Broomfield resident Matt Plunkett bought a pair of Colorado Avalanche playoff tickets Tuesday through eBay for $285.
A good deal, he thought, until he found out the game hadn’t sold out and he could’ve bought a pair of comparable tickets for $230 at the box office.
“I definitely thought they were sold out just from past experiences with the playoffs,” said Plunkett, 36. “I feel kind of foolish now.”
Tickets for the upcoming Avalanche home playoff games have been on sale to the general public since April 1. Denver Nuggets playoff tickets have been on sale since April 10.
At least two home games apiece for the Avs and the Nuggets are guaranteed at the Pepsi Center. Kroenke Sports said up to 2,000 tickets are still available for each of the four games. A sellout crowd for the Avs is 18,007; for the Nuggets, 19,099.
Playoff dates should be set for the Avs today and the Nuggets by Friday, said Paul Andrews, executive vice president for Kroenke Sports Enterprises, which owns the teams and the Pepsi Center.
“Until the dates and times get announced, people are a little bit reluctant to go out and buy on a single-game basis,” he said. “When the schedule gets released, (ticket sales) pick up quite substantially.”
Even before the dates are set and with tickets still available at the box office as of Tuesday, fans have turned to online ticketing resellers such as eBay and StubHub.
“There are people that think that tickets aren’t available, so they go straight to where they’ve been looking for seats throughout the year,” said Denver sports business consultant Dave Smrek, who worked in ticket sales and marketing for the Nuggets from 1988 to 1996.
An eBay search on Tuesday turned up more than 100 auctions for Nuggets playoff tickets and more than 80 auctions for Avs tickets.
Some of the listings are asking for far more than the face value of the tickets.
For example, a pair of club- level tickets to the Nuggets’ second home game could be purchased Tuesday at face value of $198 at the box office. Or they could be bought at face value through Ticketmaster, with a $5.25-per-ticket service charge.
A similar pair of tickets was listed Tuesday on eBay with a buy-it-now price of $420.
Last season, the Nuggets entered the playoffs as the hottest team. This year, they’re stumbling into their third consecutive playoff appearance, having lost their last three games. They play their final regular-season game tonight against the SuperSonics in Seattle.
So far, the average resale price for Nuggets playoff tickets on StubHub is the lowest among NBA playoff teams at $61. The Los Angeles Lakers’ average playoff ticket price is the highest at $171. StubHub charges buyers a fee equal to 10 percent of the resale price, plus delivery charges.
“That’s pretty ridiculous. You’d think they’d be sold out,” Denver resident Justin Williams, 23, said of face-value tickets still being available. “How’s that even happening?
Staff writer Andy Vuong can be reached at 303-820-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com.
