Ticket prices surge 500% for Alex Rodriguez's final game
Alex Rodriguez’s tenure with the New York Yankees was a stilted one that included a lengthy drug suspension, a World Series title and, this season, the utter lack of production.
Still, there was 501.63% jump in the average list price of tickets on the secondary market for the Yankees’ game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday hours after Rodriguez announced Sunday the contest would be his last, according to online ticket-tracking site TiqIQ. The surge subsided some by Sunday evening, but tickets were still up 355.31% from their pre-announcement levels.
“These numbers don't surprise me,” Chris Matcovich, vice president of data and communications at TiqIQ, told Paste BN Sports in an email. “When there are big announcements we tend to see a bounce in prices."
The average list price as of Sunday evening on the secondary ticket market for the game at Yankee Stadium hovered at $345.67. (It had been as high as $456 in the hours after Rodriguez made his announcement.) Tickets for Friday's game averaged $76 before the Yankees held a news conference where Rodriguez said the game would conclude his 22-season major league career, the last 13 with the Yankees.
Matcovich said ticket inventory for Friday’s game had dropped 71% since Rodriguez made his announcement, but he pointed out that’s not just because Yankees fans are devouring tickets to see the contest. The inventory has since rebounded, according to Matcovich.
“Another part (of the huge price jump) is due to sellers taking their tickets down and re-listing,” Matcovich said. “This re-listing begins a period where sellers test the market to understand the actual price level that the demand sits at.”
The cheapest seats for the game were at around $61 Sunday night, a 281.25% increase since the pre-announcement so-called “get-in” price ($16).
This is a much more abrupt sendoff than the last Yankees star’s retirement.
Derek Jeter’s final season of 2014 was basically a season-long sendoff tour since Jeter announced that February that it would be his last.
The average list price on the secondary ticket market for Jeter’s final game was $768.09 with a “get-in” price of $296, according to TiqIQ data.
The get-in price for Jeter's final game jumped 976.9% in the immediate aftermath of his announcement.