The Mets Police

So here's what I'm hearing from at least three people....(I'm on the road and haven't been as on top of things as usual in Flushing).

....The Mets had a lottery for Subway Series tickets. Nobody I knew of and nobody who reads the Mets Police won them.

Then the Mets tried to sell even more Subway Series tickets as part of a 6-pack.

Now, I'm hearing from folks that they won a "second chance lottery" - which suggests that the Mets find themselves with more tickets on hand than even they expect.

I won.
I first got an email saying I DIDNT win.
Then today I got an email that let me buy tickets. I still have two tickets that I can purchase but im not going to , so if anyone
wants to buy tickets maybe we can set up a private ebay auction.
Email : Jessica1216xoxo@aol.com


Also

I won too today. It was like a second chance from the first lottery I guess they had unsold tickets from the first lottery but I won. And bought three tickets to the opener on friday im so pumped

Interesting.


Dan jumping in here. I also got the Second Chance Lottery email yesterday. All 3 games were available, and tickets were there for every price level. That's a LOT of availability for what once was a premier event. A combination of several things probably has contributed to this:

1 - The shine has worn off interleague play. I never liked this "experiment" as it essentially took away the distinctiveness of the 2 leagues (the DH aside). For several years now, outside of the "key" matchups (Mets/Yankees, Dodgers/Angels, Cubs/ChiSox) attendance has been floundering. It was only a matter of time before it caught up to these series as well.

2 - The shine has worn off the new ballparks. We've documented here countless times the lack of attendance at games this season. After the first few weeks demand for tickets has plumeted. Go take a look at StubHub and see how many people are selling tickets for every game. The apple may have been brought over but The Magic Is Not Back

3 - It's the economy stupid. Ticket prices, concessions, novelties, etc. The cost of going to a game here in NYC was always high, even before the new parks. The increased expense at New Shea and George's Stadium coupled with a sagging economy - well, people would rather eat and pay rent than go to a ballgame.

I really wonder what it will look like next year.


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From Monday  (I wanted to focus on the season opener Monday and save something for day-after-off-day)...

Bloomerberg wrote about how expensive the new stadiums  are to the "average fan" but I found it interesting that there's no demand on tickets.   I have a bunch up on Stubhub myself (both stadiums) and with the exception of the Citi opener....I'm having a similar lack of success.

Sion Nuseiri, an accountant from Brooklyn, said he bought two season tickets with the idea of selling off enough to wind up with a profit. Instead, the offers he gets are below the $15- $35 face value for his tickets. The price varies with the Mets’ opponent.

“I actually thought I would make some money,” Nuseiri, 23, said in an interview. “Every time I put something on Craigslist, people are trying to lowball me.” 

The rest is here.

Now before you ask me why I have tickets on stubhub....(a) I have a family and sometimes I can't go.  Should I blow off my kid's birthday?  and (b) I am not a millionaire and getting $200 back for my "extra" opening day ticket went a long way.

“I am sitting in my seat for $325, and you are sitting next to me and only paying $200 for that ticket,” he said. ‘ I will have no way of knowing it was the (Yankees) team who slashed the price and dumped them.”

I am starting to think about going back to ebay.  The 15% that stubhub costs means you really have to overprice the tickets just to break even.   Stubhub, the official ticket scalping home of MLB.

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@metspolice

Tickets for Yankee Stadium v3.0 went on sale this week, including the preseason exhibition games against the Cubs. So I logged in to see if I could pick up anything. After 3 minutes (not really that bad by some standards) I was offered tickets in a section called AUDI (I later found out it was Audi Club Seating)

Tickets were $45 each - a bit steep for an exhibition game but what the hell. Then I see this:

Total Building Facility Charge(s) US $65.00 x 2

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

There was no explanation as to what this charge was for. A search of the Yankees web site yielded nothing - no explanation, no details, nada. No way was I letting the Yankees charge my card without an explanation - guess they have to pay for the cost overruns somehow.

Meanwhile across the virtual city at mets.com I thought I would post some of my plan tickets for sale on StubHub going through the Mets Marketplace (the area that plan holders can resell their tickets). Obviously the Mets get a cut of the resale service fee, but it's easy for me to do it this way so I didn't mind. Yet when I try to login there I get a message that my account has been suspended!

Once again - WHAT?!?!?!?!?

A call to the Mets customer service revealed that my account was not suspended - they just don't have that part of the system up and running yet. I was told that hopefully it would be by next week.

It's 2 1/2 weeks to the opener (hopefully a DAY GAME) and the Mets don't have their ticket resale system in place yet? What were they waiting for? They knew this date was coming. I can just as easily go in to StubHub on my own and sell the extra tickets.

I guess the Mets don't need the extra money like the Yankees do.

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The NYC panorama in Flushing Meadows Park has swapped C-Field for Shea: Panorama

Robin The Boy Wonder wonders about the Dodgers obsession and who should throw out the first pitch - both of which we've covered here and here.

New Stadium Insider observes the great Stubhub scam.



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