Opening Day for the Washington Nationals kicks off on April 1, with a face off against the New York Mets at Nats Park. After a 2020 season in an empty stadium, the team is allowing 5,000 season ticket holders back into the ballpark this spring. But you can still score a secondhand ticket for Thursday—you’ll just have to drop a lot of cash. More cash than you normally would.
Why? To maintain social distancing guidelines, season ticket holders can only purchase a grouping of tickets to form a pod. Keeping with safety precautions, resale tickets must also be sold as an entire set.
According to data from ticket resale site StubHub, the cheapest ticket on the resale market right now—for a seat off the right field line, a couple levels up—starts at $375. However, the stated price refers to just a single voucher: Any interested fan would also have to buy the remaining five tickets in the pod. So, after service and fulfillment fees, the total comes out to $2,757. The site’s most expensive option—in the PNC Diamond Club—is $1,500 per ticket in a set of four, which means attending Opening Day could cost that fan pod more than $7,000.
You won’t have much better luck on other sites like Ticket City, where tickets range from $393 to $661, and SeatGeek, where the cheapest option is $427 per ticket. Maybe better to invest in in a premium baseball channel again this year instead?
Daniella Byck joined Washingtonian in 2022. She was previously with Outside Magazine and lives in Northeast DC.
