Just weeks after ticket prices for the Miami Heat shot through the roof, they seem to be in a freefall.
Both primary and secondary markets are showing signs that the monster ticket prices from early in the season are a thing of the past. While home games against some top teams are still hot at the box office (Ticketmaster was selling seats in the rafters for the game with the Celtics Thursday, November 11, for over $100 each), fans grabbed tickets for the team’s November 9 game against the Utah Jazz for as low as $10.
As for the secondary market, ticket price forecaster SeatGeek is showing the average Heat tickets selling at a season low of $102, a far cry from their high of $193 in recent weeks.
Though this is a big fall, it’s not unexpected, considering the extreme hype surrounding the trio of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh as Heat starters this season. Lena Siegendorf, VP of Miami-area Premium Seats USA, has seen this phenomenon before. “Knowing what happened when Shaq was here in 2005 and 2006, which saw an initial spike in ticket prices for the Heat, and knowing the local market, we always thought it was going to plateau, and that’s where we’re at now. Ticket prices are much more reasonable.”
But, not all secondary market ticket prices for the Heat are hitting the same lows; instead, the decrease seems to be following a trend seen earlier in the season, with Miami’s away games reselling for higher prices than those at home.
StubHub currently shows the least expensive tickets for Miami’s home games ranging from $15 to $55, with the exception of the team’s March meeting with the Los Angeles Lakers. The site has the Heat’s away games pricing much higher, with matchups against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Toronto Raptors and James’ former team the Cleveland Cavaliers all starting at $100 or more.
SeatGeek’s numbers seem to back up this trend, with tickets to Miami’s best-selling home games ranging from $216 to $337 a ticket and top away games selling from $278 to $529.
Siegendorf is not alarmed by the price drops and sees this as more of a correction to the market: “It’s not that interest has decreased. It’s that the prices have come down to fair market value. We knew early on the premiums were really high. We knew it was going to come down, more in line with what we anticipated seeing.”
