Sunday, March 20, 2011

Week # 12: Take YOU Out To The Ball Game....?

While I'm on the sports ticket theme, I may as well wrap up that general topic, and this is the perfect time of year to deal with Angels tickets. We have been season seat-holders since 2002, the year of the first and only World Series championship in Anaheim.

I thought about giving them up altogether this year, but at $10 per ticket... unchanged in several years... they are still a good price, and the best seats in the stadium for the money.

Our four seats are upstairs, but literally right behind home plate, so we have a great panorama of the stadium and the surrounding hills. It's tough to give up the long summer nights at the ballpark, and even Trish puts up with games because they are great meeting points to touch base with family and friends, and there is plenty of entertainment IN the stands to watch if the game happens to be slow. (Trish would argue there are few moments that aren't slow... it's all a matter of perspective.)

Each year my aunt and uncle purchase two tickets to 20 games from our stash, so I'll take those out of the equation. From those remaining, last year we sold $442.50 in tickets online at StubHub, the "official" sales location for MLB. So my target for this season is to sell at least $543 in tickets to realize $100 in savings above last year. This could be tough, because overall, interest in Angels tickets has waned a little bit. We may have to put up the most popular tickets (vs. Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and bobblehead nights) to get there, as opposed to keeping them for ourselves. In the grand scheme of life, that's a relatively minor sacrifice, of course.

I could also consider donating certain tickets that are not likely to sell to charitable causes. If you know of a 501(c)3 that is looking for silent auction prizes and such, let me know and I'll certainly consider a donation (and then count the value of the tax write off toward the savings).

As with other ongoing trackable items, I will post monthly updates. If you are interested in purchasing Angels tickets for any games this season, leave a comment and I'll be in touch!  :-)

Angel tickets sold so far: $0

Savings over last year: $0

Total savings to date: $1,823.33

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