Brewer Tix

[Marquette4life]

Anyone selling NLCS tix please pm me

[MUBurrow]

I wasn't paying attention to the secondary market for NLDS tickets - was anyone keeping tabs on that and has an idea what we should expect over the next 5 days or so? I sniffed around the WI resident presale today, and it looks like anyone who bought today gets their barcode two days before the game (so Wednesday for Game 1 and Thursday for Game 2?). Does that mean we should expect a bunch more tickets to hit stubhub, etc., on those days?

[GB Warrior]

I have games 1, 6 and 7, but there's a chance work has me out for one or both of the last ones (assuming they're necessary)

[Benny B]

Ticket prices for NLDS-1 tanked the second the Cubs were eliminated.  Median infield lowers dropped from $400 to $270 overnight and were around $125 at game time.  Some loge and terrace seats were even listed below face just a few hours before the game.

Game 2 was a different story... tickets prices ended around 2x what they were for Game 1 just 24 hours prior and inventory was a bit more scarce.  While some may chalk that up to it being a Friday night or the exciting win the night before, the fact is that in the last three postseason series’ where Milwaukee had home field advantage, people with “full strips” (i.e. tickets to every postseason home game) who consider selling some of their tickets have been more inclined to sell the first game of the 5 or 7 game series, whether for reasons of recouping costs or not to overload on baseball.  [In 2008 it was the opposite... that year prices for the first postseason game in Milwaukee (which was actually game 3 in the 5 game series) were selling for as much as 5x face in some sections, because a) Milwaukee’s 26-year postseason drought and b) Game 4 wasn’t a sure thing.]

So between NLCS game 1 typically being the “dump” game mixed in with some good ol’ Wisconsin pessimism (Kershaw on the mound) your best chance at getting a good deal on the secondary market will probably be Friday’s game.

That said, with the e-delivery of tickets now the norm, we could see some wild movement in secondary inventories and prices as people who have been used to selling hard tickets or posting barcodes on StubHub have another labyrinth to navigate in order to sell (not to mention the discount that buyers might price in because they aren’t being delivered the security of hard tickets or validated/guaranteed barcodes).

As far as which day would be best to buy, that’s hard to say... obviously for DS Game 1, the best prices were just before the gates opened. For game 2, right after the prices dropped on the Cubs loss, they climbed steadily in value right up to game time. 

[MUBurrow]

Thanks for the insight, Benny.  This part in particular, seems right to me:

That said, with the e-delivery of tickets now the norm, we could see some wild movement in secondary inventories and prices as people who have been used to selling hard tickets or posting barcodes on StubHub have another labyrinth to navigate in order to sell (not to mention the discount that buyers might price in because they aren’t being delivered the security of hard tickets or validated/guaranteed barcodes).

I appreciate MLB's attempts to cut down on scalpers, but I'm really curious about the effect of digital delivery of tickets on game day .  My guess is that it creates scarcity on the secondary market because (1) all of the tickets were sold in presales, which limited tickets to 4 and (2) delivering digital on game day may create too many obstacles for most people to get their tickets on stubhub in a timely manner.

[Benny B]

Thanks for the insight, Benny.  This part in particular, seems right to me:

I appreciate MLB's attempts to cut down on scalpers, but I'm really curious about the effect of digital delivery of tickets on game day .  My guess is that it creates scarcity on the secondary market because (1) all of the tickets were sold in presales, which limited tickets to 4 and (2) delivering digital on game day may create too many obstacles for most people to get their tickets on stubhub in a timely manner.

I can tell you I already ran into a hiccup on Game 2... I gave my tickets to a family member, but since my tickets were delivered through the MLB Ballpark app, they had to be transferred through the app as well.  This meant the other person had to have the app as well... forwarding on my end was easy, but it was something of a challenge on the other end - even after downloading the app, setting up an account, logging in, etc., they still couldn't see the tickets.  So after several phone calls (about 2 hours before the game, mind you), I ended up cancelling the transfer, pulling the tickets up on my phone, screenshotting the tickets, and texting the photo images of the tickets.  While this worked, you could imagine the reluctance a buyer may feel if this were an unrelated party transaction... I suppose the risk is the same as though you were purchasing a hard ticket or a print-at-home, but it's going to take buyers a little while to get used to (read: comfortable) the technology.

That said, the above is predicated on the idea that sellers will attempt to circumvent the "official" resale market, which is to what the new ticket delivery methods are steering the consumer.  If you don't mind going through the StubHub's and Tickets.com's of the world, the experience won't be much different... but the Brewers are starting to emphasize the "resale" account rules, i.e. even if you're just a normal season ticket holder (not a business or ticket scalper), you're deemed to be a re-seller if you sell 25% of your total tickets, and unless you're an authorized by the Brewers as a re-seller, the club can claw back your remaining tickets (the cost of the unused tickets would be refunded to you) if you sell too many.  To be clear, I think the Brewers have had this "rule" on the books for many years, it simply hasn't been enforced in the past, presumably because it was nearly impossible to track who was actually selling vs. who was giving away to friends, family, co-workers, etc.  Now that they have a greater ability to track, it will be interesting to see if they actually step up enforcement, or if this was all a big scare tactic to minimize the potential number of Cubs fans at Miller Park in the postseason this year.

In any event, the goal here seems to be to reduce inventory on the "unofficial" secondary market and - along with the implementation of demand-pricing for games - shift the lion's share of that premium commanded by the secondary market back to the club via the "official" secondary market and box office.

I don't consider myself a scalper, but I have been a 20-game season ticket holder on-and-off for 10 of the 18 seasons at Miller Park, and I do sell a fair number of tickets throughout the year for games that I simply can't make.  Some years I've sold maybe half of my tickets, other years I've only sold a handful of games.  Overall, I get at least face value for maybe 80% of the tickets I sell, but after fees, not to mention the bath I take on the other 20% (which sell for less than face or simply go unused), I've been within +/-5% of breaking even every year except 2001 (sold my all-star tickets) and 2008.

[BM1090]

I have some uppers in the infield that I'll need to sell if it goes to game 7. I'll sell for above face but lower than the cheapest stubhub rate for similar tickets as long as you're a brewers fan