LONDON: Tennis fans can see tennis players like Carlos Alcaraz compete on Wimbledon’s Centre Court for just 15 pounds, or $20 at the current exchange rate. This may be the best offer in all of the major professional sports.
That’s in place of the nicest seats at the largest stadium for the grass-court Grand Slam competition, which cost about $220 on Friday. As the competition progresses, face value increases, reaching about $370 by the end of Week 2 and then increasing once more for the singles finals.
How did you manage to save so much money? the authorized resale market. Anyone with a ticket who is already on the premises can register using the Wimbledon app for a daily lottery to get entry to one of the top three courts at a discounted price, which includes roughly $13 for the No. 1 or No. 2 courts.
When fans go before the game is over, they give those seats to the All England Club.
When spectators depart early, Wimbledon provides inexpensive tickets on its largest courts.
Ed Hogan, a 69-year-old retired man from Reading, a little over an hour west of Wimbledon, said, “The tournament is elite in terms of the players, but it’s not elite to get in, which is part of the appeal.” The idea of reselling is fantastic. Sharing the delight is recycling done well.
The number of resale tickets was not disclosed by the All England Club.
Michelle Dite, the club’s operations manager, stated that the main purpose for selling the same ticket twice is to make tennis as accessible as possible to as many people as feasible.
In 2024, ticket sales for the All England Club generated roughly $300,000 for charitable causes.
The Wimbledon Foundation uses the proceeds from resales to support charitable causes. This year’s competition raised about $80,000 in its first three days, compared to roughly $300,000 last year.
Wimbledon has been reselling tickets since 1954, but until last year, anyone who wanted to benefit from the offer had to wait in line once they arrived, hope they got there quickly, and hope enough tickets were returned.
However, that line is now imaginary.
This is how it operates:
Fans wait for a text message informing them that they were among the fortunate ones selected for the resale, which takes place from 3 to 9 p.m., after opting in on the app and having their phones scanned by 2:30 p.m. at kiosks on-site or near the Wimbledon Queue, where thousands of people camp out at a local park for up to 24 hours in hopes of obtaining full-price tickets for the main courts or grounds passes for smaller ones.
For the remainder of the day, customers have ten minutes to confirm that they still want a used ticket, and they have twenty more minutes to get to the green-and-brown ticket resale kiosk behind No. 1 Court and present the QR code that enables them to pay for the inexpensive tickets.
Seeing Ben Shelton at Wimbledon for $13 rather than $115
Missouri high school math instructor Henry Thompson, 38, remarked, “You’re not stuck in one place forever.” This is far more effective. 30 seconds were needed. Much better.
Wearing a blue cap with the Wimbledon insignia, Thompson joined the resale lottery and managed to secure a seat for No. 2 Court for $13 instead of $115 because he was determined to witness 10th-seeded American Ben Shelton.
According to 45th-ranked American Marcos Giron, who won first-round singles and doubles matches this week, it’s good for the sport to make those courts affordable. It’s an amazing thing.
Chen Pinjung, who recently completed medical school in Taiwan, spent six hours in line, paid thirty pounds ($40) for a grounds pass, and then used a resale to gain entry to No. 1 Court for an extra thirteen pounds, rather than the $150 that would have been required to watch 2022 Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina win there on Thursday.
“I’m sure everyone would apply if they knew how that works,” Rafael Garcia, who was with his girlfriend Diana Meneses and her brother Gustavo Meneses, said. Last year, we noticed that (resale) office, but we were unsure of how to proceed. We will now.
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Since 2002, Howard Fendrich has written about tennis for the AP. http://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich is where you can find his stories. See also: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis for more AP tennis
