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Pimping the RAB Tickets/TiqIQ partnership

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TiqIQ presents the average Opening Day ticket prices on the secondary market. Click to enlarge.

As Opening Day dawns, I’d like to take a moment of your time to talk about RAB Tickets, our secondary ticket market partnership with start-up TiqIQ. Every year, hundreds of thousands of fans find their ways to sports events via the secondary market. For non-season ticket holders, it’s too hard to get seats on a single-game basis, and day-of sales are nearly nonexistent these days. Thus, sites such as StubHub, eBay and TicketsNow have become a popular destination for ticket purchases.

Last year, we entered into a partnership with TiqIQ. The company has developed a platform that aggregates ticket listings across all major secondary markets and presents the options in an easy-to-use display that shows seat location and ticket prices. Every time someone purchases a ticket using our co-branded site at RABTickets.com, we earn a small commission. TiqIQ can hook you up with tickets while you support your favorite Yankees site. (You can also find Rangers and Knicks tickets on the new landing page. We’re hoping to expand that to all NYC-area sports team.)

Over the course of the season, we’ll use some space on site to promote our partnership. TiqIQ supplies us with pricing graphics — such as the one at right — that shows how Yankee ticket prices are trending. Secondary ticket prices for Opening Day, for instance, have declined precipitously over the past few days as the weather forecast has worsened. If you’re buying tickets this week or next month, keep us mind. You can also find RAB Tickets right here on Facebook. Give the page a “like,” and be ready for contests and special announcements throughout the season.

For Opening Day, navigate to this page where as of this writing there are 3687 tickets for sale. The cheapest are some obstructed-view bleacher seats for $18 each, but there are plenty of decent seats left for under $30 a pop. And there you have it.

A glimpse at the Notre Dame/Army secondary market

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Yankee Stadium hosts a sporting event this weekend as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish take on the Army Black Knights in the new stadium’s inaugural football game. For the Yanks, this is a key moment for the House that George Built because they need this non-baseball events to be successful to help offset the costs of building the new facility, and early indications are that this game will have more than 51,000 fans in attendance.

If you’re still looking for tickets or thinking about going at the spur of the moment, our partners at TiqIQ have over 360 tickets available, and their numbers show that the game at Yankee Stadium is outpacing the game Notre Dame played against Navy at the new Meadowlands Stadium last month.

Meanwhile, for those bound for the stadium, Metro-North will be running extra trains through the Yankee Stadium stop both before and after the game. The full details for train service are right here.

ALCS secondary ticket prices on the decline

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Our partners at TiqIQ comes an update on ALCS ticket prices. As the graph above shows, over the last five days, prices for the tickets at Yankee Stadium have gone down significantly.

I believe we’re seeing the impact of a long series coupled with what I call the A.J. Effect and the reality of a weekday day game. I’m surprised that the Cliff Lee/Andy Pettitte tickets are showing such a decline, but I know Yankee fans aren’t keen on seeing A.J. throw a pivotal Game 4. With Game 5’s 4:00 p.m. start time, too many fans with tickets can’t take off from work.

As always, we have plenty of seats at RAB Tickets. Check it out if you’re trying to get to the Stadium.

For the ALCS, an expensive ticket and a promo

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Our partners at TiqIQ have some graphs — and tickets — for the upcoming American League Championship Series. The above graph came out before Major League Baseball announced that Game 5 would be an afternoon affair, but as you can see, tickets start out expensive and get even more so as the series progresses. Notably, TiqIQ says that over the five days prior to Game 3 of the ALDS, ticket prices shot up by more than 60 percent. If it looks like the Yanks are going to clinch or if the series is tight, tickets will be in higher demand.

While the gist of the graph below is that bleacher seats are still cheaper than the rest of the park, even sitting behind the outfield walls will cost a pretty penny for the postseason. Average resale prices for the bleachers is in excess of $200 a seat, but it’s well worth the experience. I saw Game 2 of the 1998 ALCS from the bleachers at old Yankee Stadium, and the crowd erupted when Chuck Knoblauch’s mental error cost the Yanks the game.

As always, we have a wide array of tickets available for these games at RAB Tickets, and despite the high average prices, bleacher seats can be hard for around $100-$120 a pop right now. We’re also running a promo for the week. If you make a purchase of $500 or more on Ticket Network only — basically the equivalent of two tickets for one game — put in the code rab28 for a 5 percent discount. Finally, if you’re interested in tickets in Texas for Games 1 or 2, we have those available as well. You can find ALCS Game 1 seats right here and ALCS Game 2 seats here.

Facing a clincher, Yanks’ ticket prices spike

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After the Yanks grabbed the first two games of their best-of-five set from the Twins this week, the action returns to the Bronx tomorrow night as the Yanks have two cracks at home to wrap up this ALDS. Not surprisingly, ticket prices are on the rise. Our patterns at TiqIQ provided us the above graph, and we can break it down.

As the playoffs have progressed the average price of tickets on the secondary market for Game 3, the first potential clincher, have shot up markedly. Between October 6th and earlier today, over 1000 tickets moved on the secondary market as the average price went from $283 to $384. Some of that movement was due to cheaper tickets coming off the board, but a few hundred have been added since. The extra inventory has pushed the price up around $10 on average, and it’s clear that people are paying with the hopes of seeing a clincher.

Meanwhile, Game 4, right now, is on the downswing. With the Yanks on the verge of an ALCS berth, the secondary market seems wary of a potential Game 4. I’d say snap up those Game 4 tickets now because if it looks as though the game will be played, the prices will shoot way up after Game 3. If the game isn’t played, StubHub’s FanProtect Guarantee will cover the price.

For those looking to buy tickets for Game 3, RAB Tickets has you covered, and we get a small cut of the sales to help power this site. Don’t forget, as well, to join the RAB Tickets Facebook page. After the ALDS is over, we’ll select one fan at random to win a Yankee cap.

Anticipating a robust ALDS market (and a cap contest)

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Now that the Yankees know when and where they’ll be playing their ALDS games, our partners at TiqIQ have put together a series preview graphic for us. Tickets, as you might imagine, are selling for top dollar for this best-of-five set. We have the dual combination of the first playoff series at Target Field plus a weekend in the Bronx fueling ticket prices. Not unsurprisingly, the Saturday night game in the Bronx and a potential Game 5 are the most expensive tickets of the set, and you can find a full breakdown and seats at Yankee Stadium for sale at RAB Tickets.

In other ticket-related news, RAB Tickets now has a Facebook page that we’ll be using for more ticket-related news. We’ll post some graphs that don’t make it to the RAB main page and host an informal ticket exchange. You can find it right here, and we’re running a contest to promote it. Anyone who “likes” RAB Tickets on Facebook during the ALDS will automatically be entered into a drawing for a Yankee hat. We were thinking we’d go with the 2010 Playoffs cap, but we might be convinced to splurge for the authentic 59Fifty on-field hat instead.

ALDS tickets a hot commodity

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At 10:01 a.m. this morning, I logged onto to Yankees.com hopping to find a seat — any seat — for the Yanks’ American League Division Series games. After watching the Ticketmaster website do its thing, I was greeted with a “No tickets found” page. No matter where I searched, I couldn’t find one single ticket for sale. Seats, it seemed, were wiped out in the presales for season ticket holders.

Luckily for us, the secondary market is alive and well. Our partners at TiqIQ tell us that, for the ALDS, Yankee Stadium tickets are going for 74 percent above the regular season average and are selling for well above face value. That’s hardly surprising, and this is a trend that will continue throughout the playoffs. Tickets for Game 3 are going for, on average, $202 even though it’s unlikely that the Yanks will host three home games during the first round of the playoffs. The sellers can keep their profits if the Yanks do not enjoy home field advantage, and buyers can get some of their money back.

Meanwhile, RAB Tickets should be your place for playoff tickets (and, yes, we get a cut of the sales). For Home Game 1, date still to be determined, there are 8343 tickets available, and for Home Game 2, we have 9511 listings. Check it all out at RAB Tickets.

After the jump, a neat graph of average World Series ticket price vs. the number of tickets available. Tickets for the Giants, Phillies and Rangers are going for top dollar. [Read more…]