This year’s star-studded World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees is a historically hot ticket, even with the teams playing in Major League Baseball’s No. 1 and 5 ballparks in seating capacity.

The New York–Los Angeles matchup, coveted for years by many within baseball but not played in the Fall Classic since 1981, has immediately driven ticket-resale activity generally not seen since the Cubs famously broke their 108-year championship drought in 2016.

Among the key indicators of the ticket market around the 2024 World Series, starting Friday at Dodger Stadium:

• The average list price for this year’s games is $3,887 according to ticket aggregator TicketIQ, the second-highest figure tracked for the World Series in the last 15 seasons and trailing only the $4,557 average of the historic Chicago-Cleveland matchup eight years ago. 
• Demand for Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 at Dodger Stadium is robust, averaging $3,146, according to the TicketIQ data. But it’s even greater for Games 3–5 at Yankee Stadium, averaging $4,875—a figure more expensive than eight of the last 15 Super Bowls. 
• Those average prices are continuing to rise as low-end, get-in list pricing is now hovering around $1,200 per ticket across multiple marketplaces. 
• Vivid Seats said its average ticket sold price of $1,368 for this year’s World Series thus far is nearly twice the comparable $685 for the Rangers and Diamondbacks last year. 
• Similarly, TickPick said the Yankees-Dodgers World Series is the second-most-expensive such event it has tracked with an overall average purchase price of $1,663, 114% higher than the 2023 World Series ($776).
• StubHub said this year is tracking to be its best-selling World Series in company history, with sales already ahead of last year’s final results and 2024 pacing at quadruple the level of 2022 at this point before play started. 

All this is occurring even with Dodger Stadium featuring a capacity of 56,000, the largest in MLB, and Yankee Stadium standing not far behind with 46,543. While MLB, the Dodgers, and the Yankees all employ various ticket-management strategies, the overall resale market for the World Series is also not as managed and is more organic than many other major sports events such as the Super Bowl. 

“You have the two biggest markets and all these big stars, so these are very powerful drivers. This has also been a drought for the Yankees,” Jesse Lawrence, TicketIQ founder and CEO, tells Front Office Sports, in part referencing the team’s 15-year absence from the World Series that is now ending. “The New York market is really coming off the sidelines and is fueling a lot of demand.”

Celeb Watch

While the pricing around this year’s World Series is certainly attention-grabbing, the people-watching will certainly be, too. Given their existing big-market presence and long track records of success, both the Dodgers and Yankees have already been magnets for celebrity attendees—something that was amplified during the earlier playoff rounds and will be again in the World Series.

Among the bold-faced name attendees during the Division Series and League Championship Series in New York and Los Angeles were Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, LeBron James, Jimmy Kimmel, Spike Lee, Rob Lowe, Brad Pitt, Pat Sajak, and Taylor Swift.

The NBA is trying to fix load management. The results don’t show much has changed.

The league has tried to be proactive in altering its schedule—cutting down on back-to-back games over the last decade by 23%, and eliminating instances of four games in five nights and eight games in 12 nights. Coming into this year, the league has even made sure teams would not play the day before or after “high-profile national TV games,” which are games on Christmas, ABC on Saturday, TNT on MLK Day, and most of the national TV games on opening week.

Last season, the NBA also added a new Player Participation Policy, which penalized teams for a number of violations, including ensuring no more than one “star” player—one who has made the All-Star Game or All-NBA team once in the last three years—is unavailable for the same game. The first violation will cost teams $100,000, the second $250,000, the third $1.25 million—and an additional million dollars will be added for every successive violation. 

The league also added a 65-game threshold for regular-season awards, including All-NBA teams.

However, the number of players who played at least 65 games did not see a significant increase last season—and in fact, has seen a noticeable dip since the beginning of the decade.

Player Concerns

The figure above measures the total number of players across the league—but load management is about the league’s biggest names.

Stars like Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokić, and Tyrese Haliburton have all voiced concerns over the new rule. One of the main issues is that awards trigger several contract incentives—including supermax contract eligibility.

Haliburton admitted he returned early from a hamstring injury last season to try to hit the 65-game minimum, which he did, ultimately resulting in an All-NBA Third Team selection. He parlayed that selection to a five-year, $260 million contract, around $50 million more than he would have received had he missed the team.

While the Pacers star ultimately achieved his goal, his numbers took a noticeable dip after returning from injury.

“I understand where the league is coming from. At the end of the day, I’m a fan of basketball like everybody is. We want the best players to play. But realistically, like we talked about earlier, there’s only a couple of us this could hurt financially. … I want to play 82 games if I can. That’s just not how the cookie crumbles right now,” Haliburton told JJ Redick in January.

Embiid, who was on track to win back-to-back MVP Awards before suffering a meniscus tear in February, would be at risk of never earning another regular-season award after admitting last month he may never play back-to-backs again for the rest of his career. The Sixers have 15 this season, which would leave him just two more games before hitting the 65-game threshold. 

The Sixers big man, who has faced nagging injuries throughout his career that have kept him from advancing past the second round of the playoffs, admitted he needs to focus on staying healthy for the playoffs.