Tickets for this year’s US baseball World Series the most expensive ever

Tickets for this year's highly anticipated World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers are set to be the most expensive ever.

The average ticket price is hovering around US$1703 (NZ$2891) on the secondary market, according to reseller TickPick. That narrowly edges out the previous record holder in 2016 - and it's more than double the average of last year.

Tickets for the 2023 Series, in which the Texas Rangers clinched their first championship, cost about US$776 on average across five games, TickPick said. The previous most expensive World Series was in 2016 between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland, when the average ticket cost US$1691.

This year's Series kicks off this week, with the first of at least four games on Saturday afternoon (NZT) in Los Angeles - where the cheapest ticket is priced at US$975 on TickPick. The record highs are for game three, the first of the series to be played in New York: US$1476 for a standing room-only ticket and US$1790 for a physical seat.

The sky-high ticket prices are likely the result of several factors. Both teams hail from two of the biggest cities in the US. Each features some of the biggest stars in baseball, like the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani and the Yankees' Aaron Judge. It's also the first time in more than four decades that the Yankees and Dodgers will meet in the World Series, since a 1981 matchup.

The Yankees have won the most World Series championships at 27, while the Dodgers won the World Series four years ago and have won seven championships total.

Ratings for the Fox broadcast network, which is airing the World Series, will also likely hit record levels for similar reasons: The teams are from the two biggest TV markets, and the teams' respective playoff runs have garnered massive viewership.

Fox Sports said earlier this week that ratings for its cable networks FS1 and Fox Deportes - plus its streaming platforms - were the highest since 2019, averaging 5.6 million viewers for the six games of the NL Championship Series.

TBS, which like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, said ratings for the AL Championship Series between the Yankees and Cleveland Guardians also hit multi-year highs on its network. The games additionally aired on truTV and streamed on Max.

- CNN