So what can one realistically expect to spend for a 400-level seat this October?
i think youll be able to find tickets for under 50 bucks on stubhub
to try to gauge fan interest
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/post/nats-tv-ratings-on-masn-up-53-percent/2012/06/26/gJQAbuhv4V_blog.htmlnats were getting about a 2.2 tv rating in june. caps were getting about 1.8 in recent years. nats might have had some increase since the season has progressed. also they play every day so maybe not everybody watches every game and if they played half the number of games, the audience might be more concentrated on each game.
you could probably get into a caps playoff game for 50-70 bucks if it was against a team without large traveling support, like the lightning.
if that price is reflective of fan interest divided by number of seats in the stadium, the nats would have to have double the fan interest since their stadium is twice as large. is the nats concentrated tv rating 3.6 (double the caps)? probably not that high, but it could be considerably larger than 2.2. even if the fan interest per seating capacity was equal the cheapest nats ticket should be cheaper than the cheapest caps ticket because it is a much worse seat.
then throw in the possibility of an 8:20 start on a weeknight for a game that could last 3.5 hours and a lot of people will just stay home