The Miami Marlins started the season with the most expensive tickets in the league. Granted, that was for their opening day game against the defending world champs in their brand new stadium, but according to a site that aggregates secondary market tickets prices, the Marlins now have the least in demand and cheapest seats in the game. Tickets to some games are selling for as low as $3 a pop on the secondary market. Which is odd considering that team just had their best month ever.
According to data from SeatGeek.com analyzed by Miami Today, secondary market prices for tickets to the opener started at a league high average of $211.75. Prices then fell to an average of about $50 to $59, and the average price for secondary market tickets to a recent game against the Colorado Rockies fell to just $15.92. That means the team now has the least in demand and cheapest tickets in the entire MLB.
Secondary market tickets for the June 5th game against the Braves for example start at just $3.
What makes that particularly troublesome is that the Marlins just had a historic month. They capped a 21-8 record in the month of May last night by completing a sweep of the Washington Nationals. That's the best record in the entire league for the month. It's also the most wins the team has ever racked up in any month during their entire history.
The Fish now just sit half a game behind the Nationals for the lead in the National League East, and are tied for the fourth best record in MLB.
To put it simply, they're the hottest team in baseball at the moment.
Yet, Miamians aren't exactly knocking down the gates trying to catch the action.
"They don't have much of a market," Phil Miller, associate professor of economics at Minnesota State University, tells Miami Today.
He also adds that Miami "is not really a good baseball market."
In terms of overall attendance at home this year, the Marlins rank just 15th with an average of 28,543 people at each game.
Though, that is a hell of lot better than last year's 19,007 attendance average.
Granted, the team has also had to compete for local attention with the Miami Heat right now, and Ozzie Guillen's Castro controversy didn't do much to help the team in the local goodwill department. Perhaps once the Heat win their ring (which, shut up, they will) interest and demand will pick up.
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