Cost of sporting events makes being a fan an expensive habit

Sports fans pay a high price to go to sporting events. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Sports have been a favorite leisure activity across the history of civilizations. Modern sporting events, though, are so expensive that it makes being a sports fan a costly habit.

World Series tickets garner serious cash

Sporting events have been favorite pastimes of long-gone ancient civilizations and modern countries alike. However, fans have to put up with the high cost of attending sporting events.

Major League Baseball is currently in the midst of the playoffs, heading into the World Series. World Series tickets are expensive. According to CNN, for tickets to Game 5 of the 2009 World Series, a Yankee fan paid $220 for tickets in the nosebleed section. StubHub.com reported the average cost of a ticket for that game was $373 the day of the game.

For the 2010 World Series, SeatGeek.com found the average asking price of a ticket was $1,553 for Game 3 in Arlington, Texas, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. SeatGeek looks at the prices of tickets through ticket re-selling websites such as StubHub, where people can sell their tickets to games, often at a premium.

Super Bowled over

When the Green Bay Packers took on the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl in February, according to Fox Business, the cheapest tickets on the NFL’s Ticket Exchange were going for $2,400. The most expensive seats in the house, without buying a corporate box, were $23,730.

According to CNN, the average NFL ticket for the 2010 season cost $76.47. This year, according to ESPN, a ticket to an NFL game costs $77.36 on average.

That’s a lot of ice

According to NBC Sports, tickets to Stanley Cup Final games in May were pretty costly. The average ticket for Game 3 in Boston was going for $935 on FanSnap, a ticket searching site similar to SeatGeek. The average across all the Boston games of the Stanley Cup Finals averaged $1,109 per ticket.

For Vancouver Canucks fans, the average across all games was a staggering $1,927. Tickets to Game 1 alone cost an average $1,430. It’s no wonder Vancouver fans rioted.

Worldwide mania

According to the Daily Mail, the cheapest ticket in May to the European Championship match between Manchester United and Barcelona cost 80 pounds, or about $123.50. Fans were outraged.

In New Zealand, a Rugby World Cup game is too pricey for most Kiwis to afford going to a match. A beauty salon owner in Christchurch in February, according to Stuff.co.nz, paid NZ$90, or about $68.40 per ticket for five pairs of tickets to pool games. She also won a lottery for semi-final and final tickets. For two semi-final tickets, she would have to pay NZ$705 apiece and NZ$767 per ticket to the final. Cheap seats for a semi-final match, according to the New Zealand Herald, were offered to fans at NZ$296, or about $225.

Sources

CNN

Star Telegram

Fox Business

New Zealand Herald

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