mets games is that there were 15-20,000 seats 'open' at Shea for every game(even OD, Yanks, whatever), PLUS all the season ticket and partial holders that had seats for each game looking to sell. Starting next year there are only gonna be a few thousand tickets 'open' for each game with the rest already accounted for. There are gonna be WAY less tickets available to the public(unless everyone decides to flood the market for a particular game). Throw in the fact that its new stadium where most account holders are gonna want to go to games or hook up people they know. The market will only be on the individual seats sold(which will go 1st day, some people will scalp, some to buy to go) and on account ticket holders selling their seats to that game. I guess we'll see....Originally posted by tfc3rid View PostComment
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I think at most, for games, there will be 8K - 10K seats availalble, which is very, very small... Consider that for the Yankees-Mets eries, there are about 15K to 20K availalble...
I do think that there are some seats that the Mets might hold on to to sell day of game... Or standing room only tickets for the concourse areas in CF...Comment
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Put it this way:
Today the Mets announced that they have sold around 2 Million 2008 tickets so far. That includes all 7-packs, Full Season, Partial plans, and the "Value Dates". They haven't sold any regular individual games yet.
The new park will have around 45k, a total of 3.645 million seats for the 81 games. That still leaves about 1.65 million seats that can be bought individually.
Sure, you're not going to be able to walk up and get a Yankee game, opening day or summer weekends, but there will be plenty of early season and weeknight games for people to get tickets to. You will just need to do some advance planning.Comment
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With the new post on the blog Im dedicating my day to this. Your logic is flawed. The Mets sell the 'premium' games via lottery. Some people go, some people sell. Either way, a big sold out game has all the account holders(full season, 7 game, WHATEVER) who are selling their seats to that game, PLUS all the seats that were 'open' to begin with, a. lot of which were bought JUST to scalp....Next year(even assuming they honor partials, and it will only be long time accounts) you will have 25-30k as account holders, and only a few individual tickets for each game. Again, unless for some reason a whole bunch of account holders decide to sell a certain game there just wont be many secondary market seats to begin with.Originally posted by StadiumPage.com View Post
Ex. Tuesday Nats game in '08...Roughly 24,000 account holders....31,000 available seats, plus all the account holders selling their seats to that game....big supply, relatively low demand....low price
Tuesday Nats game in '09....Roughly 30,000(give or take) account holder tickets leaving 15,000 'open' seats, plus account holders looking to sell to that game. For the 1st few years most people with accounts are gonna go, or take care of friends. Very few tickets available, high demand for tickets in a new stadium....high price....
I just dont see how I'm wrong here....Comment
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I was having an argument about Citi Field ticketing with my dad a couple weeks ago.
He was saying that it the Mets could sell 45,000 season tickets, they would. He said he doesn't understand why they put a cap on season tickets, that it makes no sense for team owners to do anything other than sell every ticket as early as they can.
But if that were even possible, maybe only 30,000 people would come each game out of the 45,000. Which means less money for the team because less money is spent on concessions and parking.
And if tickets weren't available to the general public, people would eventually become fed up and lose interest and the fan base would diminish... which means even the corporations who buy the tickets would eventually not want to buy all of the season tickets.Comment
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