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.
