Resale ticket prices slide for ‘Big Papi’s’ last season game
There’s good news for Red Sox fans still hoping to snag tickets for David Ortiz’s final regular season game at Boston’s Fenway Park tomorrow.
Ticket prices on the secondary resale market are still pricey, but dropped dramatically in the past week after the Red Sox clinched first place in the American League East.
The average ticket price for Big Papi’s last game was $287.94 yesterday on TicketIQ — down 42.51 percent from the average price of $500.81 last Wednesday, according to the New York-based secondary market ticket aggregator.
“People now know it won’t be David Ortiz’s last game at Fenway,” explained Chris Matcovich, vice president of data at TicketIQ.
The lowest “get-in” price for a ticket to Sunday’s game was $109 yesterday, while the most expensive ticket was more than $2,100 for a front-row dugout box seat behind home plate, according to TicketIQ.
Yesterday’s average resale price for tomorrow’s game on SeatGeek, meanwhile, was $237 — making it the hottest regular-season Major League Baseball ticket this year, according to the New York company.
The game also was the fifth most in-demand regular season MLB ticket since SeatGeek began tracking the secondary ticket market in 2010, according to content analyst Nate Rattner. It ranks behind the Red Sox’s home-opener against the New York Yankees in 2011, when the average resale price was $250.
“It just speaks to how big of a fan favorite David Ortiz is in Boston,” Rattner said. “They’re paying David Ortiz his due. Sunday’s game is a hotter ticket than three American League championship series and ALDS games during the (Red Sox’s) 2013 championship run.”
The Yankees’ Bronx send-off for Big Papi in his final game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday also sent ticket prices upward. The average resale price was $80 — one of the Yankees’ top 10 most in-demand home tickets of the year and well above the team’s season average of $66, Rattner said.