Priced To Sell Wnba Aims Its Ticket Prices At A Market Of Women, Kids

The cheap seats are $5, the glamour seats $150. Everyone else who wants to attend a WNBA game will pay slightly more than they would for a big league baseball ticket.

Tickets to WNBA games will average $14.54 in the eight cities where the league will play in its inaugural summer season. The average baseball ticket is $13.25 in cities with WNBA teams.

“We’re really priced with affordability in mind,” said WNBA president Val Ackerman. “Every one of our teams has at least an $8 ticket in the lower bowl.”

Cheapest tickets are in Utah, where a seat behind the basket at the Delta Center is $5. Courtside seats at Madison Square Garden are $150 to watch the New York Liberty. The WNBA’s 28-game season begins June 21.

The Cleveland Rockers have the lowest average ticket price at $9.75. The Liberty average is tops at $22.17.

The $14.54 WNBA average does not include courtside seats, which average $64.36.

Ackerman said basketball fans, women and youngsters are the target audience.

“Our hope is they’re turned on to this because it’s great basketball,” Ackerman said. “They may or may not overlap with existing fans of major league baseball.”

Tickets to the rival American Basketball League games averaged $10 last season in eight medium-sized markets. The ABL, which plays from October to February, plans to raise ticket prices $1 next season and add a team in Long Beach, Calif.