Soaring prices pose quandary for some

Idalia Garcia and her husband had a choice to make. Tickets for the three World Series games at Minute Maid Park this weekend had totally sold out, and prices were soaring to buy them secondhand.

She spent at least an hour analyzing the different options. And then the couple decided: They would buy two tickets to Saturday’s game in the Crawford boxes behind left field, at a whopping total of $3,800. It could cost her roughly 12 times as much to sit behind home plate.

“We were just like, it’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime things,” she said. “I can’t pass it up, just can’t.”

Garcia, a lifelong Astros fan, and her husband, who is from Los Angeles, were far from alone in weighing dreams against cost. Many Astros fans who did not purchase World Series tickets straight from the source — either by having season tickets, being selected for early purchasing through a lottery or logging in swiftly when public sales started — are now grappling with how much they are willing to pay in a secondary market to be a potential witness to Houston baseball history.

The Astros haven’t won a World Series since they began as the Houston Colt .45s in 1962. It is only the second time the Astros have made it to the World Series at all, the last trip being in 2005. And yet, with ticket prices on two major resale websites now averaging more than $1,000 apiece, the choice does not come easy.

Secondhand ticket prices for Friday and Saturday’s games — which will be the first of the series to be played at Minute Maid Park — averaged $1,147 and $1,243, respectively, on the resale site Vivid Seats. Another service, called Seat Geek, reported average ticket prices of $1,247 and $1,328 for those dates respectively.

Beyond that, costs ranged wildly. As of late Monday afternoon, the cheapest tickets that could be found for Friday’s game among Vivid Seats, Seat Geek and a third retailer, StubHub, were standing room only at a cost of $548 each, before fees. The most expensive were $22,500 each to sit behind home plate.

In contrast, season ticket holders in 2016, the last year for which data is available, paid $38 per game to sit in the Crawford boxes and $425 to sit in the Diamond Club behind home plate. Seats in the discounted view deck section behind right field went for as little as $12 a seat. But the Astros, like most MLB teams, have used a dynamic pricing model for individual tickets — charging more for premium series and dates.

The Astros declined to comment

The cheapest tickets that could be found for Friday’s game ... were standing room only at a cost of $548 each, before fees. The most expensive were $22,500 each to sit behind home plate.

on ticket pricing.

Even World Series parking passes this week were going for several hundred.

It was enough to make 45-year fan Lora Aguilar decide she better save that money to travel and cheer them on from home, where she could still jump and holler, but no one could block her view.

And it was enough to convince Christina and Scott Ramey, too, that they could find a fun place to watch elsewhere. They love the Astros, but not enough to pay hundreds of dollars for a place to stand.

But sticker shock didn’t keep 59-year-old Rick Overton from moving swiftly to snatch up tickets for seats to potential games sold out on Thursday. He once gave his wife an Astros jersey for a wedding anniversary gift.

“She has sweated out bullets for this team,” he said. “I’m willing to do it for her.”

The prices, while perhaps startling, still are not the highest-ever for a World Series game. The averages at Minute Maid Park and Dodger Stadium were well below those paid through Seat Geek to see World Series games played at Chicago’s Wrigley Field last year, spokesman Nate Rattner said, when the Cubs were on their way to winning their first championship in 108 years. The Astros-Dodgers ticket prices were, however, higher than those for any other World Series since the company began tracking them in 2010.

Costs, of course, still can change. The market oftentimes reacts to how a series performs, Rattner said. Price can also drop as the date of a game nears. It remains to be seen whether that will happen in Houston.

“The Astros have never won a title,” Rattner said. “They haven’t been in the World Series in more than a decade. I guess I would expect prices to hold pretty steady and demand to hold pretty steady.”

Devon Jeffcoat, for one, will be paying attention to how the values change. She managed to buy two tickets for Game 3 at retail cost through the lottery system. The 55-year-old watched all but three games this season, and said it would be a “great treat” for her and her husband to be able to attend. And yet, she also knows that she could sell them for quite a bit.

“I really want to go,” she said, “but, then, you know, I can think of some of the things that I need to do with some extra money.”

Located in the upper deck, her tickets cost $200 each. Already someone they know has offered $1,000 apiece.

On Monday afternoon, she weighed the pros and cons. She is disabled, so the trip would be difficult. She has a mother-inlaw to care for, so they would need to have someone come and help. The extra money would be useful.

And so the question remains: to splurge or not to splurge?