Would You Spend $2,000 On a Sporting Event? Two of You Said, ‘Yes’

Tonight, two World Series fans will sit in the front row of Section 14 behind home plate, and they’ll pay $17,553 per seat for the privilege.

How did the price reach $17K per seat? Blame it on ticket reseller sites like StubHub. As CNN explains:

The folks selling these tickets have made a fat profit. The face value for games in both New York and Kansas City is $650 each.

It’s funny, because Mike posted a Billfold Question of the Day earlier this month asking if any Billfold readers would be willing to pay $700 for a ticket to a sporting event. Imagine if he had asked if any of us wanted to pay $17,000.

Two Billfold readers emailed us to say that, yes, they would spend $700 — or more — on sports tickets, so I chatted with both of them this week to learn their stories.

One reader, a 30-year-old operations manager in San Jose, said “The max I’ve actually spent is about $550 or so for two tickets.”

This was for a San Jose Sharks hockey game. “The seats were quite nice. 4th or 5th row, if I recall correctly, near center ice.”

He would spend much more on tickets if the game was right: “There would be one situation where I’d spend a lot more: if my college team made it to the Rose Bowl.”

This would be the UC-Berkeley California Golden Bears, who haven’t played in a Rose Bowl game since 1959. “I’d consider it once in a lifetime, and off hand I’d probably be willing to spend $2,000 a ticket (for two tickets). Considering how rare the opportunity would be — and the fact that Rose Bowl tickets wouldn’t probably fetch more than that — it seems like a safe max to set.”

The other reader, a 28-year-old logistics administrator in Perth, said she had already spent over $2,000 to attend a sporting event: “It was in 2011, so I can’t remember the exact price, but it was about $2,200 including flights and accommodation, but not food and other things.”

This was for the AFL Grand Final. “The Australian football equivalent of the Super Bowl.”

She purchased her tickets, flights, and accommodation as a package. In 2013, she bought a similar Grand Final package, but it wasn’t quite as expensive: “In 2013, the tickets for the game were about $600 and return flights about the same, though I had optimistically booked my flights about six months in advance.”

She also spends about $700 per year on an annual membership to her home club, which includes 11 games. “I try to go to every game but as I work weekends I can’t always go. If we make it to the finals I also go to that.”

So. We’ll ask the question one more time: how much would you pay to attend a sporting event?

Photo credit: slgckgc

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