Baseball remains one of the few major American sports where you can routinely see a regular season game from a real seat for under $25. The catch is that "real" varies wildly. Some "cheap" seats give you a view that rivals seats four times the price. Some are functionally a posting board.
After two full seasons of tracking secondary market prices and sitting in lower-cost sections across most MLB stadiums, here are the seats we would actually recommend for value-conscious fans.
The general principles
Across most stadiums, the rules of finding good cheap seats are the same:
- Upper bowl behind home plate is almost always the best cheap seat. You can see the whole field, the pitch is clear, and you are out of the sun in most stadiums.
- Avoid the outfield bleachers if you actually want to follow the game. They are fun and cheap, but you cannot see balls and strikes and the depth perception on fly balls is poor.
- Shade matters in the summer. The first base side of most stadiums shades earlier than the third base side for evening games. For day games, check the stadium orientation specifically.
- Sunday afternoon games have the cheapest secondary market prices, often 40 to 50 percent below Friday or Saturday equivalent seats.
Stadium-by-stadium picks
Fenway Park (Boston Red Sox)
Best cheap seat: Grandstand sections 1-10 or 30-33. Real seat, real view, often available for $25 to $35 on the secondary market for weeknight games. Avoid the obstructed-view grandstand seats (they will be marked, but check the section diagram before buying).
The Green Monster seats are not a cheap seat — they are a $200+ experience and they are worth it once. Do not confuse them with budget options.
Yankee Stadium (New York Yankees)
Best cheap seat: Grandstand 408-409, behind home plate in the upper deck. Sightline is excellent, you can see the pitch clearly, and weeknight prices on the secondary often dip under $20.
Avoid the bleachers unless you want a specific kind of social experience. The view of the actual game is poor.
Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)
Best cheap seat: Upper deck behind home plate, sections 411-415. The classic upper-deck Wrigley experience and one of the most picturesque cheap seats in baseball.
The bleachers at Wrigley are an experience worth having once. They are not where you sit if you are trying to actually follow a baseball game.
Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles Dodgers)
Best cheap seat: Top Deck sections 1-12. The Top Deck (the very highest tier) often runs $15 to $25 on weeknights and the sightline behind home plate is genuinely excellent. You are high up, but the angle is good.
The reserve level is more expensive without being meaningfully better than the upper Top Deck behind the plate.
Oracle Park (San Francisco Giants)
Best cheap seat: View Reserve sections 314-320. The pitch is visible, the Bay is visible, and weeknight prices are routinely under $30. The View Reserve is also one of the warmer cheap-seat sections in a stadium known for being cold.
Coors Field (Colorado Rockies)
Best cheap seat: The Rockpile. Center field bleachers, sold by the team for $4 to $20 day-of, and one of the only places in baseball where a single-digit ticket gets you into a real major league game with a fun atmosphere.
The view is not great, but at this price the question is whether you want to be at a baseball game, not whether you want the best view.
How to find these seats
For weeknight regular season games, secondary marketplaces consistently beat box office for cheap seats. Sellers (often season ticket holders who can't attend) list at or below face. The best deals tend to be in the 48 hours before game time:
- Gametime: best for last-minute MLB tickets, especially same-day
- TickPick: best for all-in pricing transparency on lower-cost seats
- StubHub: deepest inventory if you have a specific section in mind
A note on dynamic pricing
MLB teams have aggressively adopted dynamic primary pricing. The same seat for the same team can run $14 against the Marlins and $85 against the Yankees. If you are flexible on opponent, the cheap seat prices we have listed are realistic for non-marquee opponents. Against rivals or premier visiting teams, expect 50 to 150 percent premiums.