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Tickets for the 101st Grey Cup are going for less on resale markets than tickets for the last two did

andrew bucholtz

REGINA—Despite the well-known intensity of Rider fans and the reasonably-limited size of Mosaic Stadium (even with expanded seating for the Grey Cup, it's expected to have only 45,000 seats or less this Sunday), one ticket reseller says tickets for Sunday's gameare going for less than either of the previous two Grey Cups at this point. Connor Gregoire of SeatGeek sent 55-Yard Line some notable information on current Grey Cup ticket prices Wednesday morning. Here are the key details from him:

Fans are paying an average of $405 each for Grey Cup tickets on the secondary market (and an average of $845 for sideline seats in the lower level). Tickets are actually cheaper to come by this year than for last season's Grey Cup, but in an interesting comparison, we're still seeing greater demand for Sunday's game than for last year's NFL conference championship games. ...

At an average resale price of $405 per ticket, the 101st Grey Cup in Regina, Saskatchewan this Sunday is actually the least expensive of the past three Grey Cups. Prices are down 25% from last year's game between Calgary and Toronto -- played at the Rogers Centre, home of the Argonauts -- which drew an average resale price of $546 per ticket. The 99th Grey Cup, held in Vancouver, saw an average resale price of $449 per ticket.

Upper-level tickets for Sunday's game have been resold for an average of $265 each. In the lower-level, seats behind the end zones have gone for $464 apiece, while seats along the sidelines have been commanding nearly twice that much at $845 per ticket. Right now on SeatGeek, tickets start at $251 each in the upper deck, but we've seen some fans spend as much as $2,200 per ticket on lower-level seats at midfield.

Though demand for Grey Cup tickets pales in comparison to that for Super Bowl tickets, which went for an average price of $2,479 on the secondary market last year, it tops that for NFL conference championship games. Last year's AFC Championship Game in Foxboro drew an average resale price of $397 per ticket, and the NFC Championship Game in Atlanta came in at $316 per ticket.

Sunday's game is the 12th-most in-demand sporting event we've tracked in Canada since we began monitoring the secondary market in 2009. The graph below shows those 12 events and their average resale price, with Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals in Vancouver leading the way at $1,928 per ticket. Aside from the past three Grey Cups, all the events listed are NHL games; they include the Canucks' four home games in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, the new Winnipeg Jets' first home game, and four other playoff games played in earlier rounds.

Here's the graph he mentioned:

The Grey Cup's certainly cheaper to attend than the Stanley Cup Finals, but a big part of that is capacity. The 2012 and 2011 Grey Cups had attendance numbers of 53,208 and 54,313 respectively, while the NHL's biggest arena, Montreal's Bell Centre, holds just 21,273. Rogers Arena in Vancouver, site of SeatGeek's most expensive event tracked, holds 18,890; thus, while average tickets for Game Seven of that 2011 Stanley Cup final cost 430 per cent of average tickets for the Grey Cup in that city the same year, there were 2.9 times as many tickets available for the Grey Cup. The total numbers of tickets available don't account for the whole price discrepancy, but they do need to be factored in.

It is curious that this Grey Cup is cheaper to go to from a ticket standpoint than the last two, though, especially considering the smaller capacity of the stadium. However, there are other factors that may play into that. One key one may be the hotel situation: hotels in Regina have been sold out for months and months, and some fans have had to turn to renting RVs. It's tough to find a place to stay here, so that discourages late buyers on the secondary market. (By contrast, Vancouver and Toronto are big enough to have plenty of accommodations available even late, and the room prices in those cities during the Grey Cup tended to be much cheaper, allowing people to spend more on tickets.) Flights to Regina aren't as common or as cheap, either; CBC Hamilton reported that trying to book a return flight from that city (or Toronto) after the Tiger-Cats' win in the East Final would cost you $900 or more.

Many of the out-of-town fans who have come or are coming to Regina probably were able to obtain tickets in advance, as it's tough to spend that kind of money without a guaranteed seat at the game. However, the secondary market is still far from dead, and an average value of $405 isn't chump change either. It's just interesting that it's easier to get an actual ticket to this Grey Cup than the previous two. That may be because it isn't as easy to get to this Grey Cup...