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An analysis of San Diego Padres tickets on the secondary market

You looking to buy San Diego Padres tickets on StubHub and the like? Here's a rundown of some interesting data before you do.

By Dex

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Quartz

Did you know that Padres fans and Phillies fans really like seeing each other play baseball? Did you know that San Diegans are most likely to stick it to other Southern Californians when it comes to selling their seats? Also, nobody wants to see the Mariners play.

These are some of the findings out of a Quartz visualization and analysis on baseball secondary ticket prices from earlier this season. The whole thing is based on just a year's worth of data from 2012 and they don't normalize for a lot of things, so I wouldn't go making any big financial decisions or documentaries on the basis of this analysis. Let's say it's For Fun.

I'll say it again: This data is limited to 2012 and is based on the secondary ticket market. /Grain of Salt

Now then, given all that jazz, some points to ponder:

  • Padres Fan is most likely to sell and make a pretty good profit off of LA Fan. This holds true for the Angels ($23 average markup) and the Dodgers ($14 average markup).
  • A very close third is the Phillies. On average, the secondary market sells Phillies@Padres tickets for $13 more.
  • The Phillies are also just as enamored with the Padres. When the Padres visit Philadelphia, the markup is $5.20, the 5th highest markup for any team last year.
  • The Padres are a great team to root for if you're an out of towner or if you like to travel to baseball parks. On average, in 2012, a ticket to a Padres game in a ballpark out of San Diego would run you $31.65. Only the Houston Astros and Diamondbacks depressed values more. The average away ticket for the Astros was $29.32 and the average away ticket for the D-Backs was $30.57.

If you're the kind of person who doesn't like a lot of visiting fans in the ballpark, this data also suggests which games you should head to. The idea being that if the games are selling low for certain fans, there isn't a lot of tourist markup going on and/or Padres fans are hanging onto their tickets. With that in mind, the games that likely had the fewest visiting fans last season:

  1. Washington Nationals (-$13 per ticket)
  2. Houston Astros (-$11)
  3. Colorado Rockies (-$9.5)
  4. Pittsburgh Pirates (-$8.50)
  5. (tie) Milwaukee Brewers & Arizona Diamondbacks ($7.00)

On the flip side, if you're at traveler and you want to sit with other Padres fans, we can make a pretty fair assumption that the secondary market is marking things up and selling to you, tourist. If you like sitting next to other Padres Fans that you don't bring along, you might want to consider these ballparks:

  1. PNC Park ($13 markup for Padres games)
  2. Citizens Bank ($5.20 markup for Padres games)
  3. AT&T Park ($1.70 markup for Padres games)
Otherwise, you can get a pretty good deal at most ballparks as the markdown is pretty distinct for the Padres. In particular, you can get a pretty good deal when you go to Chicago or St Louis (-$18 markdown for both Cubs and Cardinals). Those guys are supposed to be pretty good fans and all, so I doubt you'll do much rabble-rousing in general.

Visualizations from Quartz based on data from SeatGeek.com

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