Quote:
Originally Posted by john voight
1. can you ever go wrong w/ buying post season tickets @ face value? should i be getting in on the lottery for every MLB/NBA/NFL team i can?
2. what would you rank as the best valued teams for season tickets (you point out how many teams are an awful value, and the twins paid off for you this year).
3. do new stadiums always create an opportunity? or have there been teams w/ brand new stadiums you have avoided for w/e reason.
4. do you feel you can broker any team w/ your skill in spotting high and low ticket prices? or do you focus on specific teams that you know well.
5. if i am buying a $20 ticket on the day of an ordinary weekday baseball game (sf giants), would i find better value on stubhub? or from a scalper in the second inning?
6. this might be one of my favorite ask me threads. really cool info. i def hope the big sites don't eat you brokers up.
1) This has been a great year for first round matchups. Even Texas has turned out to be a great market for the ALDS. I hit the following onsales really hard: MIN, NYY, SF....I didn't touch Texas (turned out to be a mistake)..and I only bought a few for the Reds (turned out to be a huge $5k-10k mistake...my buddy ended up buying about 80 tickets and has already made $6,000 on them. I bought 12 and decided to move on).
I totally ignored Rays and Braves. on Rays super-premium seats you might have made a little money, but any uppers for those 2 teams were garbage.
Turns out the first round market was: CIN>>>PHI>>SF=NY>Min>>Tex>>>>>>>>>tb/atl
Going into the onsales, I had my money in MIN>>>>SF>>>>>NY=CIN (couldn't even pull any phillies tickets, it was that tough) and have had one of my best Octobers yet.
2) Best mlb seasons this year, MIN>>>>PHI>>>>NYY>>>BOS...rest of the teams you would have broken-even at best. Of course if you have season tickets first few rows behind the dugout you will do well in any market, but good luck getting those seats.
3) the new stadiums are a pretty recent phenomenon, the only brand-new parks I have avoided investing in are Mets (too expensive), Nats (obv), Pirates (obv). STL, MIN, NYY have been great in their first years...Target Field this year alone broke sales records for me. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts...Busch Stadium is already a net loss for 90% of the season-ticket locations
4) I avoid getting involved in events that are non-sellouts, the margins are just not that great, and buying way under-face and selling for just under face is no-fun, it's way too much of a grind. Many brokers in crappy markets have made their living doing that for a long time, however.
5) You will almost always find a cheaper ticket on the street before the game. I sold a pair of Reds Game 3 tickets this afternoon, 18th row behind the Reds dugout for $450 a ticket. There is no way in hell that will be the price on the street (well obv now that the Reds are 0-2).
On Thursday night I was on the street outside Target Field. I had 2 pairs of Club level seats behind the plate...row 1 and row 2. I sold the row 1s the day before the game on Stubhub for $350 each. I sold the row 2s on the street for $120 each. I told the guy to make sure to ask the pair in front of them how much they paid
6) thanks, sorry for updating so infrequently.