Stubhub: Better to buy early or late?

Submitted by LJ on

Now that I'm getting old enough that using my old student ID is no longer plausible, I'm finally venturing out of the student section and into the world of buying game tickets on StubHub.  Collective wisdom of MGoBlog: is it generally better to buy early on StubHub, or wait until the game approaches?  I've been monitoring Hawaii tickets over the past few days, and they seem to only be getting more sparse and expensive.  Does it depend on the game, or is there a general trend?

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amaizenblue402

August 10th, 2016 at 10:10 AM ^

I'm in the same boat as you, LJ. Looking for two tickets for the Hawaii game. They do seem sparse and expensive on stubhub right now.

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True Blue in CO

August 10th, 2016 at 10:12 AM ^

If Michigan gets better every week, then buying now may be the way to go. The first game is getting interest because it is on the long weekend and it is the opening game. The B1G season will draw a lot of interest.



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danross

August 10th, 2016 at 10:18 AM ^

Somewhere in the mgoarchives are the last 2 years' posts on the secondary ticket market for Michigan games beyond just stubhub. Worth a read.

Season openers in general seem to be in higher demand regardless of opponent because optimism is at its peak and people just want to see some football. If Hawaii was week 2 you could probably get tickets outside the gate for 50-80% of face, or worst case, face value.

Having said all that, I sure wish sellers chose alternatives to stubhub to list tickets. Looking for Wisconsin tickets yesterday, I saw at checkout that stubhub wanted $154 (!) in fees to deliver 4 instant download tickets. That is basically massive scalping, made legitimate by its status as a "marketplace". At some point you would think sellers would realize that stubhub is pocketing most of, if not all, extra money they were planning to make on selling tickets.

Personally, I would love to see sellers make more use of eBay and craigslist, which charge essentially nothing to list/sell your tickets as compared to stubhub et al. eBay especially seems a much better choice with its PayPal integration. End rant.

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UESWolverine

August 10th, 2016 at 10:35 AM ^

People don't trust ebay as much as they trust Stubhub since SH guarantees your tickets once you buy them. And I believe ebay still charges 10% of total sale - the same as Stubhub, no?

Also - there is a setting in Stubhub that includes all the fees when you are browsing for tickets so you don't get sticker shock at the end. They add in 15% for the buyer fees.

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danross

August 10th, 2016 at 11:12 AM ^

Thanks for the info, it is helpful. You could be right about the trust factor, although that strikes me as a bit ironic given that eBay used to be the only option for stuff like this. I haven't sold tickets online in a number of years, admittedly.

I did wind up buying Wisconsin tickets on eBay, and if there were significant fees the seller is paying them. Also advertised free shipping, but I think they are downloads so that's obviously not a benefit. Perhaps the seller is doing worse on eBay than he could be doing on StubHub, not sure.

I've never had an issue on eBay, but if I did I would assume I would get my money back somehow. The only real issue is not seeing the game, but if you are buying from a 1-off seller that you don't know personally you take that risk, whether you get your money back or not, and regardless of what site you use.

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danross

August 10th, 2016 at 10:50 AM ^

...but also true, and I paid close attention. I am not sure the location of the seats would impact SH fees but to answer your question I was not buying club seats.

I also saw high (but not that high) fees when I bought Utah road game tickets last year, albeit on a different site. It seems to be the norm for all the ticket sites anymore, and you really have to look at total cost versus ticket cost.

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Farnn

August 10th, 2016 at 10:59 AM ^

Stubhub recently went back to hiding fees until checkout.  For a while they included all fees to be transparent but found that sales went down.   People are more likely to buy something once they've decided on it, even if you throw in a 15% fee at checkout.

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The Mad Hatter

August 10th, 2016 at 10:26 AM ^

On game day.  Unless it's a big game there are always cheap tickets available close to kick off.  And even cheaper tickets after the game starts.

You have to be willing to sit wherever though.  And there's always the risk that you don't get in, although that's never happened to me.

 

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stephenrjking

August 10th, 2016 at 5:50 PM ^

I agree 100%.

The only game I've ever come close to not getting into was 1999 Notre Dame, which was a season opener and Notre Dame. Virtually no tickets on sale at all at any price. For every other game there are tickets to be had. 

I make an exception for this if I am traveling a long distance, since I like the security of having my seats planned out with the rest of my trip, but if I'm in the area this would be a sure-thing.

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UESWolverine

August 10th, 2016 at 10:37 AM ^

Wait until the last minute - you will get tremendously good tickets for practically nothing. Search any sporting event or concert happening today, tomorrow or next week on Stubhub and you will see what I mean.

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ThoseWhoStay W…

August 10th, 2016 at 10:59 AM ^

As a financial analyst and fellow MGoStubHub user I have conducted analysis for this year starting at the new year on the different ticket prices on stubhub. I have included which days are cheapest, the Minimum offered the maximum offered and the mean, as well as what the price that StubHub calls their best deal as a benchmark. I will post the findings and excel file once the analysis is complete. As of now the only tickets worth buying today would be the Wisconsin tickets. This is solely based on the fact that these tickets are the only tickets that have not seen a decrease or major fluctuation in price and will most likely raise in price as that gameday approaches. The same could be said for Penn State but those prices have seen slight variation so the risk for those would be a small percent higher but not by much. I am also studying the price of single tickets, 2 tickets and 4 tickets together. If you are looking for more than 2 tickets together I would suggest buying earlier is a smarter choice. The packages that have 4 or more tickets see less price fluctuation and have seen a slight rise in price. As demand for the game increases the tickets with 4 or more seats together will be the highest demand and thus have a higher price. This also means if you do pull the trigger on either a package with 4 or more tickets or for the Wisconsin game and are unable to go, you will in all likelihood be able to sell them for what you paid or for a slight profit depending on what markup costs stubhub includes. Hope this helps and I apologies for its length. 

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M-Dog

August 10th, 2016 at 12:41 PM ^

I bought Wisc tickets in advance on StubHub.  It was very expensive, especially when you add in their exorbitant fees.

I was not happy about it but I had to do it because I needed to lock in the availability.  I am already spending a bundle to fly out with the family, get a hotel, and rent a car.  I can't affotrd to get shut out.  My time before the game will be limited, so I won't have time to chase scalpers all around.

I needed to lock in the tickets, and I paid a high price to do so.  You have to look at it like buying insurance.  You do it only when you need to.

If you are not in this situation and are at all flexible, you'd do much better to avoid it and take your chances with late sellers / scalpers.

 

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Braylons Butte…

August 10th, 2016 at 3:18 PM ^

Just purchased some SIDELINE tix for $150/each ($184 w/fees) for Wisconsin, after having the same concerns as you with flying out, hotel, car rental and wanting to lock something in.

I would say for any other game not WI and lesser extent PSU, you should have no problem day of the game getting tickets for reasonable price.

Also, tix go up on these platforms at varying times and sometimes like in my case today, someone really wants to offload tix quickly and purposely prices to undersell the market. So be vigilant and monitor Stubhub and others, and you may get yourself a deal as conflicts arise for potential sellers as we get closer to the season.

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uminks

August 10th, 2016 at 5:55 PM ^

for road game by purchasing tickets through the athletic departments, minus MSU. I've gotten good deals on Iowa, IL and IU road games in the past 15 year ( you need to get them the first day for public purchases, since investors will scoop up all the good seats,). I paid a bit extra for my Michigan tickets this season for the Maryland game, but I don't mind supporting the athletic department.

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djmagic

August 10th, 2016 at 11:03 AM ^

secondary market last season, and noticed that, if one wasn't picky about seating, one could buy last minute and almost always get in for face value or less.

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big mac 22

August 10th, 2016 at 11:05 AM ^

if you want to get there and enjoy tailgaiting for a few hours i would go ahead and buy now. If you dont care about tailgaiting or any pregame activities and dont mind going into the stadium as the kickoff is happening or even missing a few plays , you could probably find cheap tickets at the last minute. I am driving 10 hours for the Wisconsin game and went ahead and bought mine on stubhub for $150.00 each section 20. I got lucky because the cheapest had been $200 for a while. Someone had just posted his/hers season tickets for all the games that were beating the prices in that section. I will now have time to enjoy tailgating and having my tickets in hand.

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Trump

August 10th, 2016 at 11:07 AM ^

I used to wait until the last second for Tigers games. However, this year has been the exact opposite of past years. The longer I have been waiting the higher the prices increase.



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LSAClassOf2000

August 10th, 2016 at 11:10 AM ^

It seems like it depends on the game, in my own experience. Most games see a pretty good drop in prices immediately before the game (a day or two), but it doesn't seem to matter so much with premium or rival games, or at least I've never had as much luck getting lower prices with those. If you know well in advance you want to go to one, some games seem to have good prices far in advance because you get the crowd that has conflicts with pre-planned events (business trips, family events, etc...), if you will. If you have a larger group you're buying for, sooner is better too obviously. If it is just you or you and one other person, I would wait until just before the game. 

 

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Tabs213

August 10th, 2016 at 11:13 AM ^

I, too, am looking at tickets on StubHub, but I graduated in 2005 haven't been to a game since the stadium was remodeled.  Can someone tell me where the visitor section is these days so I know to avoid it?  When I was a student, it used to be at the south end zone around sections 14-18.  There are some good seats available at a fair price for the Penn State game in sections 13 and 15, and I'm just afraid I'll be right in the middle of the wrong section!

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nerv

August 10th, 2016 at 11:17 AM ^

Waiting till the last minute on StubHub or other resale sites is typically the way to go. For most concerts and sporting events a high percentage of tickets are purchased by ticket brokers or people intent on reselling them for a profit. They will keep prices high as long as they can to make a better buck. But those last couple days and hours before an event is typically desparation time to unload all these tickets to at least make something.

With that being said Michigan football seems like a different animal. With only 12 scheduled games and so many tickets already allotted that are never up for open sale. You may be better served to watch the site for someone listing an under the average price than seeing if they drop last minute.

Oh and Ive found that I really prefer SeatGeek to StubHub. Less fees. Everything is listed with fees so you know the final price as you're browsing. That said never looked into college games on there but used it multiple times to go see pro sports with really good success.

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raleighwood

August 10th, 2016 at 12:34 PM ^

I live in Florida and typically come up for one game each year.  I got into Rutgers last year for $25 and Penn State the year before that for $20.  

Now that we're fully engaged in the Harbaugh world, tickets could be a little harder to come by.  Still, there are 110K seats in Michigan stadium.....there are ALWAYS tickets floating around outside the stadium at a more reasonable price than StubHub.

The one fortunate thing about the 2016 schedule is that Penn State (09/24) and Wisconsin (10/01) are playing back-to-back games in The Big House.  I'm taking the whole week off of work and flying up to hopefully catch both games.  I don't necessarily want to spend a whole week in Michigan (moved away 22 years ago) but this was too good to pass up.  On top of that, the Tigers have a day game on Thursday against Cleveland.....I plan on catching that one, too.

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M-Dog

August 10th, 2016 at 12:48 PM ^

I only once saw a situation where you could   flat-out not get tickets outside the stadium.  It was a Notre Dame game in the late '80s / early '90s.  Instead of scalpers holding up tickets outside the stadium, there were fans holding up money looking for tickets.  One guy was holding up four $100 bills, with no luck.

It was the damnedest thing I ever saw.

 

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