Where Have All the Tickets Gone? : . . . Gone to Season Holders, Agencies, Scalpers, Lottery System--Every One

Dodger fans lamenting the lack of playoff tickets available are not alone. They are joined in their grief by the Dodger organization.

The Dodgers are sorry that they can’t sell as many tickets as there is demand for the National League championship series and the World Series.

Of the 56,000 seats in Dodger Stadium, only 2,600 per game have been offered for sale--through a lottery system--to the general public. And those tickets are long gone. The lottery closed Aug. 30, and the winners have been notified.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t get tickets. It may mean, however, that you’d have to earn a major league salary to be able to afford them.

Just how many tickets are available? It is one thing to calculate the number of tickets printed for the playoffs and the World Series, and quite another to track where those precious tickets go.

When a team makes the playoffs its bandwagon sags under the weight of “friends” requesting tickets. And although each of the four teams in the American and National League playoffs has its own ticket policies, there are some general rules:

--Tickets must be made available to the commissioner’s office and administrators in the league offices.

--Non-working members of the media, including local television, radio and print journalists, are allowed to buy tickets.

--Each participating team buys a huge block of seats.

--There must be adequate space for the working press, swelled to include reporters from most national and some foreign outlets.

Then there are the season-ticket holders. The Dodgers have 27,000 season-ticket holders, one of the highest figures in baseball.

Each season-ticket holder is given a chance to buy a complete set of playoff and World Series tickets, matching the number of season tickets held. Most decide to do that.

Those who have been season-ticket holders since before 1979 may buy another ticket for each season ticket held. Thus, a pre-1979 holder of four season tickets may buy eight sets of playoff and Series tickets. This bonus system is fairly common throughout baseball. The Angels, for example, offered the bonus with no restrictions to each of their 17,500 season-ticket holders.

In the Dodgers’ case, 14,455 season-ticket holders have requested bonus seats. So, before the Dodgers can even begin to set aside tickets for other purposes, they have 41,455 tickets for each game allotted to season-ticket holders. The problem becomes clear.

“We are in the same predicament as the Dodgers, although not as acute yet,” said Mike Bertani, director of ticket operations for the St. Louis Cardinals.

“We have 9,927 season-ticket holders and 50,000 seats. We offer bonus seats to all our season-ticket holders. That means you’ve got nearly 20,000 seats right off the bat. After all is said and done, we offer 5,000 tickets to John Q. Public. Each person may buy two tickets.

“Like the Dodgers, we have gone to a lottery system. It’s easier and the most equitable way. You have to allot so many tickets to the general public out of fairness. You get crucified if you don’t.”

So, most of the tickets go to season-ticket holders. How long those tickets stay with them is another question.

Apparently, many season-ticket holders have their playoff and World Series tickets for only as long as it takes to sell them to ticket agencies and scalpers.

“I would say that the majority of our tickets come from clients who are season-ticket holders,” said Harris Rosner, owner of VIP Tickets in Sherman Oaks. Harris said he has plenty of playoff and Series tickets.

“There is a great demand for Dodger tickets,” he said. “The reason I have so many tickets is, season-ticket holders who I have worked with for years keep selling me their tickets. They create the market for good seats.

“If you were a season-ticket holder and you had a chance to make a few thousand dollars, what would you do? They can pay for the whole season by selling the postseason tickets.

“These guys sell the tickets, buy wide-screen TVs and watch the whole thing on television. That’s what the free enterprise system is all about.”

Indeed, scalpers and agencies may have more tickets than any other source. Murray’s, the venerable Los Angeles ticket agency, has established field offices in St. Louis and Toronto to handle the demand.

“The Dodgers are the most successful team in baseball as far as tickets, and they are the hardest tickets to come by right now,” said Jerry Adelman, co-owner of Murray’s.

But the agencies manage to come up with plenty. Agencies solicit season-ticket holders through ads in local newspapers in cities with teams likely to be involved in the playoffs. Most have longtime clients in the professional world, executives who seem to always have tickets to something.

“I basically will buy a ticket from anyone,” Rosner said. “Tickets come from professional people--doctors and lawyers. We get them from journalists--press people who have them available. Anybody.”

The anybodies of the world become somebodies with playoff tickets in hand. They can also make a good living at it. Dodger playoff tickets with face values of $20-$25 are selling for twice that at the agencies. World Series tickets with face values of $30-$40 are fetching even more. Rosner said that his best seat for a World Series game will bring $400.

Other tickets on the market come from various sources. Dodger spokesman Steve Brener gave this rough estimate of his club’s ticket allocation.

--Organized baseball--1,050. This includes the commissioner’s office and the offices of the National and American leagues.

--The Dodgers--2,000. This includes the entire organization.

--Non-participating teams--100 tickets to each.

--National Baseball Writers Assn.--400

--Local media--500. These are tickets local media outlets may buy for non-working press.

--National publications--75.

Any individual in any of the above groups has the opportunity to sell his tickets. But largely because of the lottery system and by carefully controlling the allocation of tickets, baseball has been able to avoid some serious problems.

“We are very careful about protecting ourselves against ticket duplications,” said Rich Cerrone, professional baseball’s assistant director for information. “As far as ticket supply goes, we keep a close eye and the clubs keep a close eye.

“We try to make it so that someone is accountable for the ticket. We keep a lot of the tickets within baseball. It’s not easy to get big blocks of tickets.”

Fans trying to buy tickets can appreciate the accuracy of that statement.