Out of the park prices
Opening Day tix? Not exactly peanuts
Mets and Yankee fans are getting grand-slammed — in their wallets — as they try to buy scarce tickets for their teams’ home openers.
As fans return to Yankee Stadium and Citi Field for the first time since the pandemic struck, they’re facing 20 percent-capacity restrictions and skyrocketing ticket prices on the secondary market.
Tickets to see the Amazin’s and their shiny new shortstop, Francisco Lindor, play the Florida Marlins on April 8 in the first home game of the Steve Cohen era were commanding an average of $687 per seat on StubHub and other sites on Friday. Prices ranged from $226 to $3,490, according to price tracker TicketIQ.
Tickets to the Bronx Bombers’ Thursday opener against the Toronto Blue Jays were averaging $412 each — with the cheapest seats running $110 and prime ducats going for $3,800 a pop.
Under orders of Gov. Cuomo, attendance is capped at 10,800 for Yankee Stadium games and at 8,492 for Citi Field games, and fans must adhere to new rules calling for proof of vaccinations or negative COVID-19 tests, as well as cashless transactions and mandatory mask-wearing.
Both the Mets and Yankees opted not to increase ticket prices this season and are offering season-ticket holders the first opportunity to buy the limited seats. But because both teams have more season-ticket holders than seats available, many longtime fans were denied the chance to buy Opening Day tickets directly through the clubs.
Ralph Bracco, a 62-year-old actor from North Babylon, LI, has been a Yankee season-ticket holder since the Reggie Jacksonled championship season of 1977. He said he was “left frustrated” trying to score elusive seats to “extend” his streak of attending home openers to 44 straight seasons — the same number “Mr. October” once wore.
Bracco said the team’s Web site was selling packages for the first 11 games for a total of $220 to $4,510 a seat — or as low as $20 for individual games — but tickets were all sold out before he could get through. Instead, he said, he shelled out nearly $340 — including $70 in service fees — for two upper-deck seats through SeatGeek.
“Without a doubt, it’s aggravating because the Web site was hard to navigate, and I couldn’t get a Yankee ticket rep on the phone because the stadium is closed,” he said. “But it’s the Yankees, and it is special to me to have gone to all these games in a row.”
Opening Day is historically a hot ticket, but the limited inventory has secondary-market prices soaring — especially with fans starving for live action. All MLB teams played the entire 2020 regular season before empty seats and cardboard cutouts of fans.