About 2,000 tickets still remained as of late yesterday for tonight's MLB Home Run Derby at Chase Field in Phoenix, continuing a multiyear run in which the annual event has failed to sell out. Chase Field, with a capacity for this week's events of about 47,000, is the second-largest All-Star Game host ballpark in the past decade. A longer-than-normal sales run-up of nearly six months and heavily discounted prices relative to recent years still failed to sell out tonight's event. Unlike last year in Anaheim, however, D'Backs President & CEO Derrick Hall said yesterday a further last-minute price cut to move unsold inventory will not be employed. "It will look sold out and should get very close," he said. MLB's official ticket reseller, StubHub, had dozens of ticket listings late yesterday for the event at prices below the lowest face value mark of $60. The All-Star Game tomorrow has also seen its own erosion of demand on the secondary market. Average listing prices according to ticket data outfit TiqIq are $288 per seat, down from $440 a week ago. StubHub, as per MLB directive, has not been permitted to disclose MLB-related sales data this year, but below-face value listings for the All-Star Game are also readily available on that site. Meanwhile, MLBAM will stream the Home Run Derby live on Facebook, a first for a league jewel event. Located in an embeddable player at Facebook.com/MLB, the Derby will also be shown live at MLB.com and mobile devices through the At Bat app.
