Tickets for the Colorado Rockies’ historic home matchup with the Boston Red Sox hit the secondary market Wednesday – triggering a spike in prices, availability and, in some corners, consumer discontent.
Supply and demand will find their equilibrium as the time for Game 3 approaches, but on the morning after the team’s controversial online sale Tuesday, about 820 tickets for Saturday’s game were available through brokers, said Ritchie Thurman of Big Ralph’s Tickets in Denver.
That number didn’t account for thousands of ads on eBay and and through other resale channels.
“I’d say a lot of people who got seats are using them,” said Thurman, who pegged the going rate for the first World Series game at Coors Field between $600 and $700. “I thought there’d be more people calling us.”
Some sellers had second thoughts.
A 22-year-old commercial real estate broker in Denver who offered four prime seats for Game 3 on said he reconsidered after getting about 50 calls offering $50 over face value.
The Massachusetts transplant said he decided to attend the game with some friends instead.
“I was just trying to test the waters,” said Matt, who declined to give his last name. “I finally decided it wasn’t worth my time. I think the demand’s out there, but there’s a lot of supply, too.”
Even Major League Baseball got into the act, directing would-be ticket customers who struck out on the computer sale to , where the asking prices for a single seat to Game 3 ranged from $500 to $7,500.
An evening eBay auction brought furious bidding from a $1,000 starting price that ended in a $2,550 sale of two lower-level seats.
“Don’t lose hope,” said ticket broker Thurman. “Just be smart, don’t buy off the first person you see. Try to buy off credible people, ask for a business card or a cellphone number. Ask questions. Don’t throw cash at them.
“I’d wait until the day before a game, when everybody drops prices.”
Ticket scalping isn’t prohibited on , but several users angrily “flagged” posts that sought more than face value.
And one went a step further.
Combining Monday’s technology crash on the Rockies website with the popular “Rocktober” theme, a Denver-area man created – a site designed to gauge public response to a possible statewide initiative to outlaw ticket scalping.
He advertised the site on and, by midafternoon Wednesday, had elicited about 1,000 predominantly supportive e-mails.
Though he described himself as an IT worker in his mid-30s, he declined to give his name, citing a few particularly venomous responses.
He urged others upset over the team’s electronic ticket distribution to spend their money at local establishments televising the game rather than put money into the pockets of brokers.
His site also links to emergency-relief efforts for the California wildfires.
“It comes down to how big an issue this is in the scheme of things,” he said. “Some of my money could have gone for tickets – I tried for a few of those Rockpile seats at double the cost. But that money, it’s not going to StubHub, it’s going to San Diego.”
