Stubhub Lessons Learned

Some of this will be reiterating earlier posts on Stubhub, but I figure it's good to have it all in one place. You've determined what game you want to go to, where you want to sit, and how many tickets you want. These are important.

The Home Team
You've got to learn about how the home team is priced on Stubhub. So the first thing to do is check out the team's website. Sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it? It's not. By going to the team website, you'll get an idea on how much the tickets cost through the team and what the availability is like. I discovered that the Rangers sell out everything in the lower part of the ballpark and the San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals sell almost every ticket they have available. Very often tickets will be more expensive than those through the team as a result.

I also discovered that ticket prices for the Los Angeles Angels and Tampa Bay Rays were actually less on the team's website than on Stubhub. I don't know why, but I think people generally price tickets on Stubhub based on what others have priced them. So if people are selling $30 tickets for $40 they list them at that price. And if you think tickets are always cheaper on Stubhub, you'll buy the tickets for $40. If there aren't a lot of tickets on sale on Stubhub, they can go at inflated rates. When there are, however, that'll generally drive the price down.

The Los Angeles Dodgers sell a lot of tickets, but don't sell out. They seem to have a lot of tickets for sale on Stubhub and the tickets tend to go far below the team's price. One reason the prices on Stubhub's Rays' games might be so expensive is that there aren't many for sale. I also noticed that Dodger game ticket prices have a tendency to change daily. Tickets for other teams don't change as often.

If you're going on a Tuesday, look at the prices for the upcoming Tuesdays. Tickets to the game you want might eventually be in that range.

The Road Team and Promotions
If the road team is the Red Sox or Yankees, the prices aren't going to drop to what they'd be if the road team is the Twins or Mariners. If they're giving away a Harmon Killebrew bobble head, the game will be popular. If they're giving away an A.J. Ellis bobble head, it probably won't be as popular.

How Many Tickets Do You Want?
If it's 2 or 4 tickets, they should be plentiful. Of course people will also be buying the tickets. If you want 1 or 3 or some huge number like 8, you have a double edged sword. There won't be as many of them, so the prices could be higher. On the other hand, demand is lower. So if the tickets aren't selling, the prices could be lower.

Ticket Prices Might Drop as the Game Gets Closer
Sometimes people get desperate and realize their ticket isn't selling and drop the prices. A week before the Giants game, I decided I wanted to sit in the lower level, rather than the upper level. So I put my upper level ticket up on Stubhub just below what other single upper level seats were selling for. Three other people saw that and dropped their price. I dropped mine. They dropped theirs. I dropped mine again. By the time my ticket sold the price went down from $41 to $31. On the other hand, I've noticed that the prices don't drop for some games as the game gets closer. You can't count on this.

If You See a Good Price, Grab It If lower level tickets between the bases are selling for $75+ and someone puts up tickets for $55, or even $65, they are going to sell immediately. Every time I've seen this, the tickets have been gone within hours. And tickets at that price don't appear again. Jump on them immediately. One time when I didn't do this, I never saw tickets this inexpensive again. Two weeks later I saw tickets for a little lower then the prices that had been up there. I bought those. I didn't get as good a deal, but I checked subsequently and didn't see anywhere near the price I paid.