Ticket prices and sales were soaring Friday, hours after the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched a World Series berth for the first time in 29 years.
The average asking price for tickets to games in Los Angeles was $3,164 a ticket, the second-highest asking price of any team in the ticket resale era, according to TicketIQ, a ticket market tracking firm. Only the Chicago Cubs last year, with an average asking price of $3,480 for games at Wrigley Field, surpassed the prices being asked for by those with tickets at Dodger Stadium.
As of 1 p.m. ET Friday, the cheapest ticket available to Game 1 on reseller Vivid Seats' site was a standing room only ticket for $888, before fees.
And it wasn't just asking prices. Plenty of sales were coming in too. Ticket reseller Gametime said that by midmorning Friday, sales from the first game of the World Series at Dodger Stadium had already broken the single-event revenue record at the four-and-half-year-old company, surpassing sales from the 2016 Copa America quarterfinal between Chile and Mexico last year at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
"And that's before there's confirmation of them playing the Yankees," said Gametime spokesman Sean Pate.
The New York Yankees entered Friday with a 3-2 series lead over the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series. Pate said that asking prices for World Series games at Yankee Stadium -- for those anticipating the Yankees will clinch the pennant as soon as Friday night -- were roughly half the price being asked for games at Dodger Stadium.
StubHub had a few huge sales come in for Game 1. A fan paid $37,804 for two front-row seats behind the visitors dugout. Another paid $72,008 for four seats in the second row behind the L.A. dugout. Both prices included fees.
StubHub spokesman Glenn Lehrman said that "nothing will ever beat last year's World Series" in average ticket price because of Wrigley Field's small capacity and the Cubs' championship drought.
The average sold ticket price to last year's World Series was $2,100, more than double the highest average World Series ticket in the last decade ($950 in 2007 for the Boston Red Sox-Colorado Rockies Series).
If the Yankees advance to the World Series, the matchup will feature teams that play in the two biggest stadiums in Major League Baseball -- and the only two that have more than 50,000 seats. That's the reason StubHub sells more tickets, on average, for Dodgers and Yankees games than for any other team in the league, and why this is likely to be the highest-grossing World Series ticket for the resale sites.
While prices at Wrigley Field for last year's Series will likely have a higher average, many of the tickets sold came from fans. Insiders in the business tell ESPN that at least 15,000 Dodgers season tickets are owned by ticket brokers, the most tickets in MLB owned by those who flip for business.
One broker, who has skin in the game, said every Dodgers World Series game will be worth about $15 million profit for brokers.
"Some will wonder why the Dodgers seemingly left so much money on the table, but that's not the whole picture," said one broker. "By selling to brokers, they made plenty of money off the regular season for the last five years, when many tickets were selling below face value and brokers were losing money on their investment."
The Dodgers declined a request for comment about their ticket distribution strategy and how many tickets are in the hands of brokers.
Selling to brokers also allowed the Dodgers to maximize their ticket sales in the regular season, when they get to keep 100 percent of what they make. Playoff ticket revenue is split with the league in a revenue-sharing format.