Despite the New York Mets entering the season with muted expectations, the average price for Mets tickets on the secondary market are comparable to last year’s prices, and in fact are up a bit compared to this time last year. As the prices on the secondary market are set by individual ticket brokers all over New York, they come the closest at reflecting the “true market value” of what fans are willing to spend to get into Citifield. Crunching the sales data of Ticket Liquidator, the second-largest secondary ticket site, it looks like despite anxiety about the team’s ability to compete, fans are willing to spend close to the same amount as last year.
In terms of action on the field, so far many fans that have attended a game at Citi Field have gotten a bargain, as there have been some spectacular games so far, including a nail bitter 1-0 win over the Braves on Opening Day and Daniel Murphy’s walk-off RBI single in the 9th to seal the Met’s 4-3 win over the Nationals to stay unbeaten.
Like most teams, the Mets saw the price of tickets drop following opening day.
The Madoff effect on Mets tickets
One of the darkest clouds looming over the Mets heading into 2012 was the Bernie Madoff affair and just how much loot the Wilpons would end up having to turn over. As soon as it was announced that the Mets owners would settle for $162 million, Mets ticket prices jumped almost 14 percent. CEO Fred Wilpon and President Saul Katz settled their Bernie Madoff problem on March 19, and tickets did go up that week (Week 12), with the average price rising to $63 from $54 the week before.
Top Ten Mets Games of 2012
In terms of what games are getting the most attention, it’s the usual suspects. Not surprisingly, the two interleague games against the Yankees top the list, with tickets for the Mets vs Yankees having a higher average ticket price than even Opening Day against the Braves. Here’s a look at the top-selling games at Citi this year:
Mets Ticket Prices Over the Years
While 2006 saw some high peaks in terms of average ticket price, its important to note that the secondary ticket market was still in its infancy at the time and overall the tickets sold on the exchange were normally priced higher than they are today. It is interesting to note that as the secondary ticket market grew the average price actually dropped. 2008 was the Mets last year at Shea Stadium, which, combined with the team holding a 3.5 game lead after 145 games, led to the highest ticket prices to end the regular season.
2009 was most popular because it was the inaugural season at Citi Field and the Metropolitans were fielding a solid team. But notice the downward trend in 2009 as the team crept toward its eventual .432 winning percentage. The new ballpark helped garner enthusiasm in the early part of the year, but the old axiom that winning is everything held true at Citi too.
As you can see the average ticket price stayed flat from last year to this. If the team keeps playing this well, (fingers crossed) ticket prices might actually rise, which is bad. So if you have a feeling about the team you might be better off buying tickets sooner rather than later. Conversely, if the Mets flounder and prove the haters right, you might be able to get into the game at some bargain basement prices.
And in case you hadn’t had enough charts and graphs, for fun we put together the total attendance figures provided by MLB.com, as well as the average attendance per year. If you’re wondering, Citi Field’s capacity is 45,000, while Shea’s capacity was 57,333.
