Welcome to The Get, by Neo—a new personal finance magazine for Canadians. No acronyms, just good info.

For this week’s top story, we’re looking at the cost of watching live sports.

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Canadians love sports. Not just hockey either. With the Blue Jays vying for victory, fans are figuring out how much it’s worth to watch live.

By Vicki Hall

The dream of seeing the Blue Jays live in the World Series has swept the country since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. belted “DAAAAA Yankees lose” in a champagne-soaked locker room after Toronto eliminated New York in the American League Division Series on October 8.

Where did all the new fans come from? What does it mean for die-hards?

The Jays last qualified for the American League Championship Series (ALCS) in 2016, when they lost to Cleveland. They last reached the World Series when they captured the back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993. Ticketmaster released World Series tickets on Tuesday, Oct 21, at 10 a.m., and the online queue quickly swelled to over 235,000.

“There’s an entire generation of people who have no experience of Jays’ success,” says Concordia University economics lecturer Moshe Lander. “So, when they’re now reaching a point where, ‘Hey, this could get good,’ everybody wants to go.”

In 1993, fans could buy 100-level World Series seats in Toronto for $58. This time around, for Game 1 of the ALCS, the cheapest 100-level list price was $886—a jump of about 1,400%. That’s above the roughly 90% rise in overall inflation the Bank of Canada reports between 1993 and 2025. Resale for the same World Series ticket, as of press time, was about $9,000!

With inflation, that same $58 ticket should cost $112 today.

“You don’t have to have a degree in economics,” says Lander. “It’s no different in professional sports than if we are talking about Taylor Swift, or if we are talking about the new Apple iPhone. When demand outstrips supply, the price goes up.” And the demand for big events is even higher these days due to the evolution of social media and the Instagram effect, he says. “Now it's not just that you’re going to the game, it’s that you’re posting pictures and videos of you going to the game."

How easy is it to get a playoff ticket?

Like most things in life, it depends. 

Season-ticket fans

Jays season-ticket holders get first dibs on playoff tickets. Brantford’s Mandi Green jumped at the opportunity to pay roughly $4,000 last month for two seats in Section 237 for the entire Jays post-season run. “The energy here is indescribable,” Green wrote via direct message during the Jays 10-3 loss in Game 2 of the ALCS to the Seattle Mariners on October 13. “Your section becomes your family for the game. We all have the same goal.”

Those willing to travel

With the series shifted to Seattle, many Jays fans—especially those in Alberta and B.C.—have plans to sing “OK Blue Jays” live at T-Mobile Park. Alex Simpson travelled with five family members from Calgary to Seattle for Game 4 in honour of his father Dave, who passed away this summer. 

The family snared the tickets off Ticketmaster for about $400 each in section 345. The group is flying to Abbotsford, B.C. and then driving 184 kilometres to Seattle. Alex estimates the entire trip cost about $1,000 for each family member. He left Calgary hoping for the Blue Jays to rebound on the West Coast. 

Hoping, but not counting on it—especially after the Jays fell in Game 1 to a team that played 15 innings against the Detroit Tigers, on the other side of the continent and less than 48 hours earlier. “I figured for sure after the 15-inning game, the Mariners’ pitching would show some sign of weakness,” Simpson said via direct message. “But they’ve been incredible. The Jays need a spark of magic.”

Those willing to go alone

Jordan Battaglia is still basking in the magic that saw her secure a single ticket for Game 6 back in Toronto. Like so many others, Battaglia jumped online for the ALCS ticket release. The 23-year-old purposely chose Game 6 in hopes of having a higher chance than the first two games. She was right.

The counter told her 4,000 people were in line ahead of her. “When I first got in, there were tons of tickets available,” she said. “That’s why I got my hopes up, and was moving too slow.” She tried to buy four seats, but they disappeared off the screen. The same happened with two.

In the end, she snagged one ticket in the 500 level for $230, which may have been a lot cheaper than what she would have paid on the resale market.

What can the average person do to get a ticket?

For fans without season tickets, the options include Ticketmaster and resale websites such as StubHub and SeatGeek. And while resale prices in particular can drop in the proverbial ninth inning—hours before first pitch—Lander cautions that it can also work the other way.

If speculators hold available tickets and have no intention of going to the game, they might lower the price or accept an offer in the final hours. Any payment is worth more than no payment. “But if I have full intention of going to the game and I’m heading towards the dome,” Lander says, “the only thing that’s going to make me give up my ticket is if somebody says, ‘I’ll give you your price and an extra 200 bucks so you can go sit in the local bar.’”

Since the Jays rebounded to win the ALCS, the demand skyrocketed for the World Series. It’s the same phenomenon we saw with the Taylor Swift Eras Tour and what we’ll likely witness with the FIFA World Cup next summer in Toronto and Vancouver.

So how can the average fan get into such marquee events? The best advice, according to Lander, is to reduce discretionary spending and, unfortunately, cut elsewhere.

“It used to be, ‘Hey, we’ll just go to the game’,” he says. “Now it’s, ‘Hey, we’ll go to the game. But this is your Christmas gift, or your birthday gift, or your anniversary gift, or all three rolled into one,’ because it’s too expensive. The average fan has no means of attending those games without making some severe sacrifices. And it’s just an issue then of how badly do you really want to be there?”

Are the ticket prices worth it?

For many fans, the ticket hunt translated into queues that stretch like a seventh-inning beer line, serious sticker shock, and gut-wrenching choices about where their money goes.

Saskatchewan-based Jays fan Arielle Zerr considered paying $1,000 for two ALCS seats, five rows from the top of Rogers Centre. “Ultimately we decided no,” says Zerr, who cancelled her flight to Toronto from Regina after seeing the prices. “I love the Jays, but do I want to spend that on seats near the back of the 500 level?” She decided instead to put that money toward something like a vacation in Italy or a week in Mexico, even though it hurt to forgo a chance at witnessing history.

But whatever your budget, from box seats to getting a free Apple TV trial and watching at home, you’ll be on the edge of your seat, holding on to your wallet.

Vicki Hall is a Canadian sports journalist with her work published in the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald. She was the first woman inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame's media wing.

Read more from this issue of The Get:

1. True or false: “Splurges are bad for your credit score.”
2. “How did I get here?” asks Canadian comedian Rick Mercer
3. Changing jobs? Negotiate a better pay rate
4. Will my partner’s credit score affect my own?

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