Looking for World Series tickets? Personally, I’d stay away from Craigslist; trust me, I have my reasons. Want another? Tickets to Games 1 and 2 in San Francisco are marked up as much as 2,000 percent, with standing-room going for $460, and front-row seats in $20,000-per-pair territory.
Or, as one ad offered: awesome World Series tickets in exchange for pre-IPO or founders shares of stock.
For San Francisco Giants fans, these are the best of times, these are the worst of times. Their team is in the World Series for the first time, not propelled by steroids, since 1989. But few of them will get to see a game in person. Of the 42,000 seats at AT&T Park, 21,000 are owned by season ticket holders. It seems as if all of them have been sold to ticket agencies. From the San Jose Mercury News:
And as season-ticket holders set a price tag on their loyalty, high-rollers swarmed onto websites such as StubHub and Razorgator, willing to pay up to $5,000 for a pair of box seats. This left fans like Jesse Walker, a carpenter from Santa Clara who attended 25 regular-season games, fuming.
Amid 10 pages of ads for Giants tickets — many of them the most expensive offerings seen on Craigslist since the website stopped ads for prostitutes — Walker’s plaintive cry for the little guy stood out.
“Man whats (sic) wrong with this world,” he posted petulantly. “If there were any REAL Giants fans holding World Series tickets, they would not be scalping $50 tickets for $500, they’d be going to the “… Series and watching a once in a lifetime ballgame. This is a joke.”
Actual tickets weren’t the only thing going for a premium. Last week the Giants held a lottery for the rights to a few Series tickets, and issued presale passwords to season-ticket holders. Some fans then sold the passwords on eBay for as much as $250, even though that didn’t guarantee a ticket.
“It was a very risky move because we could have gotten scammed,” said Paul Sangha, a business management major at San Jose State. He bought four standing-room tickets, and peddled two for $750. “We were able to profit and go to the game for free,” he said, “so that’s why we did it.”
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Looking for World Series tickets? Be prepared to loan out your beach house [San Jose Mercury News]
Giants fans face World Series ticket disappointment [KGO-TV7]
