04/24/24
June 30, 2010
Sports Teams Try Variable Ticket Prices: The San Francisco Giants have become the first team in Major League Baseball to raise single-game ticket prices dynamically when circumstances generate more interest, a practice that's expected to become the norm across pro sports in the U.S. "We've made a conscious effort to not make this like the airlines, where if you want to fly to L.A. the day of, itÂ’s $800 from here," said team exec Russ Stanley.
Teams that have the Yankees on the their schedual raise ticket prices for those games because they know that there are many Yankees fans all across the nation. This happens all the time.
posted by BornIcon at 12:50 PM on June 30, 2010
I think a number of ball clubs have variable pricing from the time the schedule is posted (i.e., more expensive for rivalry games, Yankee games, etc.). When I was in law school in Boston, I went to a ton of Red Sox games against the A's, Twins, and Rays, because those games were a fair bit cheaper (but were priced at the time single-game tickets went on sale at the beginning of the season). What seems to be novel about what San Francisco is doing is that they are actually adjusting ticket prices on the fly, in-season, on a day-to-day basis.
posted by holden at 02:31 PM on June 30, 2010
Even teams that don't have an obvious variable pricing strategy are often using one of sorts. No discounted tickets are available for those games that have strong interest, and those games are usually not involved in any "promotional" give aways.
posted by dviking at 07:09 PM on June 30, 2010
CFL teams have done this for years. Saskatchewan Roughriders tickets on Labour Day are quite a bit higher than during the rest of the season. I don't really have a problem with it and it may generate an increase in ticket sales when poor drawing teams come to town.
posted by jc at 04:28 PM on July 05, 2010
I would think the Nationals would want to implement this for Strasburg's games.