Forbes: Yankees vs Red Sox Tickets Down Despite Ellsbury's Return To Fenway

April 23, 2014

With another Yankees vs Red Sox series underway we broke down this week's secondary market ticket prices over on Forbes. With the Yankees in town, and Jacoby Ellsbury making his first trip back to Fenway Park since last year's World Series, you would expect this to be a hot ticket in Boston. However, prices are surprisingly below the average price for a seat on the 2014 Boston Red Sox schedule. Here's some more from the Forbes piece:

Heading into the first home series of the season against the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox are playing below expectations following their World Series championship last season. The Red Sox sit last in the American League East, two games below .500. The slow start isn’t enough to dramatically drop the price for Red Sox tickets this season, but it could be enough to make the upcoming series against the Yankees much cheaper than expected.

For the season, home games on the Red Sox schedule have an average price on the secondary market of $142.88, the highest average for all 30 baseball teams. However, the next three games against New York Yankees all have an average secondary market price below Boston’s season average, which is the first time that has been the base over the last three years.

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The average price for the first game of the series is $101.50, 28.9% below the season average, with a get-in price of $30. The Japanese pitcher could take advantage of Boston’s lack of offense this season, as no starter with at least 50 plate appearances in batting over .280 and only first baseman Mike Napoli is slugging over .420. Meanwhile Tanaka has struck out 28 batters against just two walks in his first three starts this season. Lester has been similarly efficient, striking out against four allowed walks, easily making this game the best pitching matchup of the series at the lowest cost.

The second game of the series carries a higher average price, but a drop get-in price. The average price on the secondary market is currently $107.85, 24.5% below the season average, to see Michael Pineda face off against John Lackey. The $26 get-in price will be the cheapest available ticket during the three game series. Prices again go up for the third and most expensive game of the series Thursday night. The average price is $114.89 with a get-in price of $30 for a pitching matchup of CC Sabathia and Felix Doubront.

To get even more information on this series at Fenway Park, check out the full article on Forbes.