Connor Bedard Effect: Tickets Surge for Blackhawks Rookie’s Home Debut

Connor Bedard’s home debut for the Chicago Blackhawks is driving enormous demand across the secondary ticket market. 

Tickets to the Blackhawks’ home opener against the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights are averaging a list price of $397 — 65% pricier than their season average ($240) and, thus far, the most expensive Blackhawks home game on the market, according to data provided to Front Office Sports from ticket aggregator TicketIQ.

The cheapest ticket available on the market for the contest is $101, while the most expensive is $1,664 for 100-level seats at center ice.

The sky-high demand represents a stark year-over-year contrast: Ticketing platform Logitix pegs the average sold price per ticket at $241.94 — almost double the price from last year’s home opener ($123.45). 

Ticket marketplace Vivid Seats tells FOS that its average sold price for Saturday’s contest is $209 — the hottest ticket that the company has tracked in the last five years. Vivid also says that fans are traveling 300 miles on average for Bedard’s home debut.

StubHub also reports that the game against Vegas is the best-selling of the season for the Hawks, out-selling the next-closest game (against Boston on Oct. 24) by 250%; its $223 average sold price is approximately $100 more than the Blackhawks average for the season.

It’s the third-best-selling game of the entire season thus far, trailing only home openers for Vegas and Boston.

Bedard’s arrival provided a sizable boost for the Blackhawks well before his home debut.

The team has reportedly doubled its season ticket base from the year before and is expecting a 10% increase in total tickets sold. The frenzy began the moment the Hawks were awarded the right to select the phenom, as the team sold $5.2 million worth of season tickets in the 12 hours following their winning the NHL Draft Lottery.