Fans with deep pockets will get their money's worth at the World Series

Just hours before the Yankees opened their World Series home game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, tickets ranged from $724 to $16,185 on resale giant StubHub.

These were asking prices, not necessarily sales, and ticket prices appeared to have fallen with the Yankees' fortunes after they lost the first two games of the series. But to get into a packed stadium for the Yankees' first home game in the World Series since 2009, most fans had to pay a lot.

The lower end rose to $992 with fees, without actually purchasing a seat. Rather, you purchased a Pinstripe Pass, which granted access to “non-designated standing areas throughout the stadium” or a number of “social gathering locations,” according to Major League Baseball's website. The website strictly stated that pinstripe pass holders “may not occupy ticketed seats, cafe seats, or portable folding chairs.”

The upper end, which came to $21,854 including fees, bought a seat in the sports paradise: Row 2, Section 18 of the Legends Suite, “curated for those who demand the best in baseball.”

Elegant but expensive

For the price of a decent used car or about three years of tuition at a SUNY college, fans in a Legends Suite got a real seat near the Yankees dugout – well-cushioned – with perks like use of a private stadium entrance and all-inclusive dining and non-alcoholic drinks. It was possible for a Legends Suite guest to get a hot dog, but judging by the photo gallery on the MLB website, it probably wouldn't be easy: All the free cupcakes, steaks, sushi, and stone crab claws would get in the way.

Ticket marketplace Vivid Seats put the average ticket price sold for the game at $1,682, the highest price of the series to date. At game time, another marketplace said in a news release Monday afternoon, the Yankees' 0-2 series start had caused stadium ticket prices to “plunge,” with the lowest prices falling from $1,745 last Wednesday to $854 Dollars fell on Monday and the ticket price fell to $16,167 from over $27,000 last week.

In the Bronx on Monday night, some fans like Elbi Cho, 49, a Mets-loving used car salesman from Queens, waited for the game to start and resale prices to drop. He refused to pay more than a few hundred dollars. “This is not my team,” he said outside Yankee Stadium as game time approached.

Most people happily said they had spent thousands.

“I paid $6,000 a ticket and bought five,” said Mark Lauber of New Jersey, who came with his sons and their girlfriends. “I was in three World Series tournaments when the Yankees won, and you can't quantify that. …You can't put a price on it.

Once in a lifetime

Jose and Alma Hernandez, Dodgers fans from Orange County, California, each paid $2,200 for seats near the press box behind home plate.

“We decided over time – we've been married for 24 years – that we're going to give each other experiences,” said Jose Hernandez, 50, a lawyer. He and Alma Hernandez, 51, a judge, watch baseball in spring training and sometimes buy season tickets, he said. A series like this, like Halley's Comet, could only happen once in a lifetime.

“We won’t see another series like this,” he said. But: “There is always a limit. I don’t know where it is at the moment, but there is always a limit.”

Joanne Carducci, social media personality JoJoFromJerz, said she paid $3,200 for tickets for herself and her 15-year-old son Leo.

“I've been taking my kids to Yankees games since 2019, ever since I was first separated from their father and I couldn't afford tickets at all,” she said. “I had to sit in the clouds on the 400s and it was so high I was scared. I promised myself that I would be deep in no time, and I worked and worked, and five years later I'm at the World Series with my son.”

Leo said, “We came all the way here and it’s great.”

In the Ford Field MVP seats, not far from the field but above the Legends section, Elliott Kreppel, 56, a tax company owner from Monroe Township, New Jersey, said he didn't know how much his tickets cost and that it So it didn't really matter. He came with his son Jake, 25.

“Money comes and goes, but memories last forever.” Also: He sits at Legends during the regular season and the free food “after a while it's too much… the lobster, it's just too much.”