Friday, March 6, 2009

Citi Field, here we come!

I will get to see Citi Field for the first time on Saturday, April 4, when the Mets play their second exhibition game against the Red Sox, and I can't wait. Squawker Lisa is going with me, but she will have a big dilemma - she won't know whom to root against!

We've been hearing a lot of complaints about the price of Yankee tickets, but I was able to get two tickets this morning for a list price of $23 each. (Somehow, the actual price came to $32.75 each.) The tickets are even in field level, though slightly in fair territory.

According to Citi's convoluted seating chart, $23 seats cost at least $45 for regular-season games, and that's just for "value" games. (In baseball-speak, "value" apparently means Nationals and Marlins.) There are 10 value games, 18 bronze games, where these seats would go for $60, 19 silver games at $75 and 30 gold games at $90. Opening Day and Subway Series get a platinum price of $105.

So sitting in these seats will give me a sense of what I would be willing to pay for them during the regular season. I usually haven't paid more than $40 in the past, so $60 seems about as high as I'd want to go - already more than a 50% increase. But the bronze games do feature six with the Braves (take that, Larry!) and even some weekend games with your Washington Values as well as the Pirates.

The Mets are putting April and May games on sale first, and 16 of the 24 home games in those months are value or bronze. So fans looking to spend less money will have plenty of options. And these games will likely be more available anyway, since the premium weekend games will be tied up in plans.

Let's hope the Mets play well enough to justify those higher prices!

What are your ticket-buying plans for the upcoming season? Do you have a ticket plan? If you are buying individual games, will you buy based on price? Opponent? Day of week? Overall, what do you think of Citi Field's ticket policies?

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