Chicago Cubs experience some ticket-selling woes

Despite their popularity and playoff hopes, the Chicago Cubs seem to be having some trouble selling tickets in this unfavorable economic climate.

The baseball team returned to Wrigley Field recently for a six-game home series that began yesterday, August 11, against the Philadelphia Phillies and ends August 16 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Phillies came to Chicago August 11 on a eight-game winning streak and the Cubs were riding high on a four-game winning streak—the stuff of a good series. After a 4-3 loss to the Phillies in the 12th inning of the series’ opening game, the stakes are high.

Yet despite the solid match-up and the six-game opportunity for Cubs fans to see their team, tickets sales seem to have stalled. Tickets for the final two games of the Phillies series are still available via the Cubs Web site, as are tickets for all three games of the Pirates series that begins Friday. Only dugout seats (at $325 a pop) are available for tonight’s Phillies game but for the rest of the two-team home series, seats are available at prices ranging from $32 to $325 and at views ranging from “terrace limited” to dugout.

StubHub, the official secondary reseller of MLB, also has tickets available for all of the Cubs home series games. Tickets on StubHub are going for between $20 and $1,300, cheaper on the lower end than MLB’s prices, though some of the cheaper seats are only purchasable through auction. Interestingly, the Cubs’ official ticketing Web site links directly to StubHub.

Slow ticket sales have hit other MLB teams this season, including the Yankees and the Mets. The Mets recently slashed ticket prices, by 50 percent in some cases.

TicketNews contacted the Chicago Cubs for comment but did not hear back before publication.