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Do Tickets Get Cheaper Closer to the Game? What 460+ Games of Price Data Show

Do Tickets Get Cheaper Closer to the Game? What 460+ Games of Price Data Show

by TicketScanner Team

Check today’s get-in prices and price history for MLB games on TicketScanner’s MLB page.

Key Takeaways

  • Half of 225 completed MLB games got more than 10% cheaper between 15-30 days out and game day (or the day before), 29% stayed within 10% and 21% rose, according to TicketScanner’s daily price tracking of games played mid-July to Sept. 13, 2026.
  • MLS followed the same direction: 53% of 96 games fell more than 10%, and the median game fell 12%.
  • Price tier mattered, but not the same way in every sport. In MLB the priciest third of games fell least often and rose most often (27%). In MLS the priciest third fell most often (69%).
  • Across the 13 Week 1 NFL games TicketScanner tracked (of 16 in Week 1), the median get-in climbed from $170 at 60+ days out to $203 in the month before, then dropped to $128 on game day. The season opener and Cowboys at Giants barely moved.

Do tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

Often, but not always. In TicketScanner’s tracking of 225 completed MLB games from mid-July to Sept. 13, 2026, half got more than 10% cheaper between 15-30 days out and game day (or the day before), 29% stayed flat and 21% rose. The median game fell 10%.

Waiting can pay off, but it is not a sure thing, and the odds shift by sport and price tier. All prices here are get-in prices: the cheapest listed ticket across the resale marketplaces TicketScanner monitors, before fees.

Do ticket prices drop closer to the event? The curve by league

The typical game in each league, by stage before first pitch or kickoff:

Days before game MLB median get-in (games) MLS median get-in (games) NFL Week 1 median get-in (13 tracked games)
60+ days $28 (21) n/a $170
31-60 days $23 (148) n/a $184
15-30 days $22 (225) $31 (96) $203
8-14 days $21 (259) $30 (122) $203
4-7 days $21 (259) $28 (135) $172
1-3 days $20 (276) $27 (135) $140
Game day $20 (283) $28 (137) $128

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, completed regular-season games played mid-July to Sept. 13, 2026. NFL covers the 13 Week 1 games TicketScanner tracked that were played Sept. 9-13, 2026, of 16 Week 1 games; Monday night’s Broncos at Chiefs game on Sept. 14 is not included. Small sample.

MLB: a slow slide, mostly at the cheap end

The MLB median fell from $23 at 31-60 days out to $20 in the last three days and on game day, about 13%. The 25th percentile, a cheaper-than-usual game, fell from $17 to $13, about 24%. The 75th percentile did not fall at all: $33 at 31-60 days, $35 on game day.

Cheaper games fell further, while pricier games held relatively steady. For the MLB day-of-week pattern, see the best time to buy MLB tickets guide.

MLS: about 10-13% off in the final week

The MLS median moved from $31 at 15-30 days out to $27 or $28 in the final week, about 10-13%.

NFL: up first, then down

Across the 13 tracked Week 1 games of the 2026 NFL season, the median get-in rose from $170 at 60+ days out to $203 in the month before, then fell to $140 in the last three days and $128 on game day. One week of 13 games is an early signal, not a rule.

NFL preseason games (35 games) sat at $13 to $15 through the final week and rose to $18 on game day.

Do resale tickets get cheaper closer to the event? The odds game by game

Medians hide games that went the wrong way, so TicketScanner compared each game with itself: its median get-in 15-30 days out against its get-in on game day or the day before. A game “fell” if the late price was more than 10% lower, “rose” if it was more than 10% higher, and was “flat” otherwise.

League Games Fell more than 10% Flat (within 10%) Rose more than 10% Median change
MLB 225 50% 29% 21% -10%
MLS 96 53% 31% 16% -12%
NFL regular season (Week 1) 13 69% 31% 0% -22%
NFL preseason 35 40% 31% 29% -2%

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, completed games played mid-July to Sept. 13, 2026.

None of the 13 tracked Week 1 games rose more than 10%. Preseason games split both ways.

Expensive games and cheap games do not behave the same way

TicketScanner also split MLB and MLS games into thirds by how expensive they were 15-30 days out.

League Price tier 15-30 days out Games Fell Flat Rose Median change
MLB Cheapest third ($7-$18) 75 53% 31% 16% -13%
MLB Middle third ($18-$29) 75 51% 28% 21% -13%
MLB Priciest third ($29 and up) 75 45% 28% 27% -3%
MLS Cheapest third ($12-$25) 32 41% 38% 22% -6%
MLS Middle third ($25-$35) 32 50% 34% 16% -10%
MLS Priciest third ($35 and up) 32 69% 22% 9% -15%

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, completed games played mid-July to Sept. 13, 2026.

In MLB, the priciest games were the least likely to fall and the most likely to rise: 27% ended more than 10% higher, and their median change was only -3%.

MLS ran the opposite way. The priciest third fell most often (69%) and by the most (median -15%), while the cheapest third was the likeliest to rise (22%). Sports behave differently, so do not carry one league’s rule into another.

Games that fell, games that rose

Each example compares a game’s 15-30 day median get-in with its game-day or day-before get-in.

Big drops

  • Minnesota Twins at Athletics, Aug. 24: $33 to $10 (-70%).
  • New York Yankees at Los Angeles Angels, Aug. 31: $20 to $7 (-68%).
  • Columbus Crew at Inter Miami CF, Aug. 1: $60 to $32 (-47%).
  • Nashville SC at New York Red Bulls, Aug. 19: $17 to $9 (-47%).
  • Atlanta Falcons at Pittsburgh Steelers, NFL Week 1: $161 to $66 (-59%).
  • Cleveland Browns at Jacksonville Jaguars, NFL Week 1: $162 to $84 (-48%).
  • Chicago Bears at Carolina Panthers, NFL Week 1: $212 to $120 (-43%).

Big rises

  • Inter Miami CF at Chicago Fire FC, Sept. 9: $75 to $193 (+157%).
  • Kansas City Royals at Toronto Blue Jays, Aug. 25: $29 to $64 (+121%).
  • Sporting Kansas City at FC Dallas, Sept. 5: $35 to $64 (+81%).
  • Chicago White Sox at Boston Red Sox, Aug. 4: $48 to $86 (+79%).
  • Miami Marlins at Cincinnati Reds, Aug. 15: $15 to $27 (+77%).

The Chicago game shows demand building late: station WLS described a sold-out Soldier Field for Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami, and Robert Lewandowski scored for the Fire in a 1-1 draw. Yet Inter Miami’s home game against Columbus nearly halved in price. A star name alone did not set the direction.

Barely moved: three NFL Week 1 games

  • Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants (Sunday Night Football, Sept. 13): $243 to $237 (-2%).
  • Washington Commanders at Philadelphia Eagles (Sept. 13): $203 to $195 (-4%).
  • New England Patriots at Seattle Seahawks (season opener, Sept. 9): $281 to $265 (-6%).

The opener and the Sunday night game started well above the Week 1 median of $203 and gave back almost nothing. The Eagles game started right at the median and also held. The two steepest drops came from games that started near $160.

Why prices move this way

Resale tickets are perishable: once the game starts, an unsold ticket is worth nothing. Economist Andrew Sweeting studied 2007 MLB listings on eBay and StubHub and found sellers cut prices dramatically, by 40% or more, as an event approaches, with prices falling most in the final month (Journal of Political Economy, 2012).

A 2023 study in Sport, Business and Management tracked 19,155 MLB price observations on StubHub from three days out through game day. Resellers cut prices consistently in the final days, most sharply on game day, and weather forecasts and the home starting pitcher’s ERA also moved prices. For football, a FinanceBuzz analysis of more than 900,000 NFL resale tickets found tickets sold three days out were 13% cheaper than average and game-day tickets 12% cheaper, while tickets bought more than two months out cost 3% more.

What pushes a game the other way

Games rise when demand arrives after sellers set their prices.

  • Star players. When the Dodgers announced Shohei Ohtani would pitch against the Padres on June 16, 2025, the average listed price jumped from $129 to $294, per Vivid Seats data reported by ESPN. It works in reverse: after Messi missed a match in September 2023, Yahoo Sports found StubHub listings for Inter Miami’s next game swelling to 1,695 and the cheapest SeatGeek ticket falling to $34 before fees.
  • Promotions. Gametime found MLB bobblehead games averaged 22% higher prices than comparable non-promotional games in 2025, up from an 11% premium in 2024.
  • Rivalries and playoff races. Fewer fans may sell their tickets while more fans want to buy. That is an interpretation, not a measured result, and September races are only partly in this sample. For the postseason, see how much MLB playoff tickets cost.

Our reasoning on the MLB and MLS split, which the data does not prove: a pricey MLB game is usually pricey for a fixed reason (a rival, a weekend, a giveaway) that is still there on game day. A pricey MLS game may carry hype that sellers overestimated.

When to wait and when to buy early

  • MLB, ordinary game: waiting can pay off. If you need one or two cheap seats, buy in the final week or on game day.
  • MLB, premium game (rival, weekend, star start, giveaway, contender in September): buy when the price is acceptable. The priciest third rose 27% of the time.
  • MLS, expensive game: waiting paid off most here, with 69% of the priciest third falling more than 10%. Watch Messi games closely, since they can go either way.
  • MLS, cheap game: expect little. The cheapest third had a median change of -6%, and 22% rose.
  • NFL regular season: early data leans toward waiting, except for high-priced games like the opener (-6%) and Cowboys at Giants (-2%). For current prices, see how much NFL tickets are and why NFL tickets are so expensive.
  • NFL preseason: limited savings on average. The game-day median ticked up to $18, though individual games split both ways (40% fell more than 10%, 29% rose).

The risk of waiting

A falling median does not mean the seats you want will get cheaper. The get-in is the single cheapest ticket, and as game day approaches it can be a single seat. Our reasoning, not measured data: pairs and better sections may sell first, so a group can see the floor fall while seats together do not.

Sellouts are the other risk. TickPick’s game-day pricing guide warns that a fan who waits too long “could miss out altogether or pay more.” In TicketScanner’s data, 21% of MLB games and 16% of MLS games ended more than 10% higher, which is what a rising floor looks like.

A practical rule: set a target from the game’s price history on TicketScanner, buy when it hits, and buy early when you can name a reason the game is special.

Do NBA tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

TicketScanner does not track NBA prices. The 2026-27 season begins Oct. 20, 2026, according to the NBA. Outside data suggests a similar pattern: FinanceBuzz analyzed more than 1.9 million resale tickets from the 2022-23 regular season and found the average ticket was $62 lower (32%) on game day than one week before. For hockey, see the best time to buy NHL tickets guide.

Do concert tickets get cheaper closer to the date?

TicketScanner does not track concert prices, so this article’s numbers do not apply to shows. A FinanceBuzz study of 2022 resale data for 14 major touring acts found same-day tickets cost 33% less than average and day-before tickets 27% less. Our guide to the best time to buy concert tickets covers tour timing.

How TicketScanner measured this

TicketScanner records each tracked game’s get-in price once a day, around 9 a.m. ET, across the resale marketplaces it monitors. This analysis uses completed regular-season MLB and MLS games and NFL preseason games played between mid-July and Sept. 13, 2026, plus the 13 NFL Week 1 games TicketScanner tracked that were played Sept. 9-13 (of 16 Week 1 games; Monday night’s Broncos at Chiefs is not included). Tracking data starts July 6, 2026. TicketScanner tracks a subset of each league’s games rather than every game on the schedule, so these results describe the games it tracks.

Daily prices were grouped into windows: 60+, 31-60, 15-30, 8-14, 4-7 and 1-3 days out, plus game day. For each game, TicketScanner took the median price in each window, then the median across games, so one extreme listing cannot skew the result. Game counts vary because some games entered tracking later. The curve covers up to 283 MLB, 137 MLS, 13 NFL Week 1 and 35 NFL preseason games; the paired comparison covers 369.

The fell, flat and rose test compares each game’s 15-30 day median with its game-day or day-before price, using a 10% threshold either way. Price tiers split the paired MLB and MLS games into thirds by the 15-30 day price.

The MLB curve uses a newer sample than our best time to buy MLB tickets guide, so the numbers differ slightly.

FAQ

Do ticket prices drop closer to the event?

Often, based on the sports covered here. In TicketScanner’s tracking of completed games from mid-July to Sept. 13, 2026, 50% of 225 MLB games and 53% of 96 MLS games fell more than 10% between 15-30 days out and game day or the day before. About one game in five or six rose instead.

Do resale tickets get cheaper closer to the event?

Resale sellers tend to cut prices as the deadline nears, because an unsold ticket is worthless once the game starts. Academic work on MLB resale markets found sellers cut prices by 40% or more as games approached. Games with a late demand spike, such as a star player announcement, go the other way.

Do baseball tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

For ordinary MLB games, yes. The median get-in fell from $23 at 31-60 days out to $20 on game day in TicketScanner’s data. The priciest third of games was the exception: 27% rose more than 10%, and the median change was only -3%.

Do NFL tickets get cheaper closer to the game?

Early 2026 Week 1 data points in that direction. Of the 13 Week 1 games TicketScanner tracked, 69% fell more than 10% and none rose, with the median get-in dropping from $203 at 15-30 days out to $128 on game day. High-priced games held: the opener fell 6% and Cowboys at Giants on Sunday Night Football fell 2%.

Is it cheaper to buy sports tickets on game day?

Often, but the saving is modest and the risk is real. In MLB the median game-day get-in was $20, against $22 at 15-30 days out. The cheapest remaining ticket may be a single seat, and a sold-out game can leave you paying more.

Before you buy, track the get-in price on TicketScanner’s MLB and NFL pages.

Sources

  • https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/doi10.1086-669254.html (Sweeting, “Dynamic Pricing Behavior in Perishable Goods Markets,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 120, no. 6, 2012: sellers cut prices dramatically, by 40% or more, as an event approaches)
  • http://econweb.umd.edu/~sweeting/SWEETING_PDECLINE_0112.pdf (author’s version of the same paper: 2007 regular-season MLB ticket data from eBay and StubHub; prices fall significantly as a game approaches, especially in the final month)
  • https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/sbm-05-2022-0042/full/html (Lee, Morse, Hyun, Shapiro and Drayer, Sport, Business and Management, 2023: StubHub MLB prices from three days out to game day, N = 19,155; resellers cut prices consistently in the final days, most on game day; weather forecasts and home starting pitcher ERA affected prices)
  • https://financebuzz.com/when-to-buy-nfl-tickets (more than 900,000 NFL resale tickets via seatdata.io: 13% cheaper than average three days before, 12% cheaper on game day, 3% more than average more than two months out)
  • https://financebuzz.com/best-time-to-buy-nba-tickets (more than 1.9 million resale tickets, 2022-23 NBA regular season: average ticket $62 lower, 32%, on game day versus one week before)
  • https://financebuzz.com/when-to-buy-concert-tickets (2022 resale data for 14 major acts: same-day tickets 33% below average, day-before 27% below)
  • https://www.tickpick.com/blog/do-ticket-prices-drop-the-day-of-the-game/ (fans who wait too long “could miss out altogether or pay more”)
  • https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45525702/los-angeles-dodgers-shohei-ohtani-returning-pitch-ticket-prices (Ohtani’s June 16, 2025, pitching return against the Padres: average listed price $129 to $294, Vivid Seats data)
  • https://gametime.co/blog/dodgers-bobblehead-schedule-2026-ticket-prices/ (MLB bobblehead games averaged 22% higher prices than comparable non-promotional games in 2025, up from an 11% premium in 2024)
  • https://sports.yahoo.com/inter-miami-season-ticket-prices-lionel-messi-injury-status-050907983.html (Yahoo Sports, Sept. 29, 2023: after Messi’s absence, StubHub listings reached 1,695 and the cheapest SeatGeek ticket fell to $34 before fees for Inter Miami’s match against NYCFC)
  • https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/chicago-fire-inter-miami-soldier-183636776.html (WLS via Yahoo, Sept. 10, 2026: sold-out Soldier Field for Chicago Fire vs. Inter Miami)
  • https://www.espn.com/soccer/match/_/gameId/761792/inter-miami-cf-chicago-fire-fc (Chicago Fire 1, Inter Miami 1 on Sept. 9, 2026; Lewandowski goal for Chicago; Messi played)
  • https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/when-does-2026-nfl-season-start-complete-week-1-schedule (2026 season opened Wed. Sept. 9 with the Seahawks hosting the Patriots; Cowboys at Giants on Sunday Night Football and Commanders at Eagles on Sept. 13)
  • https://www.nfl.com/schedules/2026/by-week/week-1 (full 2026 Week 1 schedule, including Falcons at Steelers, Browns at Jaguars and Bears at Panthers on Sept. 13)
  • https://www.nba.com/news/2026-27-nba-regular-season-schedule (2026-27 NBA regular season begins Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026)

About TicketScanner

TicketScanner is an independent ticket price comparison platform built to help fans find the cheapest tickets available online. We aggregate publicly available ticket listing data from multiple marketplaces and present it in a structured, easy-to-compare format.

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