‘The demand has never wavered’; St. Louis CITY averaging highest ticket price in the league

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - Fans will soon be walking into CITYPARK Stadium for an actual Major League Soccer match for the first time ever. The game is sold out, and numbers show that support isn’t just for the home opener.

Edmound Elzy, St. Louis CITY SC’s Vice President for ticket sales, has worked for sports organizations nationwide. That includes stints working for the Indiana Pacers and the Orange Bowl. But the demand he’s seen to get a ticket into the brand new CITY Stadium caught him a bit off-guard.

“You just don’t see it, like this is uncommon,” said Elzy.

So how does St. Louis CITY stack up with the rest of the league? Using the ticketing platform Seat Geek, which sells resale tickets for all MLS clubs and is the official ticketing platform of St. Louis CITY SC, the average price to simply get into an MLS game is $31.

News 4 went team-by-team and found that Inter Miami averages the cheapest ‘get in’ ticket price, as you can attend one of their home games for $10 on average.

Many teams average in the $30-$40 range. But St. Louis CITY has the highest average at $73. The next closest is Austin FC at $58.

“As an outsider, you look at it, these players aren’t famous, everything is new. But if you look at just the fundamentals of it, people are excited about the sport, people have been waiting for this for a long time, it makes more sense then,” said Elzy.

The team uses what’s known as dynamic pricing. The bigger matches, such as home games against rival Sporting Kansas City, teams with big stars, cost more.

Road teams with less star power, or games during the week, will cost less.

“It kind of washes out whatever the price would have been originally,” said Elzy.

The team is sold out through mid-May, but you can still buy resale tickets online. You can point to the sparling CITY stadium as one reason for the demand.

“You go all the way up to the top and every seat is good. Even the worst seat in the house is a pretty good seat. And I’ve been to about half the MLS stadiums, and they don’t have it like that, even some of the newer stadiums,” said Elzy.

But as the stadium ages, Elzy appears confident that due to a passionate soccer fan base in St. Louis, tickets are going to be in high demand for years to come.

“That’s the difference here is that it is so ingrained in the community,” said Elzy.

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