Cheer on your team without going broke
The Blue Jays continue to pack the house, while the TFC is pushing for the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Leafs and Raptors seasons are just around the corner.
In other words: It’s a tough time to find a cheap ticket in Toronto. But there are still tricks if you want to watch a game for less.
Free tickets do come true
The cheapest tickets are free tickets — and they are not all that uncommon, according to Vijay Setlur, an adjunct professor who teaches sports marketing at York University.
“The best way is to cultivate one’s network to try to secure a ticket, whether it be someone who has season tickets or someone who has access to a private suite,” he said.
A riskier version of this approach is to show up on game day and hang around the stadium or arena. Setlur said there are many people who end up with extra tickets on game day, becau7se a friend cancelled at the last minute, for instance.
He’s gotten free tickets three times that way, Setlur said.
Try the box office
Barring free tickets, going directly to the source is the best idea, Setlur said.
“The best way to really get the cheapest ticket is to get it from the primary market, as early as possible,” he said.
Those selling on the secondary market — ticket brokers, individual resellers — usually got their tickets from the sports teams and their prices “are at the whim of the seller,” Setlur said. “They can go for as high as what the market will bear.”
Even if a team’s tickets are sold out, don’t lose hope, Setlur added.
He recommends checking with teams in the days leading up to the match as additional seats can — and often do — become available.
For instance, he says, there are “tickets that belong to the players that are returned by the players because they don’t need them, or tickets the sponsors don’t need.”
There are also “camera kills” — seats once blocked off for broadcast requirements. Avoid the secondary market Sometimes, games sell out and the secondary market becomes the only market.
Such purchases can come with problems, according to Rubina Ahmed-Haq, a personal finance expert, who said ticket brokers often charge three to five times the face value of tickets.
Buying tickets from individuals can often be unreliable, Ahmed-Haq said.
“You win four times and you get tickets for cheap, but that one time you buy illegitimate tickets . . . all of the savings from the three to four times you went to that source are wiped out.”
Ahmed-Haq recommends looking to the team for tickets, even if games are sold out.
Some teams, such as the Toronto Maple Leafs, have mailing lists for last-minute tickets.
“Sometimes they’re odd seats,” she said. “Sometimes they’re in areas people don’t want to sit.”
But they’d still be at face value — or less. Watch the non-pros If all else fails, watch something else.
Minor-league seats don’t fill up nearly as fast as those of the pros, but their players are often up-and-comers, so the level of athleticism is still there, Ahmed-Haq said.
Prices are also cheaper. For $49, you can get the best seats in the house at a Toronto Marlies game, but Leafs tickets go up to $514 on the primary market.
Even cheaper are university games; for the Ryerson Rams hockey team, for example, any ticket is just $12.