When Alex Rodriguez, one of Major League Baseball’s most divisive figures, announced that he’ll be playing his last game on Friday, ticket prices shot up.
A-Rod made the announcement on Sunday. By that afternoon, the average price of a ticket had gone up by over 600%, from $75.92 to $456.76, CNNMoney reported citing data from TiqIQ. Rodriguez’s team, the fourth-place New York Yankees, will be going up against the fifth-place Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium, which seats about 54,000.
The most expensive ticket is priced at $17,000 for a seat in the 9th row behind home plate. The least expensive tickets are priced at about $85, which is 431% higher than the cheapest tickets offered prior to his announcement.
The August 12 game will be the last of Rodriguez’s 22-year career. He debuted as a shortstop with the Seattle Mariners in 1994, was traded to the Yankees in 2004, and 10 years later was temporarily suspended for using performance enhancing drugs.
Hopefully fans who are willing to pay the price will get to see him play. The 41-year-old baseball star first announced his retirement in March, saying that he would hang up his baseball glove when his contract ended after the 2017 season, but he appears to have changed his mind during a season he’s said has “not been fun.” Rodriguez has been sitting on the bench more often than he’d like, which he has described as being “very painful and embarrassing” and “awkward.”