February 12, 2014
New York Yankees captain and shortstop Derek Jeter has announced the 2014 season will be the final one of his illustrious career. Jeter announced his retirement through a message on his verified Facebook page and since the announcement, New York Yankees tickets have skyrocketed, causing many secondary ticket sites to take down the listings for not just the final game of the regular season at Yankee Stadium, but for all home Yankees game in 2014.
The last regular season home game for the Yankees will be a Thursday night game on September 25 against the Baltimore Orioles. At the time of the announcement, the average price for the game was $304 on TicketIQ, which increased to $417 25 minutes later and then all the way $803.54 (up 92.40%) minutes after the news was confirmed. The increased price was due to a mix of increased demand and the suppliers pulling their ticket inventory. Ticket inventory dropped by about 3,000 in the first half hour and only 1,000 tickets were listed after an hour. The current get in price is $280 which is up 351.61% since 2:46pm EST ($62) and 976.92% since 2:08 PM ($26). In the same time period above the Yankees home average ticket price increased from $206.97 to $217.65. However, by about 2:55pm most secondary market tickets had been bought or pulled down by brokers.
Other games on the Yankees schedule were not affected as much as the home regular season finale. The last game of the regular season for the Yankees will come on the road at Fenway Park against the Boston Red Sox on Sunday, September 28. Red Sox tickets have not been pulled, but have not increased at the rate of the Yankee Stadium finale.
Yankees single-game primary tickets have yet to be put on-sale for the general public, allowing both the price and inventory on the secondary market to fluctuate at such an extreme rate during that time period. Tickets will slowly come back to the secondary market as the price is re-adjusted by sellers and brokers, allowing fans to once again to purchase tickets for Jeter’s last game in the Bronx.
In a half hour window after the announcement, some fans were able to purchase tickets before chaos ensued on the market. For the fans who were not able to attain tickets at that time, they will likely pay a large premium to say farewell to the captain one final time.
(UPDATE) The average ticket price for Jeter's last home game is now $1153 on the secondary ticket market. Below is a chart showing the rise in price in the hours since Jeter made his announcement on Facebook. 
