Make a mortgage payment or go to a Padres game?
With sky-high San Diego home prices this may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.
Tickets for the San Diego Padres Opening Day game against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday, April 1, are selling for over $2,000 on secondary markets.
As of Sunday, the highest-priced ticket for Opening Day on StubHub is $2,250.00. That's what it will cost for one seat in Field Box VIP, Row 8.
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The cheapest ticket on StubHub is $189.00. That's what is called the "Get In" price. For Padres Opening Day 2018, the "Get In" price was $87.00, in 2019 it was $107.00.
"Pent up demand for not being able to be at Petco Park last year has seen prices skyrocket," said Adam Budelli, Head of Partnerships for StubHub.
Not being able to attend Padres games in-person last season due to COVID-19 is a big reason behind the high prices, fans are simply excited to get back into Petco Park and see live Major League Baseball in person.
Add to that to the aggressive moves the team made to add talent during the off-season (players like Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove), and you have a perfect storm of Padre fan interest for Opening Day.
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Budelli calls San Diego's situation "unique."
"The Padres having such a great off-season, fans not being able to come out last year, now this first opportunity to be outside at a game -- it's going to be a momentous occasion."
On top on that, there are not many tickets available. For a normal Padre game, Petco Park can hold 42,455 fans, but these are not normal games.
Due to COVID restrictions, Opening Day attendance will be around 20% of capacity, so in the neighborhood of 10,000 fans.
Tickets have only been made available to certain season ticket holders, and the Padres are not selling general admission tickets for Opening Day, nor any early-season games.
So, with not many tickets available and lots of interest in getting tickets, it's a matter of demand outweighing supply... by a ton. That's how we get to a $2,250 ticket price on the secondary market.
"If you're lucky enough to be a season ticket holder, it's kind of name your price," says Budelli.
As more tickets have been released in the last few days, tickets for the Padres Opening Day game have dropped by an average of 15% on StubHub, but Budelli cautions that probably won't last.
"You have to imagine prices will spike back up as you get closer to Opening Day."
It's not just StubHub that is seeing high ticket prices for Padre home games.
Last week, Gametime.co claimed the Padres had the "highest average ticket price" in all of Major League Baseball at $675.00. As of Sunday, Gametime.co had Padre Opening Day ticket prices ranging from $273.00 to $619.00 per seat.
If you're a Padre fan who's waiting for ticket prices to drop after a few games have been played, you might be conflicted because Budelli says "A hot start to the season is not going to help ticket prices go down anytime soon."
Call it a secondary cost of winning on the secondary market.
San Diego Padres tickets, just like the team this season, is much more interesting and expensive than previous seasons.
