Even standing-room World Series tickets come at high price

Call it frenzy, greed or hysteria, but if you planned to go to Citizens Bank Park to watch the Phillies defend their World Series title, you'd better have good friends or deep pockets.

With the Phillies selling the majority of seats in advance to season ticketholders, the estimated 700-900 remaining tickets put up for lottery on the team's Web site last Thursday sold by 2:30 that afternoon, according to a Phillies ticket representative.

But many of those coveted strips are finding their way back onto the Web sites of secondary ticket distributors, specifically StubHub, the official fan-to-fan marketplace of Major League Baseball. Prospective buyers trying to purchase tickets off Phillies.com are being directed straight to StubHub, where prices for Games 3-4 have reached astronomical averages.

As of 2 p.m. yesterday, StubHub had 5,928 tickets available for the Phillies' Game 3 return to the Bank. Prices ranged as low as $498 for standing room to as high as $20,000 for a spot in the Pavilion and Terrace decks. Considering the base price of a seat in the same sections was only $125 before tickets sold out, to call it frenzy may be an understatement.

"A lot of it has to do with these two teams, specifically in Philly," said Joellen Ferrer, StubHub's corporate communications manager. "Given the Phillies are defending their title in addition to the close proximity of the two teams, it has created quite a frenzy in our market."

On StubHub, the current average ticket-selling price for games at the Bank is $977, close to $300 more than the average price of a ticket at Yankee Stadium ($698). This, too, is due to the fact that despite the Yankees' high ticket prices, come World Series time MLB has the final say in price value. Tickets in the Bronx were still available off the Yankees' Web site as of 2 p.m. yesterday. Prices ranged as low as $51 for a bleacher seat to $1,706 for a seat behind home plate in the Legends section. Traffic is high for tickets at Yankee Stadium on StubHub, where fans are paying as much as $10,000 for Legends seats.

"I wanted to see the Phils at home, but I couldn't afford what they were going for on StubHub," said Sean Sweeten, of Bryn Mawr, who along with Jeff Nelsen has a pair of roundtrip Amtrak tickets and two seats for Game 1 in the terrace section at Yankee Stadium. "My roundtrip train ticket and my seat [totaling just under $500] cost me less than to stand at the Bank. It's cool, though; the Phillies will need some love on the road."

To figure out what game is best in terms of affordability for fans, Ferrer and StubHub frequently update a Game Breakdown chart showing the averages for each game. For Game 1, the ticket average is $713, $12 more than the Game 2 average ($701) and ranging anywhere from $125 (bleachers, Game 2) to $9,999 (Legends, Game 2).

Back home at Citizens Bank Park, Games 3 ($1,003) and 4 ($1,028) hold the highest averages with the range between $90 (SRO, Game 3) and $3,500 (Diamond Club, Game 3).

One fan summed up how much times have changed in 29 years:

"When the Phillies won the World Series in 1980 a ticket cost 25 bucks, and when they won the LCS [against the Astros] to get there, those tickets were 15 bucks. I know, I was there."