Playoff tickets pricey proposition,
Leafs playoff fever leapt into full gear with a gathering in Maple Leaf Square Monday to unveil everything fans may want to know about the upcoming playoffs.
In an event staged by MLSE, media and fans got a primer on ticket sales, swag availability and details on the parties to come in the Square for both the Leafs and Raptors.
On a lovely, warm spring day, it was a prologue to the next few weeks (if the Leafs advance that far), when fans will be scrambling for a limited number of tickets and squeezing into the Square, where the atmosphere is expected to be similar to2013, the last time the Leafs made the playoffs.
The Leafs are facing a Washington Capitals team that finished first overall in the NHL, but that didn’t dim anticipation for the club’s first postseason action in four years, and first in a full 82-game season since 2004.
The party Monday unveiled a ticket sales plan for what is expected to be a limited number of tickets for Leafs home games that arrive next week.
Beginning Tuesday at 1 p.m., fans can enter a presale opportunity, based on gaining a code via a free membership with Leafs Nation.
Remaining tickets from that sale are to go on Ticketmaster to the public beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
“People are encouraged to get online with the Leafs Nation ticket code . . . as we saw with the Raptors playoff tickets, they had their presale April 7, and those tickets went very quickly,” said Dave Haggith, senior director of corporate communications for MLSE.
Haggith added there may also be tickets available on game day; again, those tickets are available to the general public, but members of Leafs Nation will learn about times first.
Fans attending the tailgate parties in the square will have a chance to win tickets.
“There’s no exact numbers of how many tickets will be available for the parties in Maple Leaf Square, but there should be a handful of pairs,” Haggith said.
Single-game tickets start at $95. But pricing is based on a graduated scale depending on the opponent. A “premium” opponent such as Pittsburgh fetches a single-ticket price of $123 in the upper bowl, and $150 for the playoffs. A lower bowl, premium ticket goes for $250, and $310 for a playoff game.
Playoff tickets are subject to dynamic pricing. The farther the Leafs go in the playoffs, the higher the prices, with a 15-per-cent markup as a baseline expectation.
Platinum season ticket holders were already paying an $80 service charge on top of their regular season ticket prices, which could approach $900 for a pair to one game. A source said they were expecting as much as $18,000 added to their credit cards, should the Leafs go on a long run. The maximum number of games the Leafs could host this spring, theoretically, is 13.
About 90 per cent of the seats at the Air Canada Centre are held by season ticket holders.
StubHub, one of several online ticket exchanges selling Leafs playoff tickets, had the Leafs median price offered at $292. The low indicator was $249 while the high was at $800. The second game has seen a range of $244 at the low end, $283 as the median price and a high of $1,049.
The Leafs rated above Montreal ($140) and Ottawa ($100) in median prices for first-round games, according to StubHub. The New York Rangers came in higher, with median prices of $259 and $295 for games three and four in New York.
“Those (prices) for Leafs games are about twice as high as they would be (for a regular season game), but that’s normal for playoff games in the Toronto market,” StubHub communications manager Cameron Papp said.
“It’s a different atmosphere, and when you talk about Leaf fans, it’s always, when is the team going to make the playoffs.”