Want to attend the PGA Championship this week at Aronimink Golf Club just outside Philadelphia? Good news: waiting might have actually saved you money.
That's not usually how sold-out major sporting events work, but here we are (maybe people are saving their money for the outrageously expensive World Cup).
Tickets for the PGA Championship have been sold out since July, according to Front Office Sports, but resale prices on SeatGeek (the Official Ticketing Provider of the event) dropped below face value for all four tournament rounds as of Wednesday afternoon.
The get-in prices, according to the ticket resale platform, were: $176 for Thursday's opening round (including all fees), $170 for Friday, $223 for Saturday and $243 for Sunday's final round.
That's especially notable because face value for Championship+ general admission tickets ranged from $199 for Thursday to $299 for weekend rounds, before taxes and fees, according to a PGA of America spokesperson who spoke with Front Office Sports.
In other words, fans can currently get into any of the four rounds for below face value and, in some cases, for much less than the tickets originally cost. That's particularly true of Saturday's third round where ticket prices are roughly $75 cheaper. And resale prices above include fees and taxes, while the face-value prices are pre-fee and pre-tax, so the true all-in difference is actually larger.
Again, this is for a sold-out major championship outside Philadelphia.
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The sports ticket market generally doesn't reward procrastination but this one might.
And these aren't normal "get in the gate and then pay $9 for a bottle of water" tickets, either. The PGA Championship's Championship+ ticket (the prices shown above) includes access to the grounds at Aronimink Golf Club and food and non-alcoholic beverages at concession venues throughout the property. Each time a ticket holder visits a concession venue, they can receive one entrée item, one snack item and one non-alcoholic beverage. A patron may return as often as they choose.
That's a pretty big deal.
Axios reported that the operation at Aronimink includes breakfast items like doughnuts, fruit, yogurt bars and chicken biscuits, plus lunch options such as hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, ham sandwiches, cheeseburgers, Italian sausages, plant-based burgers and Mediterranean salads with falafel.
The entire food operation is massive. Roughly 200,000 spectators are expected during the week, and Axios reported the tournament's caterer prepared for the event by staffing 60 chefs, 170 managers, around 800 food-service employees, 10 on-site kitchens and 600,000 square feet of food-service space. Fans are forecast to consume 124,000 burgers, 88,000 hot dogs and 372,000 bottles of water during the week.
So, yes, paying in the neighborhood of $200 to walk around a golf course is still expensive. But compared to plenty of other major sporting events, where fans' wallets can quickly be destroyed by ticket prices and then get hit again at the concession stand, the PGA Championship ticket comes with legitimate added value. It's even more added value for a golf tournament, where fans might spend eight hours (or more) inside the venue. That's unlike other sporting events, like football or baseball, where the average game lasts around three hours.
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The question is why the resale market softened in the first place. Weather isn't expected to be an issue (outside of a potential short spot shower on Thursday).
Maybe buyers simply overestimated demand when tickets sold out last summer. Maybe the Philadelphia-area market has only so much appetite for several days of golf at major-championship prices (especially with the World Cup starting in June). Or maybe fans realized they could wait out the secondary market.
Whatever the reason, the math is pretty simple: The PGA Championship is sold out, the tickets include food and non-alcoholic drinks, and resale prices are still sitting below face value.
That's not something fans see very often.
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