Eating HuMLBe Pie

In a post at the start of last week, I was critical of the cost of the tickets for the Sydney 2014 MLB Opening Series, saying that I believed that "the promoters are treating this like a rock concert and are expecting the tickets to sell out in a couple of hours, without realising that baseball struggles to get fans through the gate, and that Sydney sports fans are particularly fickle about attending games."

Advertising spot for the Sydney 2014 MLb Opening Series

Well, I'm going to have to eat humble pie. Despite the exorbitant prices and the poor seating, the tickets have been selling, in the words of the ABL, "like hot cakes". The last I checked, ticket availability for the game I had been considering going to was:

Saturday night game (22nd Mar 2014). Ticket availability and costs in $AU*
Grandstand Outfield tickets $69 ea - Sold Out
Outfield tickets $99 ea - Sold Out
Bronze tickets $169 ea - Sold Out
Silver tickets $259 ea - only single tickets available
Gold $369 and Platinum $499 tickets - only single tickets available.
*(For Americans not familiar with the current $AU/$US exchange rate, they are roughly about the same in value - $AU1.00 has been worth between $US0.92 and $US1.03 over the last couple of months.)

For the Sunday game, sales have been a little bit slower, but are still going well, with all Outfield and Bronze tickets sold, and the Silver level only having single tickets available.

I was wrong - people are forking out the money. Lets hope that this translates through to increased levels of interest in the Australian Baseball League.