Dodger Stadium tickets: The high cost of success

The Dodgers second title protection begins in earnest tonight.

From the Grand Tour of 2025, which spanned three international locations, two continents, and took each final day of the season — and then some — to this new marketing campaign, with a standard size Spring Training. What a luxurious. The Dodgers had the best record in the Cactus Leaguewhich appears off as a result of they did not have 28 ties, however no matter, I hope somebody gave them just a little cactus for the memes.

After seeing mates and acquaintances flu about how a lot they spent on Opening Day tickets, I believed I’d have a look. After seeing Loge tickets for over $500 instantly from the crew, I believed I’d examine the secondary market, beginning with TickPick. I’m not sponsored by them; I simply abhor paying rubbish charges if I will help it.

What I discovered did not shock me within the least: one may have a look at a seat-map vary for tonight’s recreation and be forgiven for considering the postseason had already began. I’ve seen ticket costs starting from $200 to $800 and extra, relying on location.

For Opening Night, the Dodger tax is in full impact, with everybody paying like a highway fan on Thursday. I’ve seen the groans and complaints as information of costs has grow to be extra standard. I had the next benign response to the information:

In my travels, I’ve lengthy grown accustomed to paying out the nostril for Dodgers tickets. With delicate reductions to each the ground and ceiling of costs, I may swap tonight’s costs for video games in San Diego, San Francisco, Atlanta, New York (each Queens and the Bronx), Seattle, West Sacramento, and many others.

That assertion apart, I’ve full sympathy for anybody experiencing sticker shock. It stinks.

Granted, these costs are completely cute in comparison with Game 1 of the 2025 season, however at the least I had the nice fortune to be in Tokyo once I plunked down the value of two used automobiles for my tickets to Game 1 and Game 2 of the 2025 marketing campaign.

One comfort for the monetary ache was that the video games had been a present showcase worldwide occasion that in some way spawned a mediocre documentary that one can literally start streaming on CNN’s streaming platform today. The Tokyo Series mattered, in contrast to the abomination that performed out in San Francisco final evening. The logic of “Netflix paid us money” is probably going the one justification for beginning the 2026 marketing campaign with two literal also-rans.

Incidentally, the ticket for 2025’s Game 1 cost greater than the ticket for 2025’s Game 179, though not by a lot. The sticker worth for each tickets was comparable; it was simply that capitalism (and the corresponding demand) exploded as deliberate.

Regardless, I perceive the argument that the Dodgers have succeeded a lot that they’re now on the cusp or have began negatively affecting those that would identical to to benefit from the journey: the informal fan.

The rush hour practice is crowded

As somebody who would not go to Los Angeles frequently, I do not discover the inflow of bandwagon and informal followers a giant deal. Success breeds a celebration everybody needs to attend till they’re priced out. No one needs to pay a premium worth for video games that don’t, therefore the modest attendance for the Freeway Series’ finale on March 24.

We wouldn’t have to depend on anecdotal proof for this declare both. Michael Duarte of the California Post reported on March 19 concerning the booming costs of baseball tickets in 2026, focusing partially on how the Dodgers are main the best way:

Baseball is booming and so are the ticket costs. In 2026, ticket costs depend upon the place you sit and which crew you are watching.

Here in California, the divide is not refined. It’s as massive because the Grand Canyon.

The Los Angeles Dodgers do not simply lead Major League Baseball in ticket prices This 12 months, they actually belong in one other financial class altogether.

The common minimal ticket worth at Dodger Stadium sits at $76.57, almost double the MLB common of $34.82…

…On common throughout the league, when the Dodgers come to city, the most affordable ticket on the ballpark jumps to $62.51. The solely different crew in that stratosphere is the rival Yankees.

Mr. Duarte just isn’t precisely reporting breaking information right here, particularly as to the highway entrance. Factor within the common ticket worth, the $45 parking payment (except you booked forward of time, saving $5), the costs for foods and drinks (heaven forbid, alcohol), and one is taking a look at a several-hundred-dollar expenditure for a household of 4 or extra to see the Dodgers in individual.

It is broadly believed that the Dodgers pulled in over $1 billion in income final 12 months, topping the four-million mark in attendance for the first time in franchise history. Note that I didn’t say “profit,” however given the crew’s notion drawback, the excellence will possible be misplaced on most. I’ve harped on this level earlier than: does the crew have to extract each nickel and dime it may out of its fanbase?

Would a five-dollar sizzling canine, a refillable soda, and capping the costs of sure tickets actually break the franchise and critically gradual the Dodgers’ monetary juggernaut?

I keep in mind once I was so broke that I may solely cobble collectively the funds to go to a single recreation at Dodger Stadium a 12 months. If you got here again to inform me in 2012, after seeing Chris Capuano “pitch”that 14 years later I’d be working for a website I used to be then intermittently studying and going to 17 Dodgers games in seven citiesphrases fail me as to how badly I’d deal with that hypothetical social interplay.

I’d most likely see it as a singular type of bullying; that is how broke I used to be throughout these days.

In baseball’s golden age, seating was seen as a terrific democratic (small d) equalizer, as you’d have members of completely different social and financial courses jumbled in to look at baseball. That horse is to this point gone from the figurative barn that it has died from previous age from operating free.

There is not any going again; If you need a greater view, you must pay for it. Baseball groups have been catering to the 1% of earners, their whales, for a very long time now.

If I may change one factor concerning the operation of the Dodgers (I can not) or if the Dodgers had been within the public relations boon that may come up from following my recommendation (they aren’t and they won’t), I’d implement the next modifications on ticket costs for the common season going ahead:

I’m being fully arbitrary, working purely on the vibes, as the kids say. I merely requested myself what 2012-me would have thought of honest. If the Dodgers’ financial engine is wholly devoted to operating on the backs of these sitting within the literal low cost seats, so be it. But with out trying into the crew’s monetary books, I believe that each one the company and sponsorship cash, together with the media deal, are largely holding the proverbial ship afloat.

Plus, think about the public-relations bonanza if the crew introduced such a transfer; it could flummox the naysayers with a single announcement. Two further steps could be wanted to thwart scalpers and others who would search to wreck an excellent factor. Oddly sufficient, one step comes from what I’ve seen different franchises do, and the opposite step comes from the Savannah Bananas, of all folks.

This 12 months, when acquiring my Phillies tickets instantly from the crew, they had been initially geolocked to residents of Philadelphia and the encompassing counties. I don’t reside in Pennsylvania, and I used to be prompted to name the ticket workplace. I did, and ten minutes later, after declaring that I used to be not a scalper and that I used to be solely after one ticket for one recreation, the transaction was accomplished with one ruffled feather.

Generally, a setup just like the one described above thwarts, or at the least slows, the automated pc bot that may react sooner than a human. The solely method to make sure these tickets wouldn’t fall into the fingers of mass sellers who would then be happy to lift the value as a lot as they need, to take a web page from the Savannah Bananas, who had been impressed by how music acts fight scalpers: by cutting out the middleman and becoming the only outlet to sell tickets.

Such measures would imply extra work and fewer revenue for the Dodgers, which is probably going a non-starter. The state of affairs appears more likely to hit a breaking level with folks’s funds, particularly in a quickly spiraling financial system. Where that breaking level really is is anybody’s guess.

Feedback on Dodger Stadium Express

For these going to video games at Dodger Stadium within the subsequent week or two, I’d significantly respect suggestions (posted within the feedback of this essay or on BlueSky) on the wait occasions to get to and depart Dodger Stadium after video games. There had been modifications carried out within the remaining third of the 2025 season, and I’m engaged on a follow-up evaluation essay for which I have to crowdsource anecdotal knowledge, as I’m bodily unable to gather it myself.

Any help could be significantly appreciated.